ABSTRACT
Building a theory of development is a difficult epistemological task that requires clarity in its basic assumptions before any empirical data can guide psychologists’ thinking further in productive ways. In our contemporary empiricism-dominated psychology, theoretical efforts are rare, which has serious consequences for the science (see Toulmin and Leary 1985). Before we can learn anything about the empirical side of development, we need to clarify what development is and how we conceptualize its organization. It is only then that we can begin to address the issue of applicability of the basic theoretical knowledge to any area of application, such as schooling. Such applications are particularly complicated as the area of application is embedded in the ideological texture of the given society at a given time.
