The number of American children living under persistent and pervasive poverty increases each year. For example, poverty rates are greater among African American and Latino children than among European American children. Yet most studies of child developmentfocus on European American, middle‐class samples and do not consider the actual ecology of children's development. Such studies have limited applicability for developing, delivering, or sustaining policies or programs pertinent to the diverse groups comprising America's poor children. Accordingly, we present a developmental contextual model of child development thatfocuses on diversity and context; that suggests means to synthesize research with policy and program design, delivery, and evaluation; and that promotes both multiprofessional collaboration and research‐outreach partnerships with communities. Finally, to change the developmental trajectories of America's poor children, we call for scientific focus on the issue of how to develop and sustain successful policies and programs.
Across history, there has been a strong interrelation between the scholarly agendas of American universities and pressing social issuesfacing the nation, such as child poverty. Today, however, this historical association has weakened. The two commentaries about the McKinney, Abrams, Terry, and Lerner (1994 [this issueD article‐by McLoyd (1994 [this issueD and by Fabes, Martin, and Smith (1994 [this issue1)‐differ in their respective visions of the role of child development scholars in addressing key societal problems besetting our nation's youthfamilies, and communities. McLoyd argues that it is morally, socially, and scientifically necessaryfor scientists to adopt scholarlyagendas that involve research addressing these problems. Fabes et al. (1994) callfor the maintenance of a balance between basic and applied research in home economics programs. We argue that it is the unique niche and potentially special contribution of home economics programs pertinent to children to pursue models that integrate research and outreach in a community‐collaborative manner.
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