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donifaber's review
2.0
This book is good in that it raises a critique of developmental psychology as a distorted representation of humanity based on case studies generally focused on white, middle-class American and isolated interactions between mother and child. Developmental psychology as it stands today serves to perpetuate systems of oppression and inequity. While this is certainly worth considering, the critique is so broad-sweeping that it is difficult to come away with how this played out with specific findings of psychology. For example, it critiques Piaget, primarily for his project being focused on a genetic epistemology rather than on psychology that has since permanently molded psychology. But it gives no indication of how we might expect his proposed cognitive or moral stages to be different if his studies were to be more representative of social interaction in general rather than a few isolated individuals. It also critiques child-centered education as ultimately resulting in a hidden authoritative agenda, but in a vague, unconvincing way. This book serves well as an introduction to thinking critically about developmental psychology, but offers no substantial contributions of its own.