ANDY BYFORDDurham University, UK

4S+EASSTCopenhagen, Denmark

17-20 October 2012

Mental Test as Boundary Object in Early 20th Century

Russian Child Science

CHILD SCIENCE Bio-psycho-social study of child development 1880s-1930s Professional/scientific movement Heterogeneous field of scientific work Collaborative interaction across disciplinary,

professional and administrative structures and environments

PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING Not a discipline-specific practice or

methodology

psychology

medicine politics

parents

education

law

RUSSIAN/SOVIET CHILD SCIENCE 1880s-90s reliant on pioneering work

done in the West 1900s-10s independent expansion of a

network of labs, courses, institutes, journals, conferences

early-mid 1920s enthusiastic support from new Bolshevik state; modernizing agenda of radical social transformation; diversity of strands and approaches

late 1920s transforming a fragmented network into an official, policy-driven ‘super-science of the child’ (paedology)

early 1930s ideological scrutiny and mounting criticism following Stalinist takeover

1936 Communist Party decree vilifying ‘child science’, singling out mental testing in particular, leading to its complete institutional ‘liquidation’

‘Paedological distortions’in the Commissariat of Education

(Pravda, August 1936)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS What made possible such a

heterogeneous field of scientific, professional (and political) work?

What was involved in the interactions and negotiations across the multiplicity of professional territories, disciplinary boundaries, institutional structures, communities of practice, and stakeholder interests that made up this field

In what way did this work cohere into a ‘joint enterprise’, if at all?

APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM

1. ‘COLLABORATION’ rhetoric of collaboration

(interdisciplinarity, alliances …) boundary work (intra- & inter-

disciplinary/professional politics; precariously negotiated division of territories of action).

2. ‘CONSENSUS’ elusive integration of disciplinary

definitions, shared meanings, common aims, agreed-upon methods

3. BOUNDARY OBJECTS Star & Griesmer (1989)

BOUNDARY OBJECTS ‘ill-structured’ (material/symbolic) social artefacts produced in, through and for particular scientific

work (becoming ‘instrumental’ to it) designed to allow flexible interpretations & mobile

uses across distinct areas of a heterogeneous field. ambiguity & displacement enables the displacement of (‘scientific’) work

across boundaries and between environments continued/maintained divergence of perspectives,

priorities and conventions of practice

‘THE EXPERIMENT’ university (philosophy departments) vs. (new) teacher-training establishments militancy of the term experimental psychology ~ experimental pedagogy (A. Nechaev)

‘THE LABORATORY’ metaphorical re-description of schools as laboratories school lab-kits school lessons as lab instruments‘the natural experiment’ (A. Lazursky)

‘THE EXAM’ scientific evaluation vs.bureaucratic assessment legitimation of teachers’ power(relationship to pupils, parents,school management, the public)

‘THE DIAGNOSIS’ teacher diagnostician & school doctor psychiatry & special education normal ~ pathological

‘THE METHOD’ black-boxing ‘psychological profile’ (G. Rossolimo) confusions and ambiguities

Nechaev – Lazursky – Rossolimo (1911)

ANDY BYFORDandy.byford@durham.ac.uk

Durham University, UKhttp://www.dur.ac.uk/russianchildscience/

SPONSORS:Arts & Humanities Research Council, UK

British Academy, UKDurham University, UK

Thank you!