ABSTRACT
Most of the developmental theories discussed are founded on a developmental way of thinking. Critical developmental psychology considers its main task is to expose, in political and social terms, the implications and consequences of the other developmental theories. Critical psychology crucially insists that knowledge about development is not cumulative but constructed within a particular historical and cultural context and hence is only valid at that particular point in time. When changes take place in the social and cultural attitudes to children, previously acquired knowledge about them becomes invalid and must be revised. In traditional developmental science, it is not the children who change throughout history but theories and empirical knowledge. In critical psychology there is no accumulated knowledge; children change when the theories change, because both are social constructs. The critical perspective represents a radical break with the very foundation of developmental psychology, not least because it rejects the established understanding of the concept "development".
