Citation

Pearson RR. Am. J. Sociol. 1931; 36(4): 584-595.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1931, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/215477

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Historically, changing conceptions of the child have reflected prevailing psychological viewpoints. The emphasis today is upon the child as a person, with plans, purposes, social relationships, and status in one or more social groups, leading to a many-sided personality, even in early life. Social technologists find this approach valuable in securing adjustment of problem cases, but as research workers we have not devised techniques suited to the adequated testing of the hypothesis. The experience of young children differs widely in various environmental situations. Many who have published studies in this field, however, generalize beyond their data, implying that results secured in one group (conditions seldom specified) apply to children of the same age elsewhere. It is necessary to improve our methods and to study in detail variations among groups of the same age-span, and also differences in the behavior of individual children when studied by identical techniques in all the groups to which they belong.