Developmental Psychology and the study of childhood Valerie Walkerdine

1. Developmental Psychology and the study of childhoodValerie 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’.

2. 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.

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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. • 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.

6. 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).

7. 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?

8. 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).

9. 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).

10. 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).

11. 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.

12. 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 child-centred 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