Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia, 1881-1936
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Modern Languages and Cultures
Abstract
The proposed project investigates how children became objects of scientific study, professional expertise and public interest in modern societies, focusing on Russia as a key example. At the turn of the 20th century 'child study' crystallised into a loosely organised field of research, claiming childhood as a territory of specialist investigation. The term commonly used for it at the time was paedology or paidology.
Paedology was a multidisciplinary network that included developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and juvenile criminology. At that time these disciplines were only just becoming established as legitimate forms of enquiry. This was the field in which important, yet controversial, technologies of the human sciences, such as mental tests, emerged. Those involved in 'child study' made ambitious claims about the contributions that their expertise made to the scientific understanding of humanity as well as to areas such as public health and education.
Russia was among the first countries to start developing the field of paedology, with a number of its psychologists, educators, physicians and psychiatrists enthusiastically embracing the pioneering work done in the area of child development in the West in the 1880s-90s. From 1900 Russian 'child study' grew independently, creating a fast-expanding network of laboratories, training courses, conferences and institutes.
These emerged through professional and civic initiative, with the tsarist state showing interest in the field's potential only at the end of WW1. In the tsarist era, 'child study' was a key domain in which pedagogy, psychology and criminal anthropology were legitimised as scientific disciplines in Russia. However, this was also a volatile arena of inter-professional politics that involved strategic collaborations and bitter jurisdictional conflicts between teachers, psychologists, doctors and jurists around children as objects of enquiry and expertise.
After the collapse of tsarism in 1917, state interests and ideological concerns emerged as decisive factors on which the fate of 'child study' in Russia depended. Whilst in the West this field fragmented into distinct disciplinary specialisms, in the USSR the Bolsheviks promoted paedology as the science responsible for the forging of 'the new Soviet man', turning it into a cornerstone of their programme for scientifically-based social reform.
In the 1920s paedology was strongly supported by leading Bolsheviks as part of their utopian social-engineering programme. It was given considerable intellectual freedom as Freudian psychoanalysis and psychometrics flourished alongside attempts to provide the discipline with a Marxist underpinning. In this period Soviet paedology produced such major theorists of developmental psychology and education as Lev Vygotsky, whose influence can be felt internationally to this day.
However, around 1930 higher levels of institutionalisation exposed paedology to stringent ideological scrutiny, embroiling it in factional struggles during a crucial stage of the Stalinist takeover. Mounting criticism of paedology led to Stalin's notorious 1936 Party Decree on Paedological Distortions, which denounced the discipline as a reactionary pseudo-science, expunging it from the institutional map of Soviet research and education.
Although paedology is touched upon in extant histories of Russian childhood, education and psychology, there is as yet no systematic understanding of the emergence and eradication of this controversial field of scientific and professional endeavour. The project will result in the first comprehensive history of the rise and fall of Russian 'child study' between the 1880s and the 1930s, comparing it to related developments in the West. The book will be an original contribution not only to Russian history, but also the history of the human sciences, professions, education and childhood, exploring issues of considerable topical relevance.
Paedology was a multidisciplinary network that included developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and juvenile criminology. At that time these disciplines were only just becoming established as legitimate forms of enquiry. This was the field in which important, yet controversial, technologies of the human sciences, such as mental tests, emerged. Those involved in 'child study' made ambitious claims about the contributions that their expertise made to the scientific understanding of humanity as well as to areas such as public health and education.
Russia was among the first countries to start developing the field of paedology, with a number of its psychologists, educators, physicians and psychiatrists enthusiastically embracing the pioneering work done in the area of child development in the West in the 1880s-90s. From 1900 Russian 'child study' grew independently, creating a fast-expanding network of laboratories, training courses, conferences and institutes.
These emerged through professional and civic initiative, with the tsarist state showing interest in the field's potential only at the end of WW1. In the tsarist era, 'child study' was a key domain in which pedagogy, psychology and criminal anthropology were legitimised as scientific disciplines in Russia. However, this was also a volatile arena of inter-professional politics that involved strategic collaborations and bitter jurisdictional conflicts between teachers, psychologists, doctors and jurists around children as objects of enquiry and expertise.
After the collapse of tsarism in 1917, state interests and ideological concerns emerged as decisive factors on which the fate of 'child study' in Russia depended. Whilst in the West this field fragmented into distinct disciplinary specialisms, in the USSR the Bolsheviks promoted paedology as the science responsible for the forging of 'the new Soviet man', turning it into a cornerstone of their programme for scientifically-based social reform.
