Beauvais, Clementine orcid.org/0000-0002-5854-4866 (2016) Ages and ages: the multiplication of children’s ‘ages’ in early twentieth-century child psychology. History of Education. pp. 304-318. ISSN 0046-760X
Abstract
This paper explores the trend, between 1905 and the late 1920s in UK and US child psychology, of ‘discovering’, labelling and calculating different ‘ages’ in children. Those new ‘ages’ – from mental to emotional, social, anatomical ages, and more – were understood as either replacing, or meaningfully related to, chronological age. The most famous, mental age, ‘invented’ by Alfred Binet in the first decade of the century, was instrumental in early intelligence testing. Anatomical age triggered great interest until the 1930s, with many psychologists suggesting that physical development provided a more reliable inkling of which grade children should be in than chronological age. Those ages were calculated with great precision, and educational recommendations began to be made on the basis of these. This article maps this psychological and educational trend, and suggests that it cultivated a vision of children as developmentally erratic, worthy of intense scientific attention, and enticingly puzzling for researchers.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Clementine Beauvais is a lecturer in English in Education at the University of York (UK). She works on scientific and cultural discourses surrounding child precocity. © 2016 Taylor & Francis. This is an author-produced version of a paper accepted for publication. Uploaded with permission of the publisher/copyright holder. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details |
Keywords: | Child psychology,intelligence testing,,mental age,development,age,growth |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > Education (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 30 Mar 2016 09:24 |
Last Modified: | 18 Mar 2025 00:06 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/0046760X.2015.1136359 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/0046760X.2015.1136359 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:97290 |
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Description: Ages and ages: the multiplication of children's 'ages' in early twentieth-century child psychology