Developmental Psychology
and the study of childhood
Valerie Walkerdine
Introduction
Starting point for her critique: developmental psychology produces
explanations of child subjects that reduce children’s characteristics to
place-holders on a path leading to a finished adult state.
She contrasts this with sociological accounts which stress how child
subjects are formed from present local social conditions. These accounts
have the effect of blurring the distinction between children as ‘unfinished’
and adults as ‘finished’.
The place of psychology in accounts of childhood
Psychology has had a central place in understanding childhood.
Walkerdine argues that, ‘the idea of development assumes a
rational, civilised adult as its end-point’ (Walkerdine,2004: 96).
Because this perspective has become so normal, it is difficult to
imagine a different psychological account of the child subject.
She adds that sociological studies of childhood tend to produce a
dualism – her account of this anticipates her entire argument.
Structure of the argument:
Sociological accounts separate themselves from
‘psychology’, leaving no room for any consideration of
a child’s psychology. Because developmental
psychology is removed from any discussion, what
replaces it are, ‘a set of hard ‘facts’ derived, for
example, from cognitive neuroscience’ (Walkerdine,
2004: 97). This makes it impossible to move beyond
dualism.
‘I want therefore to ask what place psychology might
have and what a post-developmental approach to
childhood might actually look like’ Walkerdine, 2004:
97).
The emergence of developmental psychology as the
study of childhood
Wakerdine starts by linking the emergence of
psychology to the rise of science in the Seventeenth
Century. She uses Foucault to support her claim that
certain historical conditions of possibility made this
emergence seem natural and inevitable, but the idea of
studying children was a new idea, ‘the idea of childhood
as a separate state is a modern one’ (Wakerdine,2004:
97). She indicates that it is generally accepted this was
triggered in turn by the emergence of popular and then
compulsory schooling in the 1880s.
Walkerdine offers an account of why psychology so
readily fitted in with schooling: essentially, schooling
was identified as the solution to two problems: crime,
and pauperism.
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It was thought that the threat of political instability
could be avoided by teaching morality and good
habits (rather than ending poverty).
The idea of ‘habits’ fitted well with emerging accounts
of ‘conditioning’ within psychology.
But as this proved not to be sufficient, attention
turned towards children’s specific nature.
The children of the masses had already been addressed
by the pioneering work of Robert Owen – a historian
has described Owen’s approach in his factory schools as
bringing Rousseauism to working-class children.
Owen, like Rousseau, aimed to produce rationality
as the end product of his schooling system.
Rationality was also at the heart of the Liberal
Government of the time. Walkerdine explains this as,
‘an understanding of liberal government as operating
without overt coercion through a process of rational
decision making. To take part in this government, the
masses had to be rational (or failing that, at least be
reasonable)’ (Walkerdine, 2004: 98).
How to produce rational adults out of a mob, mass of herd?
By Developmental Psychology applied to education!
Walkerdine traces the shift from Rousseau’s pastoral fiction
to the realities of late Nineteenth Century Britain. She
does this by first referring to nature and the distinction
between animals and humans. These ‘others’ were said to
lack rationality – and increasingly this was an evolutionary
perspective. Children, by the same token, had to be
brought from an animal ‘otherness’ to become rational,
civilised human beings – but could education act like a
force of progressive evolution and bring about these
desired changes to the children of the poor without
contradicting their nature?
Major sharpening of focus for Walkerdine’s critique:
‘Darwin extended his study of evolution to the idea of ontogeny
(the evolution of species-being) copying or recapitulating phylogeny
(the evolution of the species)’ Walkerdine, 2004: 99).
‘If human nature was understood as a process of evolutionary
adaptation which was copied by the species-being it is not hard to
understand that the evolutionary idea could be taken to relate to
Others (lower classes, colonial peoples, savages, women) who were
seen as lower down the evolutionary scale, and children, who were
doing their own process of evolving as species-beings. Childhood in
this way became a developmental process in which adaptation to the
environment was understood as a natural stage-wise progression
towards a rational and civilised adulthood, which was to be the basis
for liberal government’ Walkerdine, 2004: 99).
Childhood and developmental psychology
The best example of a recent exponent of this
balancing between human nature and an environment is
Piaget. He assumes that rationality and intelligence can
be developed through structures of thinking adapting to
the structures of the world.
Walkerdine’s main point here is that there is no
necessary connection between seeing a child
demonstrate, for instance, conservation, and this
‘proving’ development: ‘the task itself is part of a
theoretical framework which makes certain
assumptions about the nature of mind, childhood,
evolution, a pre-given subject changed through
adaptation to a physical world, etc.’ (Walkerdine, 2004:
100).
Walkerdine uses Foucault to bolster her argument:
‘What Foucault’s work allows us to understand is that
the truths of Piaget’s and others claims about
development are not timeless and universal verities but
are produced at a specific historical moment as an
effect of power. That is, the concerns about the
production of the rational individual and the setting out
of a naturalistic developmental sequence to achieve
that, as well as the whole way the idea of development
is put forward, are part of technologies of population
management, which themselves are an aspect of how
power works’ Walkerdine, 2004: 100-101).
This opens a pathway leading to a firm
foundation for her critique:
‘Thus, this approach is not relative – it does not
say that there are a number of truths about
development, all of which might have validity.
Rather, it is the centrality of the relation of
knowledge and power which allows us to
understand how and why these particular claims
to truth become enshrined as fact at any
particular moment’ (Walkerdine, 2004: 101.
References available in the library
Castenada, C. (2002) Figurations Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press
Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish Harmondsworth: Penguin
Henriques, J. et al. (1998) Changing the Subject: psychology, social
regulation and subjectivity 2nd. Editn. London: Routledge
James, A. and Prout, A. eds. (1997) Constructing and Reconstructing
Childhood Basingstoke: Falmer
Lee, N. (2001) Childhood and Society Buckingham: OUP
Walkerdine, V. (1984) ‘developmental psychology and the childcentred pedagogy: the insertion of Piaget into early education’ in
Henriques et al.
Walkerdine, V. (1988) The Mastery of Reason : cognitive development and
the production of rationality London: Routledge