 |
||||||||||
|
In the fifty years since the Laboratory for Human Development at Harvard was founded in 1949, the social sciences have transformed the way we humans now understand ourselves. Feminism and multiculturalism destroyed the idea that the workings of white males' minds could define what it is to be human. Technology radically altered, among other things, the way we transmit and consume information. And modern cognitive scientists proved what was previously considered an impossibility: that we can rigorously and scientifically study what goes on inside people's heads. And in all these areas, HGSE's Human Development and Psychology (HDP) area—an outgrowth of the 1949 laboratory—has distinguished itself as a leader.
Today we're on the verge of changes at least as revolutionary as those
of the past 50 years. Invoking HDP's track record for seeing what's ahead,
we've challenged several distinguished
faculty and alumni of HDP to look into the future. We asked them: "What
are the key issues and questions just around the corner in your fields?
What are the big dangers, the big promises?" This response was written by Michael J. Karcher, Ed.D.'97, assistant professor in the department of counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both society and the field of human development will face an inevitable tension in the new millennium. A tension will emerge from our expanded understanding of the role of culture in human development and its links between biology and developmental processes. This tension will surely manifest in the world, and in the field, through unforeseen misuses of limited knowledge and shortsighted applications of simplistic, isolated findings. Werner and Piaget taught us that new skills are always applied in a clumsy fashion before they are used maturely. Human development and psychology's role in the next millennium is to encourage prudent application of developmental science, to push for deeper connections between culture and biology. [HGSE's Bigelow Professor] Kurt Fischer's work on the intersection of neural development and cultural variation in developmental processes is exemplary. Developers of psychological interventions, school curricula, parent-training materials, and childcare facilities will look to developmental science for direction. Scholars, policy makers, and applied psychologists will look to HGSE for theoretical integration and epistemological innovation. I hope the HDP area will provide direction and signs of progress, but not without warnings about the premature application of isolated and immature findings. About the Article
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
|
|||||||||
