Heidi Keller is Professor of Psychology and Head of the Department on Culture and Development at the University of Osnabrück, Germany. Ype H. Poortinga is part-time Professor of Cross-Cultural Psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Alex Schölmerich is Professor of Psychology at the Department of Developmental Psychology of the Ruhr-University, Bochum.

• Introduction Heidi Keller, Ype H. Poortinga and Axel Schölmerich; Part I. Setting the Scene: 1. Culture, biology and development across history Gustav Jahoda; 2. Comparative developmental perspectives on culture: the great apes Anne E. Russon; 3. The mutual definition of culture and biology in development Patricia M. Greenfield; Part II. Perspectives on Development Informed by Culture: 4. Indian parents' ethnotheories as reflections of the Hindu scheme of child and human development T. S. Saraswathi and Hema Ganapathy; 5. Indigenous conceptions of childhood development and social realities in Southern Africa Roderick Fulata Zimba; 6. The myth of lurking chaos Ernst E. Boesch; 7. Integrating cultural psychological and biological perspectives in understanding child development Joan G. Miller; Part III. Perspectives on development drawing from the universal and the specific: 8. Between individuals and culture: Individuals' evaluations of exclusion from social groups Melanie Killen, Heidi McGlothlin and Jennie Lee-Kim; 9. Biology, culture and child rearing: the development of social motives Hans-Joachim Kornadt; Part IV. Perspectives on Development Informed by Evolutionary Thinking: 10. Development as the interface between biology and culture: a conceptualisation of early ontogenetic experiences Heidi Keller; 11. Integrating evolution, culture and developmental psychology: explaining caregiver-infant proximity and responsiveness in Central Africa and the United States of America Barry S. Hewlett and Michael E. Lamb; 12. Shame across cultures: the evolution, ontogeny, and function of a 'moral emotion' Michael J. Casimir and Michael Schnegg; Part V. Metaperspectives: 13. Culture and development Michael Cole; Behaviour-culture relationships and ontogenetic development Ype H. Poortinga and Karel Soudijn; 15. Paradigms revisited: from incommensurability to respected complementarity Lutz H. Eckensberger; 16. Conceptions of ontogenetic development: integrating and demarcating perspectives Heidi Keller, Ype H. Poortinga and Axel Schölmerich.