Psihološka Obzorja (Jun 2000)
Developmental psychology at the end of millenium: self-reviewing psychology
Abstract
The article presents recent discussions in the field of developmental psychology, emerging under the influence of postmodernism from the 1980s. Their proponents are more concerned with self-critical reflection, reconstruction, deconstruction and reinterpretation of the history and the underlying assumptions of developmental psychology, rather than with self-satisfied glorification. What these discussions have in common are critical views of positivism in psychological science and of the idea of universal childhood, which ignores social context. Their critical analyses are dealing with allegedly self-evident assumptions of 'the development' and 'the child', they are interested in the problem of application of developmental psychology in the field of education and are concerned with new research methods and models that incorporate the subjects' perspectives, in particular perspectives of children and their parents.
