1. Personal
2. Authoritative
3. Rational
4. Empirical

Introspection (looking inside oneself)

Self awareness (knowledge of internal self)

Traditionally handed down, e.g. cultural, old wive's tales, teachers, clergy, scientists, parents.

Revelation from a divine source

We take it as true because we trust its source.

Only valid if we believe it.

Incidental observations

or

Planned/Systematic observations

Knowledge gained through our senses

People can test the accuracy of another person's knowledge themselves

Empirical knowledge does not depend on whether people believe it.

Incidental observation and authoritative (revelation).

Mainly polytheistic (multiple Gods) & they were at the mercy/whim of those Gods.

Viewed phenomena based on their belief systems.

By authority.

It couldn't be challenged because to research and challenge was to challenge truth itself.

Some evidence of parental affection.

Slavery.

Sacrificed to Gods.

Abandonment/exposure

Property of men (like women)

Moses (authority based on revelation)

Monotheism (one God)

One God for everyone, a God of order, the world a place of order/predictable

Gifts from God

No sacrificing/abandonment/exposing to elements

Parent/child relationship paralleled that of God/Person relationship

Love, nurture, education, protect

Acknowledged that children differed from adults as being unable to discern good from evil, therefore didn't have same spiritual or moral responsibilities.

How important were Moses' &

Jesus Christ's teachings?

They are still influential today in Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions.

Huge impact on how children were viewed/treated which has carried through to modern times.

Conquered much of the world and took with him the Greek culture and beliefs.

Referred to as hellinisation.

Greeks believed in polytheism.

Rationalism.

Greeks built upon old knowledge using logic.

Used ANALYSIS - breaking things downinto smaller parts to see how they related to each other.

Democritus - atom

This led people from simple incidental observations through to planned observations and rational thinking.

Ptolemaic view.

Cosmos comprised concentric spheres (the sphere being the 'perfect' shape) with the STATIONARY earth at the centre surrounded as you move out by water, air and then fire (where the sun, moon, stars, planets & Gods resided).

Each element strives to return to its own sphere (fire-up, water, down - e.g. rain, air & soil fell through both.  People & objects were made up of a mixture of these 4 elements.

At the time this was how they explained how things moved, and the weights of things.

Monotheistic Christianity (Jesus' teachings)

and

Atheistic philosophy

Negatively.  Rationalistic approach.

Children unformed adults

Lacked rational minds.

Children's unruly, irrational thinking made children a threat to their valued rational culture.

Exposure of newborns & child slavery were common.

Thought that children were born evil (because of the physical nature inherited from Adam who was made from the dust of the earth).

All children wanted to return to their natural realm (ptolemaic system worked for about 2,000 years) and the only thing that prevented them from doing so was the grace of God and infant baptism.

This did prove that children were valued by God.

The Catholic Church.

It was seen as a test of a person's faith.

Hard to challenge.

To disagree with the church at the time was punishable by death.

Over how many teeth a horse had.

Plato & Aristotle couldn't agree.

Argued about for centuries.

Roger Bacon decided to count a horse's teeth.

Deliberate observation used to test authority

First public advocation of empiricism which bases knowledge on systematic observation.

Kopernik (Polish monk) - mathematician

Wanted to explain why planets looked like they stood still or moved backwards.

Put the sun at the centre of the universe (instead of the earth)

Destroyed the idea of Ptolomy.

Tycho Brahe and Kepler (both astonomers) worked out the orbits of comets and planets were elliptical, not spherical as previously thought.

Used observation to find this out.

The old cosmological way of thinking was falling apart.

Built himself a telescope and observed numerous things which proved the Ptolemaic system incorrect.

Published findings & invited anyone that wanted to to use the telescope to see for themselves.

No longer needed to rely on what the Church told them - they could see with their own eyes.

Said telescope was invention of the devil.

Pope banned Galileo's writings.

Before Galileo there was no wasy to challenge what powerful peole said was true.

Observation.

This was huge - everything everyone had believed and been taught & accepted to be true came crashing down.

If authorities said children were evil there was no way to contradict them unless another authority said the opposite. Now everything in the observable world was open to the common person to decide for themselves.

Science.

Started off studying physical and moved to biological.

Human life went from a divine gift to a human being seen as a highly developed animal with no claim to divinity.

Meanwhile, philosophical and religious ideas still continued, children innately bad requiring discipline or innately good and should be allowed to mature without adult interference.

Growing concern for children especially amongst Christian groups and individual Christian philanthropists.

Romanticism.

A turning point for childhood - seen as a separate stage in its own right.  New ways of thinking about children emerged.  Secularisation of attitudes.

Influenced by Locke, Rousseau and the Romantic poets & artists.

John Locke

Tabula rasa (blank slate), shaped by experiences, sensations & reflections

Published first secular child-guidance book

Individuality - no two children alike

Downplayed Christianity's role in child rearing

Credited with restoring happiness to childhood

Advocated a nature/nurture link.

Advocated maternal breastfeeding/no swaddling

Mothers became the main child-rearers - death rate of children under 5 dropped by 30%.

We are still strongly influenced bythis vision of a perfect & trouble free childhood as the ideal

Such as Wordsworth had huge impact.

Children's literature produced.

Freedom of imagination for children advocated.

Was a set of ideas not a "how to".

Christianity didn't cease - people just didn't rely on it as the only way to explain natural phenomena or to tell them what to do.

20th century humanism - assumption that children are born good & with proper upbringing could grow to be positive contributors to society.

