다양한 관점에서 본 유아에 대한 이해

Diverse Perspectives of Understanding the Children: Cognitive Constructivism, Social Constructivism, DAP, and Postmodernism

The theoretical perspectives have been developed and changed based upon the social, historical and cultural backgrounds. Developmental psychology has impacted the most on early childhood education through the 20th century. However, new understanding about the children is required due to the fast changes in the 21th century. In this paper, cognitive constructivism, social constructivism, DAP and postmodernism were studied and the characteristics of children were analyzed according to the criteria of subjectivity/dependence, hierarchy/completeness, generality/variety or individuality, immaturity /competency and social interaction/physical interaction. The conclusions of this study were as follows: First, children are subjective beings who construct knowledge actively through interaction with environment. Second, children are competent, in some aspects more competent than adults. Third, children grow through the social interaction among the network of human being whose ethnical, cultural, socio-economical status and individual characteristics vary. Fourth, children posses their own characteristics and varieties which can not be compared with the standardized criteria from experimental studies. And fifth, children are complete beings as their own lives.