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natutre of developement

Development theory is a conglomeration or a collective vision of theories about how desirable change in society is best achieved. Such theories draw on a variety of social science disciplines and approaches. In this article, multiple theories are discussed, as are recent developments with regard to these theories.

Modernization theory is used to analyze in which modernization processes in societies take place. The theory looks at which aspects of countries are beneficial and which constitute obstacles for economic development. The idea is that development assistance targeted at those particular aspects can lead to modernization of 'traditional' or 'backward' societies. Scientists from various research disciplines have contributed to modernization theory.

Sociological and anthropological modernization theory

The earliest principles of modernization theory can be derived from the idea of progress, which stated that people can develop and change their society themselves. Marquis de Condorcet was involved in the origins of this theory. This theory also states that technological advancements and economic changes can lead to changes in moral and cultural values. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim stressed the interdependence of institutions in a society and the way in which they interact with cultural and social unity. His work ‘The Division of Labor in Society’ was very influential. It described how social order is maintained in society and ways in which primitive societies can make the transition to more advanced societies.^[1]

Other scientists who have contributed to the development of modernization theory are: David Apter, who did research on the political system and history of democracy; Seymour Martin Lipset, who argued that economic development leads to social changes which tend to lead to democracy; David McClelland, who approached modernization from the psychological side with his motivations theory; and Talcott Parsons who used his pattern variables to compare backwardness to modernity.

Linear stages of growth model

The linear stages of growth model is an economic model which is heavily inspired by the Marshall Plan which was used to revitalize Europe’s economy after World War II. It assumes that economic growth can only be achieved by industrialization. Growth can be restricted by local institutions and social attitudes, especially if these aspects influence the savings rate and investments. The constraints impeding economic growth are thus considered by this model to be internal to society.^[2]

According to the linear stages of growth model, a correctly designed massive injection of capital coupled with intervention by the public sector would ultimately lead to industrialization and economic development of a developing nation.^[3]

The Rostow's stages of growth model is the most well-known example of the linear stages of growth model.^[3] Walt W. Rostow identified five stages through which developing countries had to pass to reach an advanced economy status: (1) Traditional society, (2) Preconditions for take-off, (3) Take-off, (4) Drive to maturity, (5) Age of high mass consumption. He argued that economic development could be led by certain strong sectors; this is in contrast to for instance Marxism which states that sectors should develop equally. According to Rostow’s model, a country needed to follow some rules of development to reach the take-off: (1) The investment rate of a country needs to be increased to at least 10% of its GDP, (2) One or two manufacturing sectors with a high rate of growth need to be established, (3) An institutional, political and social framework has to exist or be created in order to promote the expansion of those sectors.^[4]

The Rostow model has serious flaws, of which the most serious are: (1) The model assumes that development can be achieved through a basic sequence of stages which are the same for all countries, a doubtful assumption; (2) The model measures development solely by means of the increase of GDP per capita; (3) The model focuses on characteristics of development, but does not identify the causal factors which lead development to occur. As such, it neglects the social structures that have to be present to foster development.^[4]

Economic modernisation theories such as Rostow's stages model have been heavily inspired by the Harrod-Domar model which explains in a mathematical way the growth rate of a country in terms of the savings rate and the productivity of capital.^[5] Heavy state involvement has often been considered necessary for successful development in economic modernization theory; Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, Ragnar Nurkse and Kurt Mandelbaum argued that a big push model in infrastructure investment and planning was necessary for the stimulation of industrialization, and that the private sector would not be able to provide the resources for this on its own.^[6] Another influential theory of modernization is the dual-sector model by Arthur Lewis. In this model Lewis explained how the traditional stagnant rural sector is gradually replaced by a growing modern and dynamic manufacturing and service economy.^[7]

Because of the focus on the need for investments in capital, the Linear Stages of Growth Models are sometimes referred to as suffering from ‘capital fundamentalism’.^[8]

Critics of modernization theory

Modernization theory observes traditions and pre-existing institutions of so-called "primitive" societies as obstacles to modern economic growth. Modernization which is forced from outside upon a society might induce violent and radical change, but according to modernization theorists it is generally worth this side effect. Critics point to traditional societies as being destroyed and slipping away to a modern form of poverty without ever gaining the promised advantages of modernization.

