The influence of psychology on constructing the pedagogic principles at the beginning of the 20th century had as its scenario a great number of children entering schools in the industrialized societies and the advent of evolutionist ideas which pointed out the absolute necessity to study and understand children’s development. Among the themes which run through educational debates and occurred all along the century and, until today are present, we can highlight: the relation between development and learning, the importance of education in developing psychism, and the teacher role in the teaching/learning process. The purpose of the present article is to examine how these themes appear in the thoughts of J.Dewey, E. Claparède, J. Piaget, H. Wallon, and L.S. Vygotsky. It is possible to identify two differing groups in relation to these themes: (i) those who subordinate the pedagogical process to the development of the child’s cognitive structure, considering that the basic content to be developed by education is the thinking process itself; (ii) those who consider that there is a definite role to be played by the school, that of teaching scientific and social relevant contents, that is to say, enable the child to control the knowledge demanded by society, considering that such learning process is one of the main vehicles of development.
Psychology and education; psychology theorists; development and learning