General
"Jean Piaget (UK: /piˈæʒeɪ/,[ US: /ˌpiːəˈʒeɪ, pjɑːˈʒeɪ/, French: [ʒɑ̃
pjaʒɛ]; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist
known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive
development and epistemological view are together called "genetic
epistemology".
Piaget placed great importance on the education of
children. As the Director of the International Bureau of Education, he
declared in 1934 that "only education is capable of saving our societies
from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual."[20] His theory of
child development is studied in pre-service education programs.
Educators continue to incorporate constructivist-based strategies.
Piaget
created the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva in
1955 while on the faculty of the University of Geneva and directed the
Center until his death in 1980.[21] The number of collaborations that
its founding made possible, and their impact, ultimately led to the
Center being referred to in the scholarly literature as "Piaget's
factory".
According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget was "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."[23] However, his ideas did not become widely popularized until the 1960s.[24] This then led to the emergence of the study of development as a major sub-discipline in psychology.[25] By the end of the 20th century, Piaget was second only to B. F. Skinner as the most cited psychologist of that era." (Source Wikipedia)
Theory
"Piaget defined himself as a 'genetic'
epistemologist, interested in the process of the qualitative development
of knowledge. He considered cognitive structures development as a
differentiation of biological regulations. When his entire theory first
became known – the theory in itself being based on a structuralist and a
cognitivitist approach – it was an outstanding and exciting development
in regards to the psychological community at that time.
There
are a total of four phases in Piaget's research program that included
books on certain topics of developmental psychology. In particular,
during one period of research, he described himself studying his own
three children, and carefully observing and interpreting their cognitive
development.[50] In one of his last books, Equilibration of Cognitive
Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development, he intends
to explain knowledge development as a process of equilibration using two
main concepts in his theory, assimilation and accommodation, as
belonging not only to biological interactions but also to cognitive
ones.
Piaget believed answers for the epistemological questions at his time could be answered, or better proposed, if one looked to the genetic aspect of it, hence his experimentations with children and adolescents. As he says in the introduction of his book Genetic Epistemology: "What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."" (Source Wikipedia)
Stages
Piaget
major thesis was that human beings are developing their self in stages
according a logical model of of their sociological, biological and
intellectual development.