Pedology (children study)
Encyclopedia
Pedology is the study of children's behavior and development, not to be confused with pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

, which is the art or science of teaching.

The origins of this trend in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and pedagogy is traced to the end of the 18th century with the separation of a branch of psychology that should be the base of pedagogy, a pedagogic psychology or "experimental pedagogic psychology", "experimental pedagogy", "experimental education".

At the early roots of pedology as a separate study was G. Stanley Hall
G. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory...

, who was also instrumental in the development of modern educational psychology
Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...

. The term "pedology" was suggested in 1893 by an American researcher, Oscar Chrisman. At the end of the 19th century, pedology as a comprehensive study of the child became active in Europe as an attempt to create a study of children in the manner of natural sciences. In 1909 a Pedological Society was organized by Professor Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...

 in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, Austro-Hungary (now Ukraine). In 1910 a similar society was organized in Cracow. In 1911 the first World Congress in Pedology was held in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, with attendants from 22 countries.

World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 effectively put an end to the development of this study in Western Europe.

Since the study has never reached its maturity, there is no common established understanding as to the scope and instruments of pedology.

Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland is the first University in the United States to offer a Bachelor's Degree in pedology.

Pedology in the Soviet Union

In Imperial Russia a prominent developer of the field was Aleksandr Nechayev (Александр Петрович Нечаев) in St. Petersburg, who in 1901 created the laboratory of experimental pedagogical psychology. Soviet pedology is traditionally thought to be founded by the efforts of Vladimir Bekhterev
Vladimir Bekhterev
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was a Russian Neurologist and the Father of Objective Psychology. He is best known for noting the role of the hippocampus in memory, his study of reflexes, and Bekhterev’s Disease...

; in particular, in 1918 he founded the Institute of Pedology as part of psychological institutions united into the Institute for Study of Brain and Psychical Activity.

This science was intensively pursued in 1920s-1930s in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. A journal Pedologiya ("Педология") was issued. Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of cultural-historical psychology, and the leader of the Vygotsky Circle.-Biography:...

 was one of its prominent supporters.

While many works of pedologists were of considerable value, the approach was severely criticized for over-enthusiastic but poorly grounded approach of testing for predicting a child's mental development, in addition to estimating its status.

It was officially banned in 1936 after a special decree of VKP(b) Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...

 "On Pedological Perversions in the Narkompros System" on July 4, 1936.

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