Deconstructing Developmental Psychology 20 years on: Reflections, implications and empirical work

Abstract

Erica Burman's book Deconstructing Developmental Psychology (DDP), which appeared in first edition in 1994 and in second edition in 2008, critically appraises mainstream approaches to child development, using feminist and post-structuralist theory. In the book, Burman (1994Burman ( , 2008a examines the historical contingencies and cultural assumptions that form the conditions of possibility for the establishment of various developmental psychology approaches. She shows how these approaches constitute powerful discursive resources in regulating women and families, in marginalising working class and ethnic minority people, normalising western, middle class family forms, and in pathologising mothers.The first edition of DDP emerged at a time when there was growing unease amongst critical scholars about the universalising claims of much of the work of mainstream psychology. The body of work produced by these scholars was concerned with the tendency for these claims to produce decontextualised accounts of human experience that individualised, and often pathologised, people's livesparticularly the lives of those who were not members of dominant social groups and classes. Social psychology was 'in crisis' (Gergen, 1985;Parker, 1989), and psychology more generally was being urged to change its conceptualisation of The

Aprendizajes sobre violencia de género durante la formación universitaria en Psicología: ¿Se practica un modelo «ecológico»?

“…A partir de una prolongada e intensa observación participante, concluyo que no se practicó un modelo ecológico a cabalidad -específicamente-debido a la escasa atención analítica y práctica dada al nivel «macro»: estructuras y procesos históricos, económicos, políticos, culturales e ideológicos que construyen las diversas violencias hacia las mujeres. Estos hallazgos parecen dialogar -y ser consistentes, en diversos grados-con argumentos críticos emergentes en el Norte Global (Callaghan et al, 2015;Fine, 2012;Burman, 2008), Latinoamérica (Reyes et al, 2017) y Ecuador (Tapia, 2019;Villamarín, 2017;Benavides, 2006).…”

“…Se trata además, de una profesión aprendida y ejercida principalmente por mujeres, tanto en contextos del Norte Global (Clay, 2017), como del Sur Global -incluido Ecuador (López-Calle et al, 2020). La disciplina no ha estado exenta de críticas legítimas -incluidas aquellas referidas a su complicidad-usualmente velada con la violencia de género (Clay, 2017;Reyes et al, 2017;Callaghan et al, 2015;Fine, 2012;Burman, 2008). En Ecuador, la formación en Psicología mantiene una clara diversidad (López-Calle et al, 2020;Capella & Andrade, 2017), y registra también reflexiones críticas vinculadas a la representación que la teoría hegemónica construye de las mujeres (Villamarín, 2017).…”

Disrupting the Status Quo: A New Theoretical Vision for the Child Life Profession

“…Developmental psychology promotes the notion of a "normal childhood," but this is based on Western, neoliberal ideologies (Callaghan et al, 2015;Miller & Scholnick, 2015). These ideologies emphasize notions of responsibility, self-regulation, control, and the importance of creating good citizens (Burman, 2017).…”