Child development is a holistic process multiply determined by complex interactions of
individual and environmental properties. It is becoming increasingly obvious that child
development cannot be understood by common data analysis procedures where data are aggregated
over individuals into some group-level forms fragmented studies of relationships between a few
variables torn out of the context of the whole and studies that are either cross-sectional or
conceptualize development as a quantitative change. This collection of empirical studies aims
at understanding child development in early primary school by applying a consistently systemic
person-oriented developmental approach. An immensely complex web of developmental relationships
between cognitive and non-cognitive processes in educational settings is emerging in the
synthesis of the empirical contributions to this book.
