ABSTRACT
The distinction between developmental psychology and other branches such as personality, learning, social psychology and educational psychology seemed particularly disturbing. As a distinct branch of psychology on a par with clinical, experimental, industrial, and educational, developmental psychology began with the child. Not only was this its subject matter until very recently; its historical roots are in the "child study" movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Psychologys history is full of conflict, compromise, opportunism, deception, and deal-making as it became consumer-driven. During the 1970s, the growing fascination of developmentalists with "the social world" coincided with emerging doubts about Piaget's asocial child. The idealized images of the child, childhood, and development that psychology constructed over the course of the 20th century were consistent with the emerging culture, social organization, and politics. As Brown put it in her presidential address to the American Educational Research Association: Learners came to be viewed as active constructors, rather than passive recipients of knowledge.
