In view of the cognitive development of children, the scientific approach seems to have given a more comprehensive understanding. As understanding of the cognitive development of a child requires us to know what is going on in the child’s mind, the psychologist inevitably needs to provide evidence to illustrate such an abstract subject. Thus, by adopting a systematic research through experiments and observation, the scientific approach has provided grounds for their findings and claims. Piaget, (Rogers, 2003) one of the most influential theorists, developed his theory of cognitive development through systematic observations of children. Through an observation of a group of boys playing marbles and examining how different boys of different age groups comply with the rules of various games, Piaget proposed that children undergo a series of transformations in how they think, passing through a sequence of stages of development.
Other experiments of Piaget include “The conservation of liquid tasks” (Rogers, 2003), which implied that younger children appeared to reason that the change in the appearance meant a change in the actual quantity of an object, thus, cognitively, young children think in fundamentally different ways from adults. Hence, Piaget’s theory provides a classic illustration of the aptness of scientific approaches to understanding childhood by establishing objective facts through well conducted scientific research. The social constructionist approach certainly cannot shed light in this aspect as the world view of a child would not have any impact on how children think or how children develop their cognitive reasoning.
Besides aiding us in the understanding of cognitive development of children, the scientific approach is also seen as a better approach in providing understanding to the moral reasoning of children and whether they understood the significance and consequences of their actions. Piaget (Rogers, 2003) had carried out “The three mountain tasks” to establish how and at what stage children are able to imagine from another person’s perspective. From this experiment, Piaget concluded that children about seven to eight years of age were very strongly influenced by the appearances of things. They were unable to imagine another person’s viewpoint. Hence, they were thought to be egocentric.
Kohlberg, (Rogers, 2003) another developmental psychologist, used moral dilemmas through a combination of experiments and observations to study how children develop the capacity to make moral judgments and devised a stage theory of moral development. He proposed that, like other forms of cognitive development, moral development also progresses through each stage sequentially.
Hence, the scientific approach had illustrated objective facts about how children develop their moral reasoning capacity. It is a means of assessing whether or not an individual child has reached a particular level of cognitive competence and moral understanding. It is superior to the social constructionist approach in this aspect since the social constructionist approach is unable to assess the child’s level of moral reasoning by a mere analysis of discourses prevailing in one’s culture or society. A child’s moral values may be socially constructed, but the development of his ability to reason is independent, thus not constructed by ideology of the world. It is not possible to generalize the child’s moral development through societal beliefs.
The scientific approach provides reliable grounds for establishing the maturity level of children’s moral development and is also an approach used to guide decisions, for instance, when children (Rogers, 2003) should be held legally responsible for the crimes they account. In spite of the above, the social constructionist approach provides an even more comprehensive and more widely accepted approach to dealing with children who commit crimes, despite the competence of scientific approach in producing evidence of criminal intentions. Take for example the case of two ten-year old boys who were prosecuted for the murder of James Bulger in 1993 in Liverpool, England. The psychiatrist concluded that they did have an understanding that what they had done was wrong, which allowed them to be tried for murder. Though the two boys were sentenced to be held in secure units, the primary purpose of such a sentence would not be to imprison, but to seek to rehabilitate them. The authorities treat the children as those in need of help, rather than in need of punishment.
In another instance such as the Raedergard case in Norway, two six-year old boys who murdered a five-year old girl were treated as victims and not as murderers as the Norwegian legal system does not recognize children under the age of fifteen to be guilty. Thus, a comparison of these two cases reveals that ideas about children’s innocence are not simply tied to ideas about age and social expectations, but to what children can be expected to know, and how far and at what ages they have developed a moral consciousness and ability to reason. Looking back at the two boys in England, they simply could not be tried at all had they been Norwegian. Thus, the scientific approach should be emphasized as it gives a clear answer into the moral development of the two six-year old children.
In addition, as illustrated by the interviews by Diane Tayler about the Bulger case, we can see that there are controversial opinions on the age of criminal responsibility. There was one interviewed person who felt that such an age should be altered to eight years, whereas two other interviewees find that the age of criminal responsibility should be altered to fourteen or fifteen years. The way in which a childhood is socially constructed affects the way that the child will be treated and as such different policies reflect different notions of what a child should be. The social constructionist approach has allowed people to recognize that children who commit serious crime can be seen from different standpoints.
With the above illustrations, it is evidenced that each approach perceives children and childhood from different perspectives, focuses on different issues and concerns and thus leads to different ways of answering questions about children and childhood. As such, the two approaches can be complementary in some ways. In the use of an applied approach, people draw upon the scientific approach to obtain practical and objective facts about children. Meanwhile, social constructionist approach is used to take account of the variety of ways in which children and childhood are constructed. In Asquith’s applied approach, he used the scientific approach where he built his analysis in part on developmental theories and the results obtained from scientific studies of children’s capacities at different stages in their development. Meanwhile, he also drew upon the social constructionist approach in his analysis of how children who kill are treated by law.
In conclusion, the understanding of childhood is never pre-determined. They have differed since historical times and over the ages, with variations between different societies, cultures and communities. The scientific approach has offered objective facts about children and provides comprehensive assessment of the cognitive and moral development of children. Without such information, all people can do is to fall back by basing their actions on subjective opinions and preconceptions. The scientific approach offers clarity and practical guidance to people’s actions. On the other hand, the social constructionist approach highlights the alternative ways of viewing social phenomena which will influence the actions people take and value judgments they make. Most importantly, the real power of social constructionism lies in the idea of multiple realities itself. Hence, both approaches are necessary and useful in the understanding of childhood.
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References
Wendy Stainton Rogers (2003) ‘What is a child’ in Martin, W. & Heather, M. (ed) Understanding childhood, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons/The Open University.