Jean piaget

Jean William Fritz Piaget (Neuchâtel, August 9, 1896-Geneva, September 16, 1980), known as Jean Piaget, was a psychologist, epistemologist and Swiss biologist, considered the father of genetic epistemology (related to the generation of new knowledge, the result of the development of structures and from functional mechanisms that are maintained throughout development; see also genetic psychology), recognized for his contributions to the study of childhood and for his constructivist cognitive theory of intelligence development, based on an evolutionary proposal of interaction between the subject and object.

Biography

Together with Pierre Bovet (first plane to the left), at the entrance of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute of the University of Geneva, 1925.

Jean Piaget and his wife, Valentina, at a conference of the International Bureau of Education in 1932.

The eldest son of the Swiss Arthur Piaget and the French Rebecca Jackson, Jean Piaget was born in Neuchâtel, a city in French-speaking Switzerland. His father was a prominent professor of medieval literature at the University of Neuchâtel. His maternal grandfather, James Jackson, was the creator of the first crucible steel factory in France.

Jean Piaget was a precocious child who developed an early interest in biology and the natural world, especially molluscs. At age 11, while studying at the Latino Institute in his hometown, he wrote a study on a certain species of albino sparrow and then wrote a treatise on malacology during his high school.

He graduated and received his doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Neuchâtel in 1918, with a thesis on the molluscs of the canton of Valais. Until his transfer to Paris in 1919, he served briefly at the University of Zurich where he published two papers on psychology. At that time he began his interest in Psychoanalysis, a context in which he also delved into the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. He was analyzed by Sabina Spielrein (she, years later, would attend the Congress of Psychoanalysis in Berlin in 1922, where she also met Freud personally).

After moving to Paris, he developed an intense academic life marked by contacts with notables in the area. He worked with Hans Lipps and Eugen Bleuler. He taught at a school for boys in the rue Grange-aux-Belles run by Alfred Binet, who had created together with Théodore Simon the scale and the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test . I had previously met Binet while studying at the University of Paris. When scoring some of the intelligence test tasks, Piaget noticed that children and young people gave wrong answers to certain questions, but that these errors were consistent and obeyed a certain regularity that deserved attention.

Thus, Piaget did not focus on the fact that the answers were wrong, but on the pattern of errors that some older children and adults no longer displayed. This first led him to venture the explanatory hypothesis that the cognitive or thinking process of young children is inherently different from that of adults (eventually he would go on to propose a comprehensive theory of developmental stages, stating that individuals exhibit certain common and distinguishable patterns of cognition in each period). In 1920 he also participated in improving the IQ Intelligence Test. (Intellectual Quotient) developed by Stern.

He returned to Switzerland in 1921 and joined the Rousseau Institute in Geneva, where he was director of research.

In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay, with whom he had three children: Lucienne, Laurent and Jacqueline, whom Piaget studied from their childhood.

From 1936, while teaching at the University of Lausanne and editor of renowned scientific publications in this field (such as the Archives de Psychologie and the Revue Suisse de Psychologie ), was appointed director of the International Bureau of Education, an international organization that in 1969 would become part of UNESCO.

During the years 1951 to 1954 he was Secretary General of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS).

In 1955, Piaget created the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, which he directed until his death in 1980.

Theory

His main influences, in addition to those of Alfred Binet, were those of James Mark Baldwin, from whom he borrowed the notions of adaptation by assimilation and accommodation in circularity (circularity can be understood as feedback). Through Baldwin he was influenced by Spencer's evolutionary philosophy, a philosophy directly imbued with Darwin's theory. Piaget thus undertook his theorization and achieved his discoveries by having a perspective that is at the same time biological, logical and psychological, coming together in a new epistemology. That is why he talks about a genetic epistemology, understanding here epistemology, not as the branch of philosophy that studies science, but as the investigation of cognitive abilities (in an absolutely empirical way, which also differentiates it from Gnoseology). Regarding the use of the concept of genetics, this does not refer so much to the field of biology that studies genes, but rather to the investigation of the genesis of thinking in humans, although Piaget certainly recognizes that such genesis of thinking has largely (though by no means entirely) patterns that derive from genes. However, and it is one of Piaget's great discoveries, thinking unfolds from a genetic base only through sociocultural stimuli, just as thinking is configured by the information that the subject receives, information that the subject always learns in a different way. active, no matter how unconscious and passive the processing of information may seem.

He published several studies on child psychology and initially started by carefully observing the growth of his children, he developed a hypothesis of sensorimotor intelligence that describes the almost spontaneous development of a practical intelligence that is based on action (praxis —in the plural, praxia—). Subsequently, he carried out multiple investigations to continue building and expanding his theory.

Piaget maintains in his theory on child cognitive development that the principles of logic begin to be installed before the acquisition of language, being generated through the sensory and motor activity of the baby in interaction and interrelation with the environment, especially with the sociocultural environment (the latter, from Vygotskian psychology, is usually called cultural mediation).

