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Student Development in College: Theory, Research, and Practice
Nancy J. Evans, Deanna S. Forney, and Florence Guido-DiBrito
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998, 348 pages, $39.45 (hardcover)
For nearly 30 years student development theory has served as a curricular substructure for graduate preparation programs in student affairs and as an administrative infrastructure for student affairs professionals. Books by individual theoreticians and publications based on those theories abound. Surprisingly, however, there have been few texts that summarize the multitude of developmental theories that graduate students examine or professionals deliberate. Evans, Forney and Guido-DiBrito address this gap in the literature in their new text, Student Development in College: Theory, Research, and Practice.
The book is organized around five sections. The first section (two chapters) serves as an introduction to the field of student development. The authors describe the roles of theory, research and practice, explain how theory can be evaluated, and characterize the intricate relationship between theory and professional practice by describing several models that link the two.
The next three sections each focus on one major group of theories. In Section Two, psychosocial theories are reviewed, including separate chapters on Chickering, Josselson, and Scholssberg. A chapter on racial and ethnic identity development describes three models (Cross, Helms, and Phinney) frequently cited in the literature on race and ethnicity. The remaining chapter in this section addresses gay, lesbian and bisexual identity development and describes two conceptual models (Cass and D'Augelli).
The cognitive-structural theorists form the content of the third section of the book. Separate chapters on Perry, Kohlberg, and Gilligan provide the groundwork. A final chapter covers more recent theoretical offerings by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, Baxter-Magolda, and King and Kitchener.
Typological theories, while not developmental per se, nonetheless are part of the language of student affairs and are included in the book. Chapters on Kolb, Holland, and MyersBriggs illustrate the basic concepts surrounding typological theory and succinctly describe the theories and their relevance to professional practice.
In the concluding section, Evans, Forney and Guido-DiBrito offer examples of how theories can be used in combination to enrich our understanding of the dilemmas that arise when working with students. They also defend developmental theory against recent criticisms that have emerged and describe some future directions for theory and...