Pedology as Occupation in the Early Soviet Union

Byford, Andy

Abstract

Pedology experienced remarkable institutional expansion in the Soviet Union during the 1920s in the context of the Bolsheviks’ efforts to build a new, universal and progressive system of education, healthcare and child welfare. This chapter demonstrates the critical and distinctive, yet so far neglected, role that specifically occupational, as opposed to scientific, mobilization played in the history of Soviet pedology. The roots of pedology as an occupation are to be found before the revolution. The relationship between pedology and defectology during the 1920s was an evolving one and depended on the relative importance of their respective occupational niches. While defectology’s niche was dominant at the start of the decade, pedology’s came to prevail towards its end. The most important aspect of the dismantlement of pedology as an occupation was the denunciation of the policy of streaming and referrals, in which the pedology service had played such an instrumental role.

Citation

Byford, A. (in press). Pedology as Occupation in the Early Soviet Union. In A. Yasnitsky (Ed.), A history of Marxist psychology : the Golden Age of Soviet science (109-127). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429323423-8

• Online Publication Date: Oct 25, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jun 21, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 25, 2022
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 109-127
• Book Title: A history of Marxist psychology : the Golden Age of Soviet science.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429323423-8
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1651476
• Contract Date: Jun 21, 2020