ABSTRACT
Psychological development refers to growth and progress on the full gamut of human dimensions across the lifespan. The study of psychological development has been concerned with questions such as: What develops?; In what sequence?; Are there identifiable stages and phases of development?; What processes underlie developmental change?; Are there general principles of development and change that apply across all ages?; What factors enhance or retard development?; What explains inter-individual differences?; and To what extent is development socially and culturally determined? An engagement with the literature reveals a range of very different theoretical and empirical approaches to the above questions. Furthermore, the questions that are posed are typically framed within a particular theoretical position and/or contain basic theoretical assumptions about development. In the developmental literature there are two broad fields of enquiry: one concerned with the devel-
opment of cognitive and intellectual capabilities across the lifespan; the other concerned with social and emotional development or one’s sense of self or identity. The early research in both these fields of enquiry focused on child development – arguably because of the need to understand children’s learning given the growth of education in the latter part of the nineteenth century and also because of a commonly held belief that adult maturity was the end-point of development. Nowadays a great deal of research has been undertaken on adult development. Once again this may be
connected with the need for adults to engage in lifelong learning in the context of continuing technological, social and organisational change and the subsequent increasing educational provision for adults in formal and informal settings throughout life. A common thread in the developmental literature, then, has been the application of developmental theories across the entire lifespan. In many ways the application of developmental theories to adults has raised new questions and issues that have helped shape thinking in relation to the development of children. For example, in adult developmental research there has been a general move away from identifying common sequences of predictable stages and phases, which characterised earlier attempts to document development. Instead the emphasis is now placed on the impact of social and historical factors in accounting for multidirectional change and variability in life trajectories (see for example, Smith and Baltes, 1999; Elder, 1998). Research into child development has followed suit, paying greater attention to the social and historical factors that influence the direction and timing of development. Of course this trend is also a response to the increasing need to recognise cultural diversity among those attending educational institutions. I am not suggesting that the pragmatic needs of educators alone drive the theory construction of developmental psychologists in a direct and explicit way, however,
it is clear that broad social concerns, including those of educators, provide a context in which it is possible for developmental theorists to raise new questions and issues in their research. It is also worth noting that the education sector is a major user of the research on developmental psychology and this is understandable given that both education and developmental psychology have a common focus on learning.