In the 1920s paedology was strongly supported by leading Bolsheviks as part of their utopian social-engineering programme. It was given considerable intellectual freedom as Freudian psychoanalysis and psychometrics flourished alongside attempts to provide the discipline with a Marxist underpinning. In this period Soviet paedology produced such major theorists of developmental psychology and education as Lev Vygotsky, whose influence can be felt internationally to this day.
However, around 1930 higher levels of institutionalisation exposed paedology to stringent ideological scrutiny, embroiling it in factional struggles during a crucial stage of the Stalinist takeover. Mounting criticism of paedology led to Stalin's notorious 1936 Party Decree on Paedological Distortions, which denounced the discipline as a reactionary pseudo-science, expunging it from the institutional map of Soviet research and education.
Although paedology is touched upon in extant histories of Russian childhood, education and psychology, there is as yet no systematic understanding of the emergence and eradication of this controversial field of scientific and professional endeavour. The project will result in the first comprehensive history of the rise and fall of Russian 'child study' between the 1880s and the 1930s, comparing it to related developments in the West. The book will be an original contribution not only to Russian history, but also the history of the human sciences, professions, education and childhood, exploring issues of considerable topical relevance.
Planned Impact
1. Those outside academia likely to find insights from this research beneficial include government agencies, charities and practitioners that deal with children's issues - specifically those who in their daily work need to enact, interact with or refer to different forms of expertise in children (psychological, pedagogical, medical, legal etc.). A number of these (Department of Education, Action for Children, Association of Child Psychologists) have been contacted informally, while more formal consultations are planned during the Fellowship itself (see Pathways to Impact).
A number of questions raised by the proposed historical research are also of wider contemporary significance and concern the social role of professional and scientific engagement with children more generally:
o How are children turned into objects of public concern, professional expertise and science?
o What happens when experts in different disciplines and professions lay claim to children as the objects of their research? How well do different experts collaborate in such cases? What are the main conflicts and obstacles that arise in the process? How do experts in different aspects of childhood interact with the wider public, especially parents?
o What has historically been the role of the state in granting particular experts jurisdiction over children? What is the impact of the state on different forms of research into children?
o What has historically been the impact of the human sciences on conceptions of children and childhood?
o How can history help us understand contemporary controversies surrounding the mental testing of children? Historically what has been the role of psychiatry in the public management of 'problem children'? What can history tell us about the relationship between psychology as a discipline and educational practice? What has historically been the relationship between the medical and the legal profession in areas such as juvenile criminology?
Dissemination plans include a project webpage, to be hosted by the Durham University website, summarising the research and its wider impact. The webpage will be updated during the Fellowship. Dissemination will also include a downloadable summary research report of c. 6,000 words, explicitly targeting a non-specialist audience, focusing on the problem of scientific and professional expertise in children, extending the findings of this research in a way that refers to and can potentially inform current debates in this domain in the UK.
The aim of this report would be:
o to bring to public attention the interrelation of different experts and expertise in children's issues
o to inform debate about authority, integrity and trust in such expertise
o to enhance key stakeholders' understanding of their rights, ownership and interaction in the scientific study of children
o to inform professional and scientific practice in this domain with a view of improving such services
A link to the project webpage will be promoted to relevant UK government agencies, public bodies, charities and professional associations dealing with children's issues, inviting them to post it on their websites or circulate among their members. The report will be available as a freely accessible and downloadable pdf document.
2. Contemporary Russian practitioners in developmental and educational psychology affiliated to the Moscow Pedagogical University have shown interest in the outcomes of this research. The investigator has already arranged to deliver a public lecture on the history of Russian paedology at this institution in April 2013. The lecture will then be published in Russian in the journal Razvitiie lichnosti (The Development of Personality), as has already been provisionally agreed with the editor.
The aim of this part of the project is to promote the impact of socio-historical research on key areas of specialist expertise in children, specifically in the fields of psychology and education.
A number of questions raised by the proposed historical research are also of wider contemporary significance and concern the social role of professional and scientific engagement with children more generally:
o How are children turned into objects of public concern, professional expertise and science?
o What happens when experts in different disciplines and professions lay claim to children as the objects of their research? How well do different experts collaborate in such cases? What are the main conflicts and obstacles that arise in the process? How do experts in different aspects of childhood interact with the wider public, especially parents?
o What has historically been the role of the state in granting particular experts jurisdiction over children? What is the impact of the state on different forms of research into children?
o What has historically been the impact of the human sciences on conceptions of children and childhood?
o How can history help us understand contemporary controversies surrounding the mental testing of children? Historically what has been the role of psychiatry in the public management of 'problem children'? What can history tell us about the relationship between psychology as a discipline and educational practice? What has historically been the relationship between the medical and the legal profession in areas such as juvenile criminology?