United Nations convention on rights of the child 1989

Science provides a way of testing knowledge - what is inaccurate can be identified and changed.

Science started off addressing physiological questions about humans which then developed into more 'human' questions.

Bessel (German astronomer)

first example of applying science to a problem involving humans.

Setting the Greenwich clock, it was discovered that the reaction time varied depending on the person who pushed the button.  Until then, it was thought it was instantaneous.

mechanistic world view (his theories in the behaviourist paradigm)

Gravity kept world in place, inertia

Clockwork universe.

God wound it up & it kept on going.  Newton applied logic to systematic observations.

an attempt to explain features of human nature that are common to all individuals. 

Explain human phenomena

1. internal principles - primary concept, building blocks
2. bridge principles - form connections or bridges between a throry's internal principles and specific
   phenomena the theory attempts to explain
3. phenomena to be explained

Assumptions: unproven beliefs based on reasonable assumption to explain phenomena

Change mechanism: the process responsible for producing changes that constitute development

Operational definition: how we go about it (what was observed and how - measurable)

1. Charles Darwin
2. Alfred Binet

best known for Theory of evolution - survival of the fittest.

He kept detailed diaries of children's development.

A tradition arose from this of explaining development.

He thought that children's development mirrored development of the species (ontogeny)

Bacon, Newton, Darwin

Children were treated like machines

Environmental influences rather than hereditary

Learning controlled by adults

Children had no control over own behaviour

Do not consider unobservable such as thought & emotion

Operant Conditioning (behaviourism)

Watson, Skinner

Watson - Human behaviour conditioned & behaviour shaped and controlled by stimuli (famous Albert experiment)

Skinner - also believed that rewarded behaviour increases, whilst unrewarded doesn't

Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

Behaviourism

Humans learn by imitating others.

Vicarious conditioning (increase a behaviour in somebody by seeing other people reinforced for doing so)

3 causal factors affect behaviour: environment, observed behaviour, cognition/personal factors.

Assumes:  symbolising capacity, forethought, self-reflection, ability to learn through observation

domains is a form of classification

classification of human phenomena difficult

classification changes over time

Scientist's social background, attitudes, prejudices & socio-political environment of the time.

Theories usually fit into one of 3 paradigms

Endogenous/Organismic

Exogenous

Constructivism

Endogenous / Organismic

change is driven from within the person/ development is seen as discontinuous/stage like, e.g. ages&stages (domains), milestones.  Development occurs because of interactions between genetic maturation & experience but it is always maturation that drives development.

Exogenous

Environmental factors external to the individual affect development

Constructivism

Development is a synthesis of progressive organisations and reorganisations that are constructed in the process of adapting to and interacting with the external world (Green & Piel 2010, p. 21)

Freud

Psycho-sexual theory

(a stage theory with focus on conflicts at different ages)

Organismic paradigm (endogenous)

FIRST comprehensive theory of child development

3 parts of adult personality, ID, EGO, & SUPEREGO

Psycho sexual stages

1. Oral (birth to 1)
2. Anal (1-3)
3. Phallic (3-6)
4. Latency (6-11)
5. Genital (adolescence & later)

How parents handle their children's sexual impulses influences how children resolve conflict between impulses & social demands - good balance leads to healthy mature behaviour - poor balance leads to later problems

Erikson

Psycho-social theory

(stage theory focusing on conflict at certain ages)

Organismic (endogenous paradigm)

friend and student of Freud

8 psycho-social stages

Basic trust vs mistrust (birth to one year)

Autonomy vs shame (1-3 years)

Initiative vs guilt (3-6 years)

lifespan development

importance of community/culture in normal development of mature personality

Erikson believed that at each stage an identity crisis occurred and needed to be resolved if the person was going to be a positive, functioning member of society.

If the crises were not resolved, a person would still move on to the next stage but had the opportunity of revisiting and resolving a crisis at another time in their life.

Piaget

Cognitive Development Theory

(constructivist)

Play-based.

Children think and reason about things differently as they progress through four defined stages.

Sensori-motor (0-2)

Preoperational (2-7)

Concrete operational (7-11)

Formal operational (11 & up)

parent/teacher facilitated learning works best

Vygotsky

Socio-cultural theory

(exogenous)

Children progress as their learning is scaffolded by adults.

The zone of proximal development is the time when a child is ready to learn and progress to next level.

Culture shapes who we are & how we develop.

Children actively seek knowledge & as they acquire language from & through others their capacity for thinking is transformed into higher cognitive processes.

Kohlberg

Theory of moral development (cognitive theory)

(constructivist) 

Attempts to explain development of moral reasoning.

Morality reflects rational rather than emotional considerations.

Cognitive & social development must have already occurred for later development of moral judgement.

Later stages are reorganisations of earlier stages.

Morality lies in INTENT not BEHAVIOUR

Identifies 3 levels and 6 stages

Brofenbrenner

Ecological Theory

(exogenous)

Biological dispositions, relationships & multiple levels of the total environment shape a child's development.

To truly understand a child you need to know about their world.

Concentric circles - child at centre - microsystem

Mesosystem

Exosystem

Macrosystem

Chronosystem

Wider society impacts directly on the child

Multiple interacting causes affect development.

Thelen & Smith

Dynamic Systems Theory

Development is multilayered and self-organising, changing or stabilising constantly over time.

There isn't just one element in the system that controls developmental change.

It is the result of many elements interacting through time.

Change in non linear and discontinuous