Structuralism

Main article: Structuralist economics

Structuralism is a development theory which focuses on structural aspects which impede the economic growth of developing countries. The unit of analysis is the transformation of a country’s economy from, mainly, a subsistence agriculture to a modern, urbanized manufacturing and service economy. Policy prescriptions resulting from structuralist thinking include major government intervention in the economy to fuel the industrial sector, known as import substitution industrialization (ISI). This structural transformation of the developing country is pursued in order to create an economy which in the end enjoys self-sustaining growth. This can only be reached by ending the reliance of the underdeveloped country on exports of primary goods (agricultural and mining products), and pursuing inward-oriented development by shielding the domestic economy from that of the developed economies. Trade with advanced economies is minimized through the erection of all kinds of trade barriers and an overvaluation of the domestic exchange rate; in this way the production of domestic substitutes of formerly imported industrial products is encouraged. The logic of the strategy rests on the infant industry argument, which states that young industries initially do not have the economies of scale and experience to be able to compete with foreign competitors and thus need to be protected until they are able to compete in the free market.^[9] The Prebisch–Singer hypothesis states that over time the terms of trade for commodities deteriorate compared to those for manufactured goods, because the income elasticity of demand of manufactured goods is greater than that of primary products. If true, this would also support the ISI strategy.

Structuralists argue that the only way Third World countries can develop is through action by the state. Third world countries have to push industrialization and have to reduce their dependency on trade with the First World, and trade among themselves.

The roots of structuralism lie in South America, and particularly Chile. In 1950, Raul Prebisch went to Chile to become the first director of the Economic Commission for Latin America. In Chile, he cooperated with Celso Furtado, Anibal Pinto, Osvaldo Sunkel, and Dudley Seers, who all became influential structuralists.

Dependency theory

Main article: Dependency theory

Dependency theory is essentially a follow up to structuralist thinking, and shares many of its core ideas. Whereas structuralists did not consider that development would be possible at all unless a strategy of delinking and rigorous ISI was pursued, dependency thinking could allow development with external links with the developed parts of the globe. However, this kind of development is considered to be "dependent development", i.e., it does not have an internal domestic dynamic in the developing country and thus remains highly vulnerable to the economic vagaries of the world market. Dependency thinking starts from the notion that resources flow from the ‘periphery’ of poor and underdeveloped states to a ‘core’ of wealthy countries, which leads to accumulation of wealth in the rich states at the expense of the poor states. Contrary to modernization theory, dependency theory states that not all societies progress through similar stages of development. Primitive states have unique features, structures and institutions of their own and are the weaker with regard to the world market economy, while the developed nations have never been in this follower position in the past. Dependency theorists argue that underdeveloped countries remain economically vulnerable unless they reduce their connectedness to the world market.^[10]^[11]

Dependency theory states that poor nations provide natural resources and cheap labor for developed nations, without which the developed nations could not have the standard of living which they enjoy. Also, developed nations will try to maintain this situation and try to counter attempts by developing nations to reduce the influence of developed nations. This means that poverty of developing nations is not the result of the disintegration of these countries in the world system, but because of the way in which they are integrated into this system.

In addition to its structuralist roots, dependency theory has much overlap with Neo-Marxism and World Systems Theory, which is also reflected in the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, a famous dependency theorist. Wallerstein rejects the notion of a Third World, claiming that there is only one world which is connected by economic relations (World Systems Theory). He argues that this system inherently leads to a division of the world in core, semi-periphery and periphery. One of the results of expansion of the world-system is the commodification of things, like natural resources, labor and human relationships.^[12]^[13]

Basic needs

Main article: Basic needs

The basic needs approach was introduced by the International Labour Organization in 1976, mainly in reaction to prevalent modernisation- and structuralism-inspired development approaches, which were not achieving satisfactory results in terms of poverty alleviation and combating inequality in developing countries. It tried to define an absolute minimum of resources necessary for long-term physical well-being. The poverty line which follows from this, is the amount of income needed to satisfy those basic needs. The approach has been applied in the sphere of development assistance, to determine what a society needs for subsistence, and for poor population groups to rise above the poverty line. Basic needs theory does not focus on investing in economically productive activities. Basic needs can be used as an absolute

Proponents of basic needs have argued that elimination of absolute poverty is a good way to make people active in society so that they can provide labor more easily and act as consumers and savers.^[14] There have been also many critics of the basic needs approach. It would lack theoretical rigour, practical precision, be in conflict with growth promotion policies, and run the risk of leaving developing countries in permanent

Neo-liberalist theory

Neoclassical development theory has it origins in its predecessor: classical economics. Classical economics was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and dealt with the value of products and on which production factors it depends. Early contributors to this theory are Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Classical economists argued - as do the neoclassical ones - in favor of the free market, and against government intervention in those markets. The 'invisible hand' of Adam Smith makes sure that free trade will ultimately benefit all of society. John Maynard Keynes was a very influential classical economist as well, having written his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money in 1936.

