Friday, October 17, 2008

Children and Young People's Rights


In 1989 the U.N. signed a charter for children's rights that was ratified by all nations except the USA and Somalia. The types of rights are split into 3 categories: Provision, Protection and Participation. Essentially, it states that children should be provided for, while being protected from harm and at the same time facilitated in participating in society.

It is this idea that they should be active in society that has evolved in recent history. Not so long ago, “Children should have been seen and not heard.” The installation of these rights meant that not only should children be heard but they should actually be listened to and allowed to make their own decisions. The idea that children should be provided for and protected are much older concepts that many of us would view so obvious it need not to be stated in a civilized society, such as 'children have the right not to be kidnapped, tortured, killed, sexually assaulted, etc.'

Other rights which are new to history may cause a bit of controversy; “Children have the right to their own space and privacy.” Not so long ago this would have been considered a privilege for adults, never mind children. Unfortunately, our media fuelled hyper-paranoid society will have parents trampling all over the child's right to privacy in their quest to discover whether their child is up to 'no good' or 'being groomed' by the ubiquitous paedophile.

Children's right to their own religion and beliefs is another one I take issue with from a practical viewpoint. Firstly, religious families begin indoctrination of the child at such an early age that it will become a part of their identity before they are self-aware enough to make a decision on the matter. We also have to consider the beliefs involved, if for example the parent's belief involves the child 'burning in hell' for atheism or worshiping a false idol. In my experience, religious families side with their religious documents over political ones.

Cognitive Developmental Theory Report on Jean Piaget


Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss child psychologist. Although his expertise extended to zoology, mathematics and philosophy, he was first and foremost, a genetic epistemologist. This interest in the processes by which bodies of knowledge grow, develop and evolve is clearly demonstrated in the entire structure and content of his child psychology. After receiving his doctorate he took a job at the world famous 'Binet Institute' in 1919 where he translated intelligence tests taken by children. Piaget began to see definite patterns emerge in the errors children were making according to their age. Consequently he began his quest to understand and describe cognitive development.
He states that the problem:

“from the point of view of psychology and from the point of view of genetic epistemology, is to explain how the transition is made from a lower level of knowledge to a level that is judged to be higher.”
Piaget, J. (1928). The Child's Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Piaget with his wife Valentine, a psychologist in her own right, began keeping diaries documenting closely the aspects of development of their own children from birth. He also enlisted the help of his friends children and performed many experiments to expose the reasoning of the children at different stages of development. It has been widely documented that these experiments were flawed. However they do provide valuable insight into how the child's mind works and have served as a platform of knowledge that has been built on ever since he first proposed his 'Theory of Cognitive Development' in 1928.

Piaget separated cognitive development into 4 main stages which he called Sensori-Motor, Pre-Operational, Concrete Operational and Formal Operational. According to Piaget this sequence is invariant, all children will progress through the stages in the same order.


The Sensori-Motor stage is how children start out in life, they can only know the world around them through their immediate senses. They have no concept of the world or existence and are therefore completely egocentric. Their innate behaviour patterns are exercised and gradually shaped by their environment. This shaping is as a result of the creation of schemas. Schemas are cognitive representations or ideas about what things are and how we interact with them. Throughout this stage schemas are acquired until the general symbolic function allows for object permanence and language to occur. Their sensori-motor actions become coordinated during this activity. They develop an understanding of cause and effect by observing a temporal rhythm of which daily events follow each other. This stage lasts until the child is about 2 years old.

The Pre-Operational stage sees the rise of symbolic representations from sensori-motor representations. The symbolic function arises because of internalised imitation; the result of sensori-motor thought, which can now be evoked without the actions that initially created the imitation. They are still egocentric, they believe that their point of view is the only one that can be held. This relates to another feature of this stage which is Animism, the belief that inanimate objects have consciousness. Because the child can only see from their own point of view, they assume that everything else is like them. Consequently, the chair that they collide with becomes the 'naughty chair'. Moral realism is another feature that is rooted in the child's egocentric thought, the way they view right and wrong is the only view of right and wrong that can exist. Piaget believes this stage lasts up until the child is around 7 years old when they move on to the operational stages.

In the Concrete-Operational stage the child's egocentric thought declines and they become capable of reversibility, the child is able to work back through a situation to where it began. As a result conservation is permitted, the ability to see that although objects may appear different they are in fact the same. The child can now reverse the process that changed the objects and realise that nothing has been lost, although they need to observe or manipulate the object itself to understand this. During this stage they learn to do this with volume, numbers, length, mass and area until around 11 years of age when they may progress to the Formal-Operational stage. It is worth noting however, that several studies have shown that not everybody progresses to this stage.

Formal-Operational is the progression to adult-like thought. Reversibility can be conducted mentally without the need to see the objects in question. They can think about and resolve complex hypothetical and abstract concepts, becoming systematic and organised when approaching a problem or idea.

Piaget's theory, however fundamental in the study of child psychology, did not go without scrutiny. A main figure in the ratification of Piaget's ideas was the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky suggested that language was more important than Piaget implied by taking on a cognitive role rather than being just for social interaction. He highlighted the importance of a child's cultural background in effecting the stages of development. Because different cultures stress different social interactions, this challenged Piaget's theory that the hierarchy of learning development had to develop in succession. The criticism directed at his experiments were that the children were not in their 'comfort zone'; they were tested in places that they weren't used to which can affect the way a child behaves. Using his own children and familiar children may have affected objectivity and he has been accused of using overly complex and therefore age-inappropriate language in the instruction of his experiments which would affect the child's ability to carry out the test. Despite these flaws, Piaget work is recognised as vital in the understanding of child psychology.


Lourenço, O. and Machado, A. (1996) summarize Piaget to make a fitting conclusion, “Piaget is without doubt one of the most influential developmental psychologists, influencing not only the work of Lev Vygotsky but whole generations of eminent academics. Although subjecting his ideas to massive scrutiny led to innumerable improvements and qualifications of his original model and the emergence of a plethora of neo-Piagetian and post-Piagetian variants, Piaget's original model has proved to be remarkably robust”.






References.

Richmond, P.G. (1970) An Introduction to Piaget. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Scott, F. et al. (2008) HNC Early Education & Childcare. Heinemann.

Lindon, J. (2005) Understanding Child Development: Linking theory and practice. Hodder Arnold.

Davenport, G.C. (1994) An Introduction to Child Development, second edition. Collins.

Lourenço, O. and Machado, A. (1996). In defense of Piaget's theory: A reply to ten common criticisms. Psychological Review.

Piaget, J. (1928). The Child's Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.