Transforming a Developmental Psychology Course

Jack Meacham
State University of New York at Buffalo

During the past two years I have been transforming a course on developmental psychology, striving to give greater attention to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and religion along with the more traditional topics for this course. On other campuses, this same course might be called childhood and adolescence, or human development, or child and family development. There are many excellent 400- to 700-page textbooks available for a traditional course on developmental psychology. Helen Bee's (1995) "The developing child" and Michael and Shiela Cole's (1996) "The development of children" both do a better job of addressing issues of race, ethnicity, and gender than do many texts. [Some other textbooks on developmental psychology could do much more, as I have argued elsewhere (Meacham, 1996a).] Many developmental psychology courses and textbooks are organized chronologically, from infancy through early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and sometimes adult development and aging. Other developmental psychology courses and textbooks are organized topically, addressing in turn the development of perception, cognition, language, personality, the self, social relationships, and similar topics.

Goals
My initial interest in transforming this course grew out of teaching SUNY at Buffalo's American Pluralism course, which aims to introduce students to historical and contemporary issues of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and religious sectarianism in American society, and later out of my involvement in conferences and activities of AAC&U's American Commitments initiative. My principal goals in transforming this developmental psychology course were twofold: First, I wanted to increase significantly the students' engagement with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and religious sectarianism. Granted, there is far more attention to these issues within traditional textbooks than there was a decade or two ago. Yet in general these issues remain marginalized within the discipline of developmental psychology, just as various groups continue to be marginalized within our society.

For example, a well-known textbook in developmental psychology, otherwise one of my favorites, now features a series of "across cultures" boxes for the presentation of "variations of developmental patterns as functions of culture or subcultural differences." In other words, the story of normative changes and development--as though white, middle-class, heterosexual boys and men had no race, social class, sexual orientation, or gender--is presented in the main running text and then on the margins of the pages, safely circumscribed in boxes, are presented the stories of the children of all those groups that are "deviant" from the norm and thus implicitly abnormal, subordinate, and inferior. However, I felt that it was important to have issues of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and religion be not merely add-ons to the existing structure of a course on developmental psychology. Instead, I wanted these issues to have a continuing presence as core, foundational constructs in the course.

My second goal in transforming this developmental course was to provide students with a greater range of voices and viewpoints--beyond mine and that of the author of the textbook--on what are the significant dimensions and issues of human development. Ideally, a course on developmental psychology should include opportunities for students to observe and interact with children, adolescents, and families of a variety of backgrounds and experiences and in a variety of settings. However, I teach developmental psychology to classes of 200 to 350 students, and so arranging opportunities to observe and interact with children and families or even to have children or adolescents as guests in my classroom is simply not realistic. Instead, I decided to build this transformed course around a series of autobiographies, chosen to represent child and adolescent development for individuals of diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Teaching With Autobiographies
Autobiographical voices provide distinct advantages over textbook voices in a course on developmental psychology: The students find it easier to become engaged with the real individuals portrayed in the autobiographies than with the modal but abstracted and impersonal research participants presented in the textbooks. Second, full-length autobiographies permit the students to understand the course of development in far greater depth and complexity than do only selected chapters from autobiographies or research summaries or anecdotes. (In the language of developmental psychology, autobiographies represent longitudinal case studies as opposed to the typical cross-sectional data.) Third, as the students and I read these autobiographies together, Sara, Russell, Lucy Elizabeth, Skip, Negi, and Lydia become familiar characters to us. Knowing their stories and knowing these individuals by name facilitates our class discussions over the course of the term. My students also refer to these characters by name in our e-mail discussions outside of class, often comparing these autobiographical lives with their own personal experiences (Meacham, 1994a).

