The Biologising of Childhood

Originally published in 1990, this book looks at the history of developmental psychology in order to locate and evaluate the role played by biology in its most influential formulations. First Charles Darwin’s own writings on child development are examined. It is shown that Darwin endorsed such ideas as the ‘recapitulation’ of evolutionary ancestry in the developing child, even though this is inconsistent with his natural selection theory. The first great developmentalists – Hall, Baldwin, Freud