Dissemination plans include a project webpage, to be hosted by the Durham University website, summarising the research and its wider impact. The webpage will be updated during the Fellowship. Dissemination will also include a downloadable summary research report of c. 6,000 words, explicitly targeting a non-specialist audience, focusing on the problem of scientific and professional expertise in children, extending the findings of this research in a way that refers to and can potentially inform current debates in this domain in the UK.
The aim of this report would be:
o to bring to public attention the interrelation of different experts and expertise in children's issues
o to inform debate about authority, integrity and trust in such expertise
o to enhance key stakeholders' understanding of their rights, ownership and interaction in the scientific study of children
o to inform professional and scientific practice in this domain with a view of improving such services
A link to the project webpage will be promoted to relevant UK government agencies, public bodies, charities and professional associations dealing with children's issues, inviting them to post it on their websites or circulate among their members. The report will be available as a freely accessible and downloadable pdf document.
2. Contemporary Russian practitioners in developmental and educational psychology affiliated to the Moscow Pedagogical University have shown interest in the outcomes of this research. The investigator has already arranged to deliver a public lecture on the history of Russian paedology at this institution in April 2013. The lecture will then be published in Russian in the journal Razvitiie lichnosti (The Development of Personality), as has already been provisionally agreed with the editor.
The aim of this part of the project is to promote the impact of socio-historical research on key areas of specialist expertise in children, specifically in the fields of psychology and education.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Andy Byford (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Byford A
(2018)
Lechebnaia pedagogika: The Concept and Practice of Therapy in Russian Defectology, c. 1880-1936.
in Medical history
Byford A
(2017)
The imperfect child in early twentieth-century Russia
in History of Education
Byford A
(2014)
The mental test as a boundary object in early-20 th -century Russian child science
in History of the Human Sciences
Byford A
(2016)
Imperial Normativities and Sciences of the Child: The Politics of Development in the USSR, 1920s-1930s
in Ab Imperio
BYFORD A
(2013)
Parent Diaries and the Child Study Movement in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia
in The Russian Review
Byford A
(2016)
Trauma and Pathology: Normative Crises and the Child Population in Late Tsarist Russia and the Early Soviet Union, 1904-1924
in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
Byford A
(2016)
V. M. BEKHTEREV IN RUSSIAN CHILD SCIENCE, 1900S-1920S: "OBJECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY"/"REFLEXOLOGY" AS A SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT.
in Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Byford A
(2013)
Zagrobnaia zhizn' "nauki" pedologii: k voprosu o znachenii "nauchnykh dvizhenii" (i ikh istorii) dlia sovremennoi pedagogiki
in Prepodavatel' XXI vek
| Description | I have shown that the emergence of the scientific study of children was a vital element in the making of modern societies and that it goes to the heart of the rise of modern technologies of biosocial reproduction and human transformation. Russia and the early Soviet Union offer an important case for the exploration of these developments, given the significance accorded there to child science, the originality of Russia's contributions in this field, and the considerable socio-political controversies surrounding it. This topic is highly relevant today, given the huge contemporary investments into the multidisciplinary study of children, as a major focus of social concern. I have argued that child science crystallised in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century as a multi-professional movement that encompassed a cluster of emergent disciplines, from developmental psychology and child psychiatry to the physical and social anthropology of childhood. Those involved in child science, in Russia as elsewhere, made ambitious claims about the contributions their expertise made to the scientific understanding of humanity and to the forging of new techniques for its improvement, especially in areas such as public health and education. My work has shed light on this controversial field of inquiry and expertise in Russia and the Soviet Union, including how it connects and compares with related developments elsewhere in the world, and of how it fits into the context of Russian and Soviet political and social history, and the history of the human and social sciences more generally. I have accumulated a wealth of archival and published material on this topic. I have developed a series of innovative approaches to it, publishing findings in journal articles and presenting them at conferences, seminars and invited lectures. For full details see: https://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/outputs/ I will bring this work to a conclusion by completing a monograph that comprehensively charts the rise and fall of Russian child science from the 1880s to the 1930s. This will be an empirically rich and conceptually original book that will result in a better understanding of the historical interlocking of science, society and politics in the shaping of humanity in the modern era. My project has investigated Russian child science from four key perspectives: a) as a volatile arena of interprofessional interaction that involved strategic collaborations and jurisdictional conflicts between parents, teachers, psychologists, doctors, jurists, bureaucrats and politicians around children as objects of scientific enquiry, professional expertise, public concern, state care and social intervention; b) as an incubator of scientific programmes that developed consciously innovative conceptions of humanity, methods of its study, and technologies for its transformation and control; c) as a key framework for the disciplinary and occupational formation of pedagogical research, special education, psychology, criminology, and