Adding several full-length autobiographies to my course on developmental psychology has involved sacrifices, of course. I decided that I could no longer ask students to purchase and read a traditional 400- to 700-page textbook on developmental psychology. And I concluded that I could no longer survey all of the mainstream theoretical approaches to understanding human development, including social learning, information-processing, and ethological approaches (Miller, 1993). And I found it necessary to spend less time on infancy and adult development and aging, concentrating instead on developmental issues of childhood and adolescence. On the one hand, it has been difficult to stop teaching material that has been part of my repertoire for many years; on the other hand, transforming this course on developmental psychology has forced me to consider what, out of all the topics I am prepared to teach, is truly most important for my students to learn.

Jean Piaget's structural-developmental theory was the obvious choice both as the one theoretical approach that all students of human development and education must become familiar with and as a framework that could serve as a conceptual and pedagogical tool for linking the various autobiographies that the students would read in this course. The nature of Piaget's work and his contributions to our understanding of human development are commonly misunderstood (Chapman, 1988; Lourenco and Machado, 1996). For example, Piaget's theory is sometimes thought to address only cognitive or intellectual development, but in fact the theory has much to say about social, affective, and moral development as well. Fortunately, Barry Wadsworth (1996) has written a short introduction to Piaget's theory of cognitive and affective development that is very accessible to undergraduate students. (Alas, this is an expensive textbook.)

In addition to Piaget's theory, I also introduce students to Erik Erikson's (1950) theory and its eight stages of psychosocial development. These eight stages, involving issues of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity, are useful not only in considering the child and adolescent protagonists in the autobiographies that we read but also the developmental dynamics of their parents and grandparents. I have found it necessary to prepare handouts for distribution to my students on such topics as attachment styles, parenting styles, and moral development, in order to replace content that would otherwise be presented in one of the traditional textbooks. With these changes, I am able to describe my transformed course on developmental psychology on the course syllabus as follows:

"The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to major theories and current research findings in child and adolescent development and a survey of issues in child and family development in contemporary American society. This course will include topics such as Piaget's structural-developmental theory, cognitive development, affective development, social development, family, societal, and cultural contexts for development, Erikson's psychosocial theory, identity development, attachment in infancy, moral development, race and ethnicity, gender-role development, parenting styles, minority identity development, religious development, divorce, quality of schools, and funding of public education."

Autobiographies About Child and Adolescent Development
In the past couple of years I have surveyed and read quite a few autobiographies, looking for ones that meet the following criteria: Of course, I have to focus on autobiographies that are primarily stories of growing up, of childhood and adolescence rather than adulthood and aging. And I am particularly concerned that I have a range of autobiographies that will illustrate the many developmental milestones and acquisitions that must be part of any course in developmental psychology. I want the stories to be true and not fictional, because I am concerned that it would otherwise be too easy for the students to discount fictional accounts. In the end, I have adopted some novels that might not be, strictly speaking, autobiographies, but my understanding is that these stories are grounded to a large extent in the autobiographical experiences of the authors. It is important to have a set of autobiographies for the course that is representative in portraying growing up in America from the perspectives of individuals of different genders, races, and ethnicities. In addition, the majority of undergraduates at SUNY at Buffalo come from the New York City region, and I want them to be reading autobiographies that reflect in part their own backgrounds and experiences. (I welcome suggestions for additional autobiographies to consider for adoption in this course.)

I always begin the course with Anzia Yezierska's "Bread Givers," primarily because the story is so engaging that most students finish reading this story well ahead of my syllabus schedule and also because a substantial minority of my students are themselves Jewish. This is the story of Sara, the youngest of four daughters in a Jewish immigrant family living in New York City around the turn of the century. This story, which is largely autobiographical, provides opportunities for discussions of personality development in terms of Erikson's theory, transitional egocentrism as described by Piaget, relations between parents and children, becoming independent from one's parents, identity development, intimacy in interpersonal relations, and expectations for daughters and how they are raised. At the same time, "Bread Givers" serves to introduce some issues that are not normally part of a course on developmental psychology: immigration, both historical and current; separatism versus assimilation; what it has meant to become an American; and the role of public schools in "Americanizing" immigrant children. I have presented the conceptual framework that I use for teaching on issues of separatism versus assimilation as well as race, ethnicity, gender, and religious sectarianism elsewhere (Meacham, 1994b).

Russell Baker's "Growing Up" provides a "hook" in the course for my non-Hispanic, European-American males. This is an often humorous story about the awkwardnesses of adolescence and the uncertainties of what to do in life. The story comes to closure as Russell serves in the Navy, embarks on a successful career as a journalist, and gets married. At the same time--and in my mind an important reason for adopting this text--this is the story of Russell's mother, Lucy Elizabeth, and her struggles as a single woman raising a family during the Depression. Of course, "Growing Up" provides good openings for talking with my students about poverty for children and families today, about the diversity of family structures for children in the United States, about who is really receiving welfare benefits and how modest those benefits are, and about social class and privilege and merit. Both Piaget's structural- developmental theory and Erikson's psychosocial theory can be further illustrated with material from "Growing Up." In addition, the death of Russell's father and Lucy Elizabeth's decision to give up her younger daughter for adoption provide an opening for introducing attachment theory and presenting the long-term consequences of secure relationships between parents and children.

I have been delighted to teach with Esmeralda Santiago's "When I was Puerto Rican," for the social interactions and moral dilemmas she experiences as a young girl growing up in Puerto Rico and later in moving to New York City provide excellent examples of the developmental changes described by Piaget's theory, in particular, the construction of reciprocity, mutual respect, and responsibility in late childhood and the construction of a set of values, autonomy of thought, and moral will in early to middle adolescence. An important incident in this autobiography involves an accidental injury to Negi's (Esmeralda's) younger brother while she is responsible for his care. Subsequently, she judges herself too harshly, for she is not yet old enough to distinguish consequences as opposed to intentions in her moral judgments. Clearly, this is a good place in the course to introduce Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development. In addition, either here or earlier in the course I acquaint students with Diana Baumrind's research on parenting styles--authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent or permissive, and neglectful--and we have great discussions of which style best describes Russell's mother Lucy Elizabeth as well as Negi's mother and father. Towards the end of "When I was Puerto Rican," Negi's mother and the children move to New York, unaccompanied by their father. This provides yet another opportunity in the course to discuss the impact of poverty upon family structure. (If I were teaching in another part of the United States, I might look for an autobiography reflecting Mexican- American culture.)

"Colored People" is the story of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s growing up in a small town in West Virginia. This autobiography differs from the others in being less the story of an individual and more the story of an African-American community and the difficult questions of what was gained as well as what was lost in the 1960s movement towards integration. "Colored People" provides many personalities and events that can be useful starting points for classroom discussion and writing, including a view of the unfolding of the Civil Rights Movement from inside the Black community. At this point in the course, I make a major effort to educate students to the fact that race is not an objective, scientific, biologically- grounded concept, and that instead we need to understand race as a social, cultural, and political concept imposed arbitrarily upon the gradual variation of skin color (Marks, 1996). Themes and issues introduced earlier in the course--separatism and assimilation, identity development, and interpersonal relations--can be reviewed with new examples from "Colored People." In addition, the emphasis in the earlier autobiographies on children's relationships with their mothers is balanced somewhat in "Colored People" by the complex dynamics between Skip (Henry) and his father. In teaching about Skip I focus primarily on the development of his understanding of religion and his relationship to his church, topics in which my students have considerable interest.

"Talking to High Monks in the Snow" is Lydia Minatoya's story of growing up as the only Japanese-American she knew, other than her own family, in Albany, New York. I've selected this autobiography in part because of this local angle. Lydia's story differs from the others in providing more complete pictures of both the lives of her parents and grandparents as well as her own life as she moves beyond adolescence into both career and identity crises and relations of intimacy in young adulthood. Thus "Talking to High Monks in the Snow" serves to move the discussions with my students away from the course's focus upon childhood and adolescence and towards broader issues of family, generations, and cultural identity. There are good examples throughout this autobiography for teaching more about parenting styles, identity development, and stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. (Lydia's parents meet in an internment camp during World War II.) I focus in particular upon Lydia's development through the stages of ethnic minority identity development, building primarily on work by Jean Phinney (1996). "Talking to High Monks in the Snow" provides excellent examples of the three primary stages, unexamined ethnic identity, exploration, and achieved ethnic identity. Once I have introduced these stages, I use them to reconsider the development of Skip Gates' racial and ethnic identity. Together, some events from Lydia's story and an event in Esmeralda Santiago's story also provide an opening for discussion of affirmative action programs.

At the present time I close my course on developmental psychology by having the students read Jonathan Kozol's "Savage Inequalities." There are some problems with using this text at this point in the course. First, this is not an autobiography, and so the rhythm of the course is broken. Second, although I find important new points in each of the six chapters, many of my students complain that the book is repetitive and tedious. On the other hand, I find that "Savage Inequalities" is a very useful text for getting students to understand privilege and to recognize how they have benefitted from privilege, to understand how (for most of them) their good fortune of living in a well-funded school district has helped prepare them better for admission to college, to understand the racial and social class issues intertwined with current proposals to change the structure of and the basis for funding of public education, and to understand the important distinctions between individual discrimination, on the one hand, and institutional and structural discrimination, on the other (Pincus, 1996). All of these topics are at the same time both issues of American pluralism and issues affecting the conditions and opportunities for development of children and adolescents in America.

References

Baker, Russell (1982). Growing up. New York: Signet. Bee, H. (1995). The developing child (7th edition). New York: HarperCollins.

Chapman, M. (1988). Constructive evolution: Origins and development of Piaget's thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cole, M., and Cole, S. R. (1996). The development of children (3rd edition). New York: Freeman.

Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society (2nd edition). New York: Norton.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1994). Colored people. New York: Knopf.

Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: HarperPerennial.

Lourenco, O., and Machado, A. (1996). In defense of Piaget's theory: A reply to ten common criticisms. Psychological Review, 103(1), 143-164.

Marks, J. (1996). Science and race. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(2), 123-133.

Meacham, J. A. (1994). Discussions by e-mail: Experiences from a large class on multiculturalism. Liberal Education, 80(4), 36-39. (a)

Meacham, J. A. (1994). Identity, community, and prejudice. Journal of Adult Development, 1(3), 169-180. (b)

Meacham, J. A. (1996). Not my developmental psychology! (Review of R. Parke et al (Eds.), A century of developmental psychology). Contemporary Psychology, 41(4), 334-336. (a)

Meacham, J. A. (1996). Review of H. L. Gates, Jr., Colored people: A memoir. Multicultural Education, 3(3, Spring), 26. (b)

Miller, Patricia H (1993). Theories of developmental psychology (3rd edition). New York: Freeman.

Minatoya, Lydia (1993). Talking to high monks in the snow. New York: HarperPerennial.

Phinney, J. (1996). Understanding ethnic diversity: The role of ethnic identity. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(2), 143- 152.

Pincus, F. L. (1996). Discrimination comes in many forms: Individual, institutional, and structural. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(2), 186-194.

Santiago, Esmeralda (1993). When I was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage. Wadsworth, Barry J. (1996). Piaget's theory of cognitive and affective development: Foundations of constructivism (5th edition). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Yezierska, Anzia (1925). Bread Givers. New York: Persea

Books

Additional autobiographies with a focus on childhood and adolescence:

Rudolfo Anaya. Bless Me, Ultima.

Maya Angelou. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Sandra Cisneros. The House on Mango Street.

Annie Dillard. An American Childhood.

Judith Ortiz Cofer. Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault. In My Place.

Maxine Hong Kingston. The Woman Warrier.

Margaret Mead. Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years.

Americo Paredes. George Washington Gomez.

Richard Rodriguez. Hunger of Memory.

Ntozake Shange. Betsy Brown

Brent Staples. Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White.

Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club.

Viktor Villasenor. Rain of Gold.