In The psychology of intelligence (1947) Piaget compiles the classes given at the Collège de France during the year 1942, summarizing there his psychogenetic investigations of intelligence; in such a work Piaget postulates that logic is the basis of thought; and that consequently intelligence is a generic term to designate the set of logical operations for which the human being is capable, ranging from perception, operations of classification, substitution, abstraction, etc., to —at least— the proportional calculation.

Jean Piaget worked with the South African mathematician Seymour Papert at the University of Geneva from 1959 to 1963.

Piaget shows that there are qualitative differences between child thinking and adult thinking, moreover: there are qualitative differences at different moments or stages of childhood (which does not imply that not there is in current human society a multitude of chronological adults who maintain a puerile mental age, explainable by the effect of the social environment).

Then the Constructivist theory of learning emerged, of his authorship.

By such demonstration, Piaget notes that cognitive ability and intelligence are closely linked to the social and physical environment. This is how Piaget considers that the two processes that characterize the evolution and adaptation of the human psyche are those of assimilation and accommodation. Both are innate capacities that due to genetic factors (perhaps of the homeostasis type) unfold before certain stimuli in very determined stages or states of development, in very precise age periods (or to put it more simply: in certain successive ages).

Assimilation

The process of assimilation consists of the internalization or internalization of an object or an event to a pre-established behavioral and cognitive structure. For example, the child uses an object to carry out an activity that already exists in his motor repertoire or to decode a new event based on experiences and elements that were already known to him (for example: a baby who grabs a new object and carries it to his mouth, —grasping and carrying to the mouth are practically innate activities that are now used for a new objective—). Thus, the child carries out processes of assimilation when she learns to apply pre-existing schemes to new objects or situations.

Assimilation is the process through which people have an initial understanding or experimentation in terms of their stage of cognitive development and way of thinking. Assimilation occurs, then, when acting on a stimulus or event, which is perceived and understood in accordance with existing thought patterns. For example, an infant who tries to suck on any toy in the same way is assimilating the objects into her existing sucking schema. Similarly, a child who first sees a flying squirrel at the zoo and calls it "bird" is assimilating the squirrel to his existing schema of a bird. Also when exchanging experiences with the other beings that are in their environment.

Accommodation

Accommodation or adjustment is a psychological concept introduced by Jean Piaget. It is, along with assimilation, one of the two basic processes for this author in the process of cognitive development of the child, which will last for approximately the first 11 years. The equilibrations will begin after this age and these processes will be consolidated until the adult stage.

Accommodation is understood as the process by which the subject modifies his schemes (cognitive structures) in order to incorporate new objects into that cognitive structure. This can be achieved by creating a new schema, or modifying an existing schema so that the new stimulus can enter it. For this reason, this mechanism is usually considered a qualitative change in the scheme. From these procedures, which Piaget calls cognitive functions, the process of adaptation and cognitive balance between the scheme and the environment of the organism is established.

The accommodation consists of the modification of the cognitive structure or the behavioral scheme to accommodate new objects and events that until now were unknown to the child (in the case already given as an example, if the object is difficult to grasp, the baby should, for example, modify the modes of apprehension).

During these two processes, the infant will build the seriation, conservation and classification, to gradually build the bases of a new process called equilibrations. With at least three different types. Being only the cognitive imbalance the cause of the formation of human knowledge.

Balance

When new information is not immediately interpretable based on pre-existing schemes, the subject could enter a moment of crisis, causing him to seek to find again one of the three equilibrations (for this reason in Piaget's genetic epistemology there is talk of a fluctuating equilibrium), for this, modifications are produced in the cognitive schemes of the child, where new experiences can be incorporated, but with a purpose, interpretation, inference or conclusion at their level, which will have greater coherence to form their own logical operations.

As mentioned, this type of balancing is not static, being a problem for development; When looking for coherence in terms of new knowledge or information (said crisis) three different processes can occur; equilibration, rebalancing or imbalance, being schematically the;

Balance: find the logic but it is not of interest, forming part of schemes, remaining in the unconscious as information.

Rebalancing: find the logic, refreshing the assimilated information forming schemes or reinterpreting them.

Imbalance: due to his interest, there are doubts or he makes a mistake, since his logic is not satisfied, he carries out various activities to understand the doubt or resolve the error, that is, a homeostatic process to balance.

However, the three processes can also be combined in different positions, which is why they are closer to stationary but dynamic states, with exchanges capable of building and maintaining a structural order in an open system (Prigione, 1971), that is, highlighting that the balance is not neutral and can pass to the other two, depending on the thought and the needs of the subject to understand reality, that is, of his interest. This allows us to understand that rebalancing and imbalance play an important role; achieve compensation for the disturbance responsible for the imbalance that motivates the research and construction that characterize maximization, being a continuous evolution and a functional role of prime importance. However, these fluctuations are built in a complex system, for example, as mentioned above, it can happen that the subject's error can, among other things, achieve imbalance and rebalancing to continue with the construction of knowledge (Piaget, 1975).

