ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we gave consideration to influences that shape child development theory, including history and culture. In this chapter we examine the basic tenets of contextualism, adopting the argument advanced by Kalbaugh (1989: 4) that ‘contextualism is based on assumptions fundamentally distinct from those of the dialectical (organismic) paradigm’. We can address this issue by considering the work of Pepper, which we introduced in Chapter 1 and further elaborate in the final chapter. Pepper’s work embraced the idea that different theoretical positions adopted by scientists are related to different philosophical positions that they hold, which can be represented in terms of root metaphors (Pepper, 1942), including organicism and contextualism. There is some commonality between these two metaphors, in particular, the idea that ‘reality is in constant flux’ (Kramer and Bopp, 1989: 4). They also share an emphasis on placing activity in a given time and place. The difference is that for organicism the emphasis is on the developmental process of the organism, whereas contextualism includes the subjective context of the observer and the observed in a certain social context.
