Take a photo of a barcode or cover
turkishdisco 's review for:
This book is interesting and very readable, but I find its arguments unconvincing. The main thrust is that the concept of the average does a poor job of describing variability and individuality, and that this has to stop. I find this disappointing because as an academic - in developmental psychology of all disciplines! - Rose must know that researchers are aware that the within/between distinction is not new, and statistics has good ways of dealing with variability (the normal distribution, mixed effects modelling, and so on). More time could have been spent on how the concept of an average is actually useful (e.g. in medical screening), and of course we only base hiring decisions and educational selection on the average because it's the most efficient way of dealing with an overwhelming number of applicants/students. The book is quite idealistic, and its examples are mostly restricted to the North American context.