ABSTRACT
Educators, whether teachers, parents or administrators, are bound to hold at least some implicit or covert psychological theories about how young people develop and learn, and about how such development and learning can be assessed. Psychologists may seem more able to pursue psychological theories regardless of immediate practical demands, but there are two limitations on the academic ideal. One is that the community obviously expects some practical good to emerge ultimately from the theoretical endeavours that it supports, and, indeed, makes some of its support directly dependent on immediate utility, through the financing of 'applied' research. The other is that psychologists too are fortunately human. A teacher would hardly get on with his job if he was always stopping to reflect on the justifiability of the psychological concepts and theories that his practice takes for granted. Both psychology and sociology are educationally useful in suggesting some of the limits of modifiable behaviour.
