This course focuses on conceptual frameworks and issues in human behaviour and development. Additionally, the course will emphasize the behavioural environment, applying a “systems perspective” across the life span. We will be looking clinically as well as theoretically at the idea of the “person in the environment”, understanding individual behaviours across the life span as a function of bio-psycho-social processes and the interactions between them. The course provides substantial information on human diversity and populations at risk, including materials on racial and ethnic groups, gender, and sexual orientation. Implications for social work practice, and especially for relationship building, are drawn from the process.

This course introduces students to:

1. explain the major theoretical perspectives and empirical foundations used to understand human development and behaviour;
2. identify the biological, psychological, and social systems that influence development for each age group;
3. detect normal developmental tasks and milestones for each age group;
4. monitor the interaction between the predisposition’s of the individual and the constraints and/or support of the social environment as an essential element in the human development process; and
5. discover (as appropriate), the differential effects of class, ethnicity, gender, culture, and sexual orientation in the human development process, particularly as it influences our understanding of the major theoretical perspectives.