Editorial

Zinchenko, Yu. P. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Interdisciplinary Research, Moscow, Russia

This special issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” — “Contemporary childhood research” — is devoted to the VI International Conference “Early Child- hood Care and Education” (ECCE 2017) that was held on May, 10–13 2017, in Moscow, Russia. It includes conference participants’ articles as well as regular sub- missions. Silvia H. Koller generously shared her re ections of collaboration and personal communication with Uri Bronfenbrenner in the tribute to his centennial, “Making human beings human”. Dr. Koller’s piece also gives some insights into the origins of Ecological eory of Human Development.

The “Educational psychology” section includes a wide range of articles on edu- cation and cognitive development at various stages of childhood and emerging adulthood. Four articles deal with language development that is rapidly chang- ing in contemporary world with its multiculturalism, mobility and proliferation of digital media. Elena N. Bicherova investigated dependence of success in foreign language acquisition at primary school age on reaction type and cognitive control. Hristo Kyuchukov, Milan Samko, and Dagmar Kopcanova developed culturally ap- propriate materials to assess knowledge of Romani language grammar. Focusing on thinking and speech, Nadezda N. Eliseeva, Elena N. Guts, and Andrea Marini described age dynamics of comprehension of idiomatic expressions by Russian speaking typically developing children. Liv Gjems applied Vygotskian approach to investigation of learning about concepts through everyday language interactions in preschools.

Three more articles are devoted to rst-year students, who fall in-between adolescence and emerging adulthood, and sometimes require much support. Anna A. Gladkova investigated the role of communication skills in the process of psychological and socio-cultural adaptation of international journalism students in Russia. Svetlana N. Kostromina, Nadezhda A. Mkrtychian, Diana M. Kurma- kaeva, and Daria S. Gnedykh performed an interdisciplinary study of the inter- relationship between cognitive control and academic success of rst-year students. Irina A. Novikova and Alexandra A. Vorobyeva outlined the relationships between Big Five Factors and academic achievement in Russian students.

Finally, Liudmila Liutsko, Alexandr N. Veraksa, and Vera A. Yakupova studied cultural and psychophysiological aspects of early numeracy, namely, embodied n- ger counting in children.

The “Social psychology” provides two highly topical articles. Ksenia Yu. Erit- syana and Olga I. Kolpakova performed a qualitative study of runaway behavior among children in residential care in St. Petersburg — though state care in Russia is going through major reforming, children are challenged by residential place- ments. Maria A. Dzherelievskaya and Anna V. Vizgina investigated the issues of identity of youths in the ex-USSR countries — socio-cultural di erences in the self-descriptions of two groups of Azerbaijanian students learning in the Russian and Azerbaijani languages.

The “Virtual reality” section is expected in a journal issue, devoted to contem- porary childhood. Elena B. Puchkova, Yulia V. Sukhovershina, and Larisa V. Tem- nova provided a study of Generation Z’s — who are now adolescents — invol- vement in virtual reality. Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Tatiana D. Yermolova, Sergey R. Yagolkovskiy, and Valeria M. Khromova investigated creativity in online gaming at the example of individual and dyadic performance in young Minecra gamers.

The “Clinical psychology” section deals with both health and developmental distortions. Elena I. Nikolaeva and Vera S. Merenkova outlined an inner picture of health as a factor in changing a child’s behavior to health-promoting behavior. Yulia Solovieva and Luis Quintanar Rojas provided an interesting case study of syndromic analysis in child neuropsychology based on the works by A. Luria. ere is also an additional section — “Well-being in adults”. Elena B. Pere- lygina, Alexander M. Rikel, and Alexander I. Dontsov analysed the concept of sub- jective well-being of a person as a prism of personal and socio-psychological cha- racteristics. Varvara I. Morosanova, Igor V. Gaidamashko, Svetlana N. Chistyakova, Nailia G. Кondratyuk, and Angelika V. Burmistrova-Savenkova shared the results of research of regulatory and personality predictors of the reliability of professional actions.