Neoclassical development theory became influential towards the end of the 1970s, fired by the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. Also, the World Bank shifted from its Basic Needs approach to a neoclassical approach in 1980. From the beginning of the 1980s, neoclassical development theory really began to roll out.

Structural adjustment

One of the implications of the neoclassical development theory for developing countries were the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund wanted them to adapt. Important aspects of those SAPs include:

Fiscal austerity (reduction in government spending)
Privatization (which should both raise money for governments and improve efficiency and financial performance of the firms involved)
Trade liberalization, currency devaluation and the abolition of marketing boards (to maximize the static comparative advantage the developing country has on the global market)
Retrenchment of the government and deregulation (in order to stimulate the free market)

These measures are more or less reflected by the themes which were identified by the Institute of International Economics which were believed to be necessary for the recovery of Latin America from the economic and financial crises of the 1980s. These themes are known as the Washington consensus, a termed coined in 1989 by the economist John Williamson.

Recent trends

Postdevelopment theory

Main article: Postdevelopment theory

Postdevelopment theory is a school of thought which questions the idea of national economic development altogether. According to postdevelopment scholars, the goal of improving living standards leans on arbitrary claims as to the desirability and possibility of that goal. Postdevelopment theory arose in the 1980s and 1990s.

According to postdevelopment theorists, the idea of development is just a 'mental structure' (Wolfgang Sachs) which has resulted in an hierarchy of developed and underdeveloped nations, of which the underdeveloped nations desire to be like developed nations.^[15] Development thinking has been dominated by the West and is very ethnocentric, according to Sachs. The Western lifestyle may neither be a realistic nor a desirable goal for the world's population, postdevelopment theorists argue. Development is being seen as a loss of a country's own culture, people's perception of themselves and modes of life. According to Majid Rahnema, another leading postdevelopment scholar, things like notions of poverty are very culturally embedded and can differ a lot among cultures. The institutes which voice the concern over underdevelopment are very Western-oriented, and postdevelopment calls for a broader cultural involvement in development thinking.

Postdevelopment proposes a vision of society which removes itself from the ideas which currently dominate it. According to Arturo Escobar, postdevelopment is interested instead in local culture and knowledge, a critical view against established sciences and the promotion of local grassroots movements. Also, postdevelopment argues for structural change in order to reach solidarity, reciprocity, and a larger involvement of traditional knowledge.

Sustainable development

Main article: Sustainable development

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (Brundtland Commission) There exist more definitions of sustainable development, but they have in common that they all have to do with the carrying capacity of the earth and its natural systems and the challenges faced by humanity. Sustainable development can be broken up into environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability. The book 'Limits to Growth', commissioned by the Club of Rome, gave huge momentum to the thinking about sustainability.^[16] Global warming issues are also problems which are emphasized by the sustainable development movement. This led to the 1997 Kyoto Accord, with the plan to cap greenhouse-gas emissions.

Opponents of the implications of sustainable development often point to the environmental Kuznets curve. The idea behind this curve is that, as an economy grows, it shifts towards more capital and knowledge-intensive production. This means that as an economy grows, its pollution output increases, but only until it reaches a particular threshold where production becomes less resource-intensive and more sustainable. This means that a pro-growth, not an anti-growth policy is needed to solve the environmental problem. But the evidence for the environmental Kuznets curve is quite weak. Also, empirically spoken, people tend to consume more products when their income increases. Maybe those products have been produced in a more environmentally friendly way, but on the whole the higher consumption negates this effect. There are people like Julian Simon however who argue that future technological developments will resolve future problems.

Human development theory

Main article: Human development theory

Human development theory is a theory which uses ideas from different origins, such as ecology, sustainable development, feminism and welfare economics. It wants to avoid normative politics and is focused on how social capital and instructional capital can be deployed to optimize the overall value of human capital in an economy.

Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq are the most well-known human development theorists. The work of Sen is focused on capabilities: what people can do, and be. It is these capabilities, rather than the income or goods that they receive (as in the Basic Needs approach), that determine their well being. This core idea also underlies the construction of the Human Development Index, a human-focused measure of development pioneered by the UNDP in its Human Development Reports. The economic side of Sen's work can best be categorized under welfare economics, which evaluates the effects of economic policies on the well-being of peoples. Sen wrote the influential book 'Development as freedom' which added an important ethical side to development economics
hroughout the 20th century, and continuing into the 21st century, governments have tried to develop the world’s poor countries. Development efforts have sought to increase national income, lift poor people out of poverty and improve their quality of living. However, people have had different ideas about how to best develop poor countries. This resource considers six of those approaches.

Development is the series of age-related changes that happen over the course of a life span. Several famous psychologists, including Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg, describe development as a series of stages. A stage is a period in development in which people exhibit typical behavior patterns and establish particular capacities. The various stage theories share three assumptions:

People pass through stages in a specific order, with each stage building on capacities developed in the previous stage.
Stages are related to age.
Development is discontinuous, with qualitatively different capacities emerging in each stage.

Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Personality

The Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud first described personality development as a series of stages. Of these stages, Freud believed that early childhood was the most important. He believed that personality developed by about the age of five.

Freud’s theory of personality development is described in more detail on pages 268-–273 of Chapter 13, “Personality.”

Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development

Like Freud, Erik Erikson believed in the importance of early childhood. However, Erikson believed that personality development happens over the entire course of a person’s life. In the early 1960s, Erikson proposed a theory that describes eight distinct stages of development. According to Erikson, in each stage people face new challenges, and the stage’s outcome depends on how people handle these challenges. Erikson named the stages according to these possible outcomes:

Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust

In the first year after birth, babies depend completely on adults for basic needs such as food, comfort, and warmth. If the caretakers meet these needs reliably, the babies become attached and develop a sense of security. Otherwise, they may develop a mistrustful, insecure attitude.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Between the ages of one and three, toddlers start to gain independence and learn skills such as toilet training, feeding themselves, and dressing themselves. Depending on how they face these challenges, toddlers can develop a sense of autonomy or a sense of doubt and shame about themselves.

Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

Between the ages of three and six, children must learn to control their impulses and act in a socially responsible way. If they can do this effectively, children become more self- confident. If not, they may develop a strong sense of guilt.

Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority

Between the ages of six and twelve, children compete with peers in school and prepare to take on adult roles. They end this stage with either a sense of competence or a sense of inferiority.

Stage 5: Identity vs. Role Confusion

During adolescence, which is the period between puberty and adulthood, children try to determine their identity and their direction in life. Depending on their success, they either acquire a sense of identity or remain uncertain about their roles in life.

Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation

In young adulthood, people face the challenge of developing intimate relationships with others. If they do not succeed, they may become isolated and lonely.

Stage 7: Generativity vs. Self-Absorption

As people reach middle adulthood, they work to become productive members of society, either through parenting or through their jobs. If they fail, they become overly self-absorbed.

Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair

In old age, people examine their lives. They may either have a sense of contentment or be disappointed about their lives and fearful of the future.

Erikson’s theory is useful because it addresses both personality stability and personality change. To some degree, personality is stable, because childhood experiences influence people even as adults. However, personality also changes and develops over the life span as people face new challenges. The problem with Erikson’s theory, as with many stage theories of development, is that he describes only a typical pattern. The theory doesn’t acknowledge the many differences among individuals.

Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development

Stage	Conflict Faced	Typical Age Range	Major Challenge(s)
1	Trust vs. mistrust	First year of life	Having basic needs met, attaching to people
2	Autonomy vs. shame and doubt	1–3 years	Gaining independence
3	Initiative vs. guilt	3–6 years	Acting in a socially responsible way
4	Industry vs. inferiority	6–12 years	Competing with peers, preparing for adult roles
5	Identity vs. role confusion	Adolescence	Determining one’s identity
6	Intimacy vs. isolation	Early adulthood	Developing intimate relationships
7	Generativity vs. self-absorption	Middle adulthood	Being productive
8	Integrity vs. despair	Old age	Evaluating one’s life

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

While conducting intelligence tests on children, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget began to investigate how children think. According to Piaget, children’s thought processes change as they mature physically and interact with the world around them. Piaget believed children develop schema, or mental models, to represent the world. As children learn, they expand and modify their schema through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the broadening of an existing schema to include new information. Accommodation is the modification of a schema as new information is incorporated.

