| Abstract: | Child psychologists, over the last century, have chased the notion of a fixed psychological form for the child that underlies all the variety of children. The proposal is made here that the variety is essential and eternal; child psychology, like the nature of childhood itself, is a cultural invention—the product of historical, political, economic, and ideological biases that make the search for the True Child bootless. Several of American child psychologists' most widely shared beliefs are examined under the light of the governing ideas that were present at the birth of systematic child psychology. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
