Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Perspectives on Development and the Life Course returns for a seventh edition to provide students with an expansive overview of the major theories and issues related to human behavior and the social environment that are important to understand for professional practice across a variety of cases and contexts.

Maintaining its clarity and cohesion, this edition has been updated to offer students current and relevant information on important topics in social work practice and expanded to help students understand the complexity of the issues they will face in the field, including how poverty, diversity, and strengths affect human development and behavior. Several new theoretical perspectives appear in this update, including indigenous theory, new feminism, and restorative justice, and these additions complement the major psychological, sociological, life course, and anti-oppressive theories that have come to define this book’s grounded and balanced coverage.

Illustrated and fully supported by a set of Quick Guides for students engaged in field work, vignettes woven throughout the book, and a full package of interactive cases and instructor-led resources that are available on www.routledgesw.com, the new edition of Human Behavior in the Social Environment is a perfect complement to this foundation course on the undergraduate and graduate level. Its signature theoretical framework equips students to have a well-rounded understanding to call upon and apply to the myriad client problems and situations they will need to practice social work.