Deconstructing Developmental Psychology (Critical Psychology) - Softcover

Burman, Erica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415064384 ISBN 13: 9780415064385

Publisher: Routledge, 1994

Synopsis

Erica Burman takes a fresh, critical look at developmental psychology and the gender and cultural assumptions that underpin much of the research on child development and parenting. Behaviourism, the child-centred approach, and the major theories of child language and learning, including those of Piaget and Bowlby, pathologise those individuals and groups who do not meet their idealised models. This book chellenges fundamental notions of childhood and child development.
Deconstructing Developmental Psychology is designed to accompany and comment upon conventional texts and will sharpen students' desire to examine the theories behind the facts which make up their courses. The book will appeal especially to all those who feel that developmental psychology produces an ideal which certain groups in society are unable to live up to.

About this title

Review

"In "Deconstructing Developmental Psychology, Erica Burman has performed a riveting deconstruction of some of developmental psychology's most cherished and unchallenged principles and shown these to be, at the very least, problematic if not overtly sexist and culturally oppressive. After reading this book, your notions of childhood and child development will have been fundamentally challenged and I can not think of a better recommendation for a book than that. This is a model of what 'critical scholarship' should look like." -Nursing Times

Synopsis

Deconstructing Developmental Psychology analyses both the knowledge base and the cultural practices associated with developmental psychology. It provides a critical overview of modern developmental psychology, and is designed to accompany and comment on the standard textbooks. Erica Burman explores what is missing in these accounts as a consequence of their primary focus on the child', and argues that the selection of the child as the unit of development abstracts development from historical and socio-political conditions. Current developmental models are seen as fundamentally asocial, with the result that developmental psychology pathologises those individuals and groups who fail to meet its idealised models. The author shows how developmental psychology is a normalising discipline which presents homogenised descriptions of development and is unable to recognise or theorise differences except as inferiorities. Finally, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology draws attention to the functions developmental psychological knowledge plays in political and professional practices in education, welfare and the law.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0415064384
• ISBN 13: 9780415064385
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224