Example: Suppose a young boy knows his pet parrot is a bird. When he sees a robin outside and calls it a bird too, he exhibits assimilation, since he broadened his bird schema to include characteristics of both parrots and robins. His bird schema might be “all things that fly.” Now suppose a bat flaps out at him one night and he shrieks, “Bird!” If he learns it was a bat that startled him, he’ll have to modify his bird schema to “things that fly and have feathers.” In modifying his definition, he enacts accommodation.

Piaget proposed that children go through four stages of cognitive development:

Stage 1: Sensorimotor Period

In this stage, which lasts from birth to roughly two years, children learn by using their senses and moving around. By the end of the sensorimotor period, children become capable of symbolic thought, which means they can represent objects in terms of mental symbols. More important, children achieve object permanence in this stage. Object permanence is the ability to recognize that an object can exist even when it’s no longer perceived or in one’s sight.

Example: If a three-month-old baby sees a ball, she’ll probably be fascinated by it. But if someone hides the ball, the baby won’t show any interest in looking for it. For a very young child, out of sight is literally out of mind. When the baby is older and has acquired object permanence, she will start to look for things that are hidden because she will know that things can exist even when they can’t be seen.

Stage 2: Preoperational Period

This stage lasts from about two to seven years of age. During this stage, children get better at symbolic thought, but they can’t yet reason. According to Piaget, children aren’t capable of conservation during this stage. Conservation is the ability to recognize that measurable physical features of objects, such as length, area, and volume, can be the same even when objects appear different.

Example: Suppose a researcher gives a three-year-old girl two full bottles of juice. The girl will agree that they both contain the same amount of juice. But if the researcher pours the contents of one bottle into a short, fat tumbler, the girl will then say that the bottle has more. She doesn’t realize that the same volume of juice is conserved in the tumbler.

Piaget argued that children are not capable of conservation during the preoperational stage because of three weaknesses in the way they think. He called these weaknesses centration, irreversibility, and egocentrism:

Centration is the tendency to focus on one aspect of a problem and ignore other key aspects. In the example above, the three-year-old looks only at the higher juice level in the bottle and ignores the fact that the bottle is narrower than the tumbler. Because of centration, children in the preoperational stage cannot carry out hierarchical classification, which means they can’t classify things according to more than one level.
Irreversibility is the inability to mentally reverse an operation. In the example, the three-year-old can’t imagine pouring the juice from the tumbler back into the bottle. If she poured the juice back, she’d understand that the tumbler holds the same amount of liquid as the bottle.
Egocentrism is the inability to take someone else’s point of view. Animism, or the belief that even inanimate objects are living, results from egocentrism. Children assume that since they are alive, all other things must be too.

Stage 3: Concrete Operational Period

From the age of seven to about eleven, children become capable of performing mental operations or working through problems and ideas in their minds. However, they can perform operations only on tangible objects and real events. Children also achieve conservation, reversibility, and decentration during this stage:

Reversibility is the ability to mentally reverse actions.
Decentration is the ability to focus simultaneously on several aspects of a problem.

Furthermore, children become less egocentric during this stage as they start to consider simultaneously different ways of looking at a problem.

Stage 4: Formal Operational Period

In this stage, which begins around eleven years of age and continues through adulthood, children become capable of applying mental operations to abstract concepts. They can imagine and reason about hypothetical situations. From this point on, people start to think in abstract, systematic, and logical ways.

Critiques of Piaget’s Theories

Although Piaget made important contributions to the research on cognitive development, his theory has come under attack for several reasons:

Recent research has shown that he greatly underestimated children’s capabilities. For example, researchers have shown that babies achieve object permanence much sooner than Piaget said they do.
Children sometimes simultaneously develop skills that are characteristic of more than one stage, which makes the idea of stages seem less viable.
Piaget ignored cultural influences. Research has shown that children from different cultures tend to go through Piaget’s stages in the same order, but the timing and length of stages vary from culture to culture.
Some people never develop the capacity for formal reasoning, even as adults.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

	Stage	Age	Important Features
1	Sensorimotor	First two years of life	Object permanence, symbolic thought
2	Preoperational	2–7 years	Centration, irreversibility, egocentrism, and animism
3	Concrete operational	7–11 years	Reversibility, decentration, decrease in egocentrism, conservation
4	Formal operational	11 through adulthood	Abstract thought

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg focused on moral reasoning, or why people think the way they do about right and wrong. Influenced by Piaget, who believed that moral reasoning depends on the level of cognitive development, Kohlberg proposed that people pass through three levels of moral development. He divided each level into two stages.

Level 1: The Preconventional Level

At this level, children ascribe great importance to the authority of adults. For children in the first stage of this level, an action is wrong if it’s punished, whereas in the second stage, an action is right if it’s rewarded.

Level 2: The Conventional Level

In the next level, children value rules, which they follow in order to get approval from others. In the first stage of this level, children want the approval only of people who are close to them. In the second stage, children become more concerned with the rules of the broader society.

Level 3: The Postconventional Level

In the final level, people become more flexible and consider what’s personally important to them. In the first stage of this level, people still want to follow society’s rules, but they don’t see those rules as absolute. In the second stage, people figure out right and wrong for themselves, based on abstract ethical principles. Only a small proportion of people reach this last stage of moral reasoning.

Critiques of Kohlberg’s Theories

Research supports key parts of Kohlberg’s theory. People do tend to progress in order through Kohlberg’s stages, and cognitive and moral development do affect each other. However, critics of Kohlberg’s theory have two main concerns:

People often show the reasoning characteristic of several different levels simultaneously. For instance, in one situation, a person might reason as if he is at a conventional stage, and in another situation, he might use reasoning typical of a postconventional stage.
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development favors cultures that value individualism. In other cultures, highly moral people may base their reasoning on communal values rather than abstract ethical principles.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

	Level	Stage	What Determines Right and Wrong
1.	Preconventional	1	Punishment by adults
		2	Reward by adults
2.	Conventional	3	Rules set by close people
		4	Rules set by society
3.	Postconventional	5	Rules set by society, judged by what’s personally important
		6	Rules based on abstract ethical principles

Introduction

Compare and contrast the development theories of Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky Child development has been an area of study that has attracted an enormous amount of interest and debate since the last century. Jean Piaget (1886 - 1980) pioneered the theory of cognitive development and has possibly been one of the most influential figures within this area. However, the work of Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) and Jerome Bruner has been paramount in discrediting a lot of the work carried out by Piaget. However, it should be remembered that Piaget has influenced education in many ways. His theories and studies show that knowledge is acquired by active exploration and many of his theories are still being used within the education system today. This essay will compare and contrast the development theories of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. Analysing the theories of each, and whilst not arguing that one theory is truer than the other, discovering the comparisons between the three through evidence and facts, gained through a variety of sources and asking questions of each theory throughout. Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. ...read more.

Middle

Bruner stated that representation "is the way that we manage to keep hold of our past experiences" (Bruner, 1966, pg 11). The enactive mode of learning takes place by manipulation of objects and things. The iconic mode objects are represented by visual images. In the symbolic mode, symbols are used instead of objects or mental images. A major difference between the theory of Piaget and Bruner is that whilst Piaget's fourth stage ends at the end of childhood, Bruner's theory states that whilst children pass through all three of his stages during childhood, the adult continues to use these three modes throughout life. Bruner quoted that 'any subject could be taught to any child at any age in some form that is honest' (http://www.nkjo-legnica.oswiata.org.pl/data/orbis/text/KURPAGOT.htm) This is explained by Bruner in the use of prime numbers and how young children can be taught mathematical problems. 'The concept of prime numbers appears to be more readily grasped when the child, through construction, discovers that certain handfuls of beans cannot be laid out in completed rows and columns. Such quantities have either to be laid out in a single file or in an incomplete row-column design in which there is always one extra or one too few to fill the pattern. ...read more.

Conclusion

Piaget also ignores the importance of social relationships, whereas Bruner says that interaction within the environment is essential within the process of cognitive development. In Summary it should be remembered that children think differently from adults and there are major differences in the way children of different ages understand the world around them. Piager, Bruner and Vygotsky all showed that a child's learning and understanding is influenced by the environment, society and culture, and individual abilities can be traced within the Zone of Proximal Development, but there are certain stages of development that all children, either with or without the assistance of adults will pass through. However, as stated previously this is dependant on the child's own development and has to take into consideration things such as social surroundings, disabilities and the availability of peers, adults and mentors. Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner have all produced theories which still influence the way children are raised in society today and whilst they have many contrasting ideas, there are also similarities in their work. It should also be remembered that whilst many have criticised the work and theories of Piaget he did create the first study into the cognitive development of children, and his theory encouraged many other psychologists into further studies of development. ...read more.