Waiting for 1984

Extract

Psychologists working in the field of human development are understandably reluctant to make predictions. They prefer to work backwards, attempting to explain later behaviour in the light of earlier experience, but always aware of the multiple factors involved in the human situation and of the unreliability and inaccuracy of what has been recorded, often in retrospect. Reliable studies on a large enough scale are few and far between, especially in this country, while the increasing social and geographical mobility of the general population makes any longitudinal study over the years increasingly difficult to carry through.

Meanwhile, theories of child-rearing abound, varying not only from generation to generation but also according to the school of thought involved; more important, large sections of the population remain more or less untouched by such professional advice, even at the level of the popular women’s journals, so that the mores of regional subcultures persist, despite the attempts of teachers and social workers with what are now recognized as essentially middle-class professional goals and expectations.

Nevertheless, one factor on which there is increasing agreement is the importance of the earliest years, of the pre-school period spent largely within the family setting. What evidence there is suggests real differences at work within the range of social class, which will facilitate or hamper the work of formal education during the next ten or more years the children will spend in school. What these differences really are, and how they can be met without distorting or destroying what is valuable at each level, still remains a matter of conjecture.