CFP: Jean Piaget Society, Quebec City 2008

Piaget Society logoThe Jean Piaget Society invites program submissions for the 38th Annual Meeting to take place in Québec City, Canada, at the Loews Le Concorde Hotel, June 6-8, 2008. The theme of this year’s meeting is Adolescent Development: Challenges and Opportunities.

Marking the 50th anniversary of its English publication, Inhelder & Piaget’s The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence will also be discussed at a special session.

Our understanding of adolescent biological, cognitive, moral, and social development has been significantly revised over the past decade. The view of adolescence as characterized by progressive, qualitative change has given way to the view that adolescence is a period of vulnerability and instability entailing developmental continuity from childhood to adulthood. Recognizing that current views can obscure what makes adolescence a unique period in the life cycle, one of the major goals of the 2008 meeting is to explore the distinctiveness of adolescence from a constructivist and developmental perspective. The meeting will examine adolescence as a unique time of opportunity and vulnerability, as adolescents actively coordinate capacities, skills, and understandings within and across domains from neurological, cognitive, self-system, moral, and social perspectives.

Plenary speakers include: Robert Crosnoe (University of Texas, Austin), Jay Giedd (National Institutes of Health), Judi Smetana (University of Rochester), Larry Steinberg (Temple University) and Avril Thorne (University of California, Santa Cruz).

Invited symposia on topics such as; intersections between peer and romantic relationships, risk and resilience, and constancy and change during adolescence will complement the perspectives offered by the plenary speakers.

Scholars interested in the development of knowledge are invited to participate whatever their discipline. Submissions need not address the program theme — all submissions are welcome.

Please visit the website for submission details and on-line submission forms, or write to:

Colette Daiute (cdaiute@gc.cuny.edu)

The Graduate Center, CUNY

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Submission deadline: 15 December 2007

About Jeremy Burman

Jeremy Trevelyan Burman is a senior doctoral student in York University’s Department of Psychology, specializing in the history of developmental psychology and its theory (especially that pertaining to Jean Piaget). Prior to returning to academia, he was a producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.