Look-normal

The colonized child of developmental science

Bibliographic Data

ID5779676
AuthorsDonna Vargas (corresponding author), Donna Varga (Mount Saint Vincent University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume14
Issue2
Pages137-157
Publication date2011-02-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1093-4510 • E-ISSN: 1939-0610
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/a0021775
PMID21688723
OpenAlexW2005512197
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited20

This article provides an analysis of the techniques, methods, materials, and discourses of child study observation to illuminate its role in the sociohistorical colonization of childhood. Through analysis of key texts it explains how early 20th-century child study provided for the transcendence of historical, racial, and social contexts for understanding human development. The colonizing project of child study promoted the advancement of Eurocentric culture through a generic "White" development. What a child is and can be, and the meaning of childhood has been disembodied through observation, record keeping, and analytical processes in which time and space are abstracted from behavior, and development symbolized as a universal ideal

Child development · Transcendence (philosophy · White (mutation · Historical Education Studies Worldwide · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism