A Cornerstone Of Modern European And American Educational And Scientific Movement

Child Study Movement refers to the movement featured by the study of children in Europe and America the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Child Study was especially hot in America at that time. This Movement has its profound background and its scientific basis, being influenced deeply by the Darwinian theory of evolution. As Spencer was the first scholar to introduce the idea of evolution into the field of psychology, his psychology thoughts had a far-reaching influence on American functionalism psychology. In Europe, the development of psychology on children's early stage in Germany marked the beginning of Child Study Movement. Affected by the development of psychology in Germany and in accordance with the social needs of America the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Child Study saw a rapid progress and shaped a movement of great influence in many aspects. Granville Stanley Hall is the founder and organizer of the Child Study Movement in America. He was the first to use and to popularize the method of questionnaire. He collected a large amount of data and made a penetrating research in the characteristics of children's physical and psychological development in their adolescence. It was Hall who introduced the evolution theory into the field of psychology and put forward the Recapitulation theory.Child Study Movement played an important role in the development of education in Europe and America. First, it changed people's idea about education and promoted the development of the science of education; secondly, it made a psychological approach to children and applied psychology to education, laying a solid foundation for the birth and development of child psychology and educational psychology.Besides the introduction and the concluding parts, this dissertation consists of four chapters. The introductory part mainly states the motivations and the significance of the topic, the previous research, main contents, the structure and the methodology of the thesis. Chapter One gives an analysis of the scientific foundation and historic background of the Child Study Movement, discussing the influence of the theory of...