This book, the third in a series of reports by the National Institute for Research in Behavioral Sciences (formerly the Henrietta Szold Foundation for Child and Youth Welfare), is a compilation of twenty-three papers originally presented to the Seventh Congress of the International Association for Child Psychiatry and Allied Professions. The approach of the authors, who are psychiatrists, educators, and anthropologists, is 'transactional': an interdisciplinary approach that maintains it is a 'complex network of processes rather than an individual personality or even a group that determines behavior'.

The book is divided into three sections. Part One, The Scene, gives a comprehensive picture of the child rearing and educational