developmental neuroscience. d) as a significant institutional context for defining the functions and meanings of the child, as such, and of children as a population, in the modern era. The project explains how scientific research on children contributed to broader constructions of the normal and the pathological, of trauma and deviance, of development and socialisation, and of nature and nurture. My approach to the history of child science in Russia also weaves together a host of previously unconnected threads vital to our understanding of Russian modernity at a key juncture of its transformation across the late tsarist and early Soviet periods. It not only provides insight into the concerns of Russia's professional intelligentsia with matters of biosocial reproduction, but also offers a telling case for investigating the ambiguous incorporation of scientific knowledge and professional expertise into the making of the welfare/warfare state in the rapidly changing political landscape of the early Soviet Union. |
| Exploitation Route | My publications have already been read and acknowledged by a variety of sectors, both academic specialists in related fields (history of Russia, the human sciences, childhood and education) and professional practitioners (in educational psychology and special education in Russia). See further details on impact on professionals described in the Narrative Impact section taken forward and put to use by others. See https://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/inrussia |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Healthcare Other |
| URL | https://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/ |
| Description | Since 2012 I have been providing expert consultancy on an annual basis at the Department of Educational Psychology, Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU), advising its staff, trainees, and a wider network of beneficiaries in Russian educational and child-welfare services. Insights from my research prompted the network to perceive itself as part of a broader scientific and professional movement, and stimulated further collaboration within Russian children's and educational services. The Department expanded its use of the history of Russian child science in the training of educational psychologists, teachers and other specialists in education and child welfare. My research findings also contributed directly to the Department's teaching and assessment, and were incorporated into a textbook of professional training for educational psychologists, of which I am co-author. See https://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/inrussia The above has been submitted as one of the Impact Case Studies for the REF2014 of MLAC, Durham University. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | The History of Russian Child Science in Contemporary Context |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Since 2012 I have been providing expert consultancy at the Department of Educational Psychology, Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU), advising its staff, trainees, and a wider network of beneficiaries in Russian educational and child-welfare services. Insights from my research and the resulting advice prompted the network to perceive itself as part of a broader scientific and professional movement, and stimulated further collaboration within Russian children's and educational services. The Department expanded its use of the history of Russian child science in the training of educational psychologists, teachers and other specialists in education and child welfare. My research contributed directly to the Department's teaching and assessment, and was incorporated into a textbook of professional training for educational psychologists, of which I am co-author. This textbook is currently being used in training programmes of at least 19 universities in Russia. In 2016 it has received a prize for the publisher's most used textbook. |
| Description | British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship |
| Amount | £97,336 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MD140022 |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2015 |
| End | 08/2016 |
| Description | MPGU |
| Organisation | Moscow Pedagogical State University |
| Country | Russian Federation |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been providing expert consultancy at the Department of Educational Psychology, Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU), advising its staff, trainees, and a wider network of beneficiaries in Russian educational and child-welfare services. Insights from my research prompted the network to perceive itself as part of a broader scientific and professional movement, and stimulated further collaboration within Russian children's and educational services. The Department expanded its use of the history of Russian child science in the training of educational psychologists, teachers and other specialists in education and child welfare. My research also contributed directly to the Department's teaching and assessment, and was incorporated into a textbook of professional training for educational psychologists, of which he is co-author. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussions with the partners shaped aspects of the research. The partners were very helpful in providing materials. |
| Impact | •2014 (co-authored with Obukhov, Aleksei S.) 'Glava I: Razvitie psikhologo-pedagogicheskikh nauk', in Obukhov, Aleksei S. (ed.), Vvedenie v profesiiu: Psikholog obrazovaniia, Iurait, pp. 23-190 |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | public lectures and focus groups |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | My talks and consultations sparked questions, discussions, reforms of the training curriculum, further interest in the topic of my research and its potential for contemporary use. The textbook for training educational psychologists that I co-authored as part of my engagement activities has won a prize as one of the most popular textbooks in the field in 2016 (used by 45 universities in Russia). After my talks the partner reformed their training programme to include aspects of my research into it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013,2014,2015,2016 |
| URL | https://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/inrussia/ |