PSYC 2020 Lecture 27: PSYC 2020 Lecture 27 Notes
PSYC 2020 Lecture 27 Notes
Introduction
Origins of a New Science
• Rousseau shared Plato’s ie that hildre egi their deelopetal joureys ell
prepared with a stockpile of knowledge.
• Locke, like Aristotle 2,000 years before him, believed that children begin these journeys
packed lightly, but pick up necessary knowledge along the way, through experience.
• These philosophical debates might have continued for millennia except for a landmark
event: the emergence of child development as a science.
• The push toward child development as a science came from two unexpected events in
England in the 19th century.
• One was the Industrial Revolution.
• Beginning in the mid-1700s, England was transformed from a largely rural nation relying
on agriculture to an urban-oriented society organized around factories, including textile
mills that produced cotton cloth.
• Children moved with their families to cities and worked long hours in factories, under
horrendous conditions, for little pay.
• Accidents were common and many children were maimed or killed.
• In the textile mills, for example, the youngest children often had the job of picking up
loose cotton from beneath huge power looms as the machines were running.
• Reformers were appalled at these conditions and worked to enact laws that would limit
child labor and put more children in schools.
• These initiatives were the subject of prominent political debates throughout much of
the 1800s
• After all, the factory owners were among the most powerful people in Britain, and they
actively opposed efforts to limit their access to plentiful, cheap labor.
• But the reformers ultimately carried the day and in the process made the well-being of
children a national concern.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
