The research programs of the Network adopt an ecological perspective to study subject matters in human development and family studies. We agree with Hamilton, Leidy and Thomas’s (2003) view that human development and family studies is a meeting place for disciplines, rather than a discipline itself, and this idea echoes and synchronizes with Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) idea on the ecology of human development. The promotion of positive human development is about improving the contexts in which individual develops rather than solely changing the individual. Human development is conceptualized as the outcome of interweaving influences on individual nested in a hierarchy that compose of four levels of interactive systems, namely the micro-system (e.g. individual), meso-system (e.g. family / peers), exo-system (e.g. school / work setting), and the macro-system (e.g. society / culture). Our research programs follow this conceptual and theoretical traditional closely, or in another word, social and human developmental issues are addressed under Bronfenbrenner's Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model. Furthermore, individuals are not studied as separated parts represented by variables but as an organized whole under a person-oriented (Bergman, Magnusson & El-Khouri, 2003) and developmental science (Lerner, Jacobs, F., & Wertlieb, 2003) approaches. The development of individuals emerges from a complex, dynamic system and the developmental trajectories are adaptive but not necessary linear. Research goals under these approaches are the identification of guiding principles and operating mechanisms of developmental processes and the prediction of the life course of individuals over time.

Under Bronfrenbrenner’s ecological model (1979) and Lerner’s applied development science (2003), scientific inquiry would involve the study of many interacting factors at different levels of aggregation and transcending disciplinary boundaries. Moreover, research programs are embedded within social policies and programs, trying to solve practical and social problems. Information from the different levels of organization and influencing disciplines are gathered for the understanding of individual development. Principles and guidelines for changing the developmental context and prediction of individual changes after changing the process and context over time will be evaluated, which becomes the subsequent information gathering phase.

Individuals develop over time and changes can only be studied with a longitudinal design. Intervention and evaluation studies can also inform changes before and after any process or contextual change. Individuals are the organizing principle, units of analysis instead of variables under the person-oriented approach (Bergman, Magnusson & El-Khouri, 2003). Pattern analysis and the identification of types will be more relevant to the study of human development under a complex, dynamic system with nonlinear changes.

Bergman, L. R., Magnusson, D., & El-Khouri, B. (2003). Studying individual development in an interindividual context : a person-oriented approach (Vol. 4). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Hamilton, S. F., Leidy, B. D., & Thomas, M. G. (2003). Promoting positive development with human development and family studies: The ecological perspective. In R. M. Lerner & F. Jacobs & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and programs (Vol. 4, pp. 173-190). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Lerner, R. M., Jacobs, F., & Wertlieb, D. (2003). Historical and theoretical bases of applied developmental science. In R. M. Lerner & F. Jacobs & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and programs (Vol. 1, pp. 1-28). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.