That is, the equilibration process is not a goal of knowledge, and therefore it is not linear, there are different forms of equilibrium; The imbalances are the causal mechanisms of the equilibrations and re-equilibrations. Development being a complex system.

Maximizing Balances

These equilibrations potentially start in the last stage of childhood, with an infinity of links between the equilibrations and rebalancings, being the most relevant for development those that can be generated as the maximizing equilibrations, provoking self-organization. There is no way of thinking that is capable of coherently controlling the totality of reality. Imbalances are the ones that form the search engine, of knowing, executing the balancing and rebalancing under these built rules and being triggers, of the search for coherence, to arrive at reflexive abstract actions, for example when an adult reads his interest, and he finds a paragraph that he does not understand, he returns to the beginning of it to read it and find the answer to what he does not understand, it can generate a question and he will try to find an answer to that question that is logical for him by his own means (reflexive abstraction). But as explained, it is a possibility that, based on their needs or interests, they want to look for answers or the logic of what is being learned, which is why Piaget mentions that the balance of cognitive structures is a central problem for development (Piaget 1975)

The periods of cognitive development

Jean Piaget introduces the Child's Mental Processes. Through his research, he tries to find out how he thinks, in what aspects it is very different from adult thinking. This can be explained in the different stages or periods through which the child goes through, and in which, according to this author, he develops physically and mentally.

Piaget discarded the idea that the evolution of thought and cognitive development was a continuous or simply linear process, instead describing periods or stages in which certain characteristic schemes are configured and in which the conditions are generated for them to occur. produce the jump to the next stage, characterized in a new way and by new schemes. In some stages "assimilation" prevails, in others "accommodation" to have the minimum scaffolding to enter more than a decade later in the equilibrations. He essentially defined a sequence of four major stages or periods, which in turn are divided into substages. The stages follow one another, according to Piagetian «genetic epistemology» in such a way that in each of them the cognitive conditions at the level of the brain are generated (this is what the term «genetic» refers to here). thought so that the next stage can appear.

Sensimotor or sensorimotor period

This stage covers from 0 to 2 years. At this stage, the child uses his senses (which are in full development) and motor skills to know what is around him, initially entrusting himself to his reflexes and, later, to the combination of sensory and motor capacities of he. The first knowledge appears and it is prepared to later be able to think with images and concepts.

Children build their understanding of the world by coordinating their sensory experiences (such as vision and hearing) with physical and motor actions. They begin to put into use certain cognitive functions such as memory and thinking. They use imitation to expand their behavioral repertoire.

This period of sensory-motor intelligence can be further subdivided into six other substages or substages. The sequence of the stages is the most important regularity for Piaget, but not the precise age of its onset:

Using reflections

This stage develops from birth and is the main activity of the first month of life, characterized by the exercise of reflex acts that obey instinctive tendencies aimed at satisfying elementary needs (nutrition, for example) related to certain reflexes (the sucking reflex).

Primary circular reactions

This stage develops from approximately 1 month to 4 and a half months of life. It is characterized by the voluntary repetition of an activity that has provided pleasure. It is then said that the human being develops "primary circular reactions", that is, reiterates casual actions that were primarily pleasurable. A typical example is sucking on one's own finger, or on other parts of the body as a substitute for sucking on the nipple. It is called primary because they are focused on the body itself. It should be noted here that the sucking reflex of one's own finger already exists in intrauterine life.

Secondary circular reactions

Between the fourth month and a half of life and approximately 4 to 8 months, mainly thanks to the appearance of the ability to coordinate the movements of the extremities with those of the eyeballs, the infant can perform a directed grasp of the objects (visually «supervised»), so that their behavior can now be oriented towards the external environment, seeking to learn or move objects in a directed way, observing the results of their actions. Thus, for example, he can repeat a scheme to reproduce a certain sound and again obtain the gratification that it causes him. On the basis of these secondary circular reactions, the first motor habits are installed and better structured perceptions are structured.

The concept of phenomenal magical causation begins, establishing a cause and effect relationship between events that occur at the same time. For example, if the child moves his hand and a light turns on at that moment, the child will repeat that action so that it occurs again, since he will think that his action produces that effect.

Coordination of child schemas

This is the name given to the stage between 8 or 9 months and 11 or 12 months characterized by the coordination of secondary sensorimotor schemes in order to generalize and apply them to new situations.

Tertiary Circular Reactions

Occur between 13 and 17 months of life. They consist of the same process described above, although with important variations, the main one being the use of new means to achieve an objective that is already known. For example, take an object and use it to reach out to touch various surfaces. It is at this moment that the infant begins to have a notion of the permanence of objects. Before this moment, if the object is not in the field reachable by his senses, for him, literally, the object "does not exist".

Incipient appearance of symbolic thought

After 18 months, the child is already potentially able to anticipate the simple effects of the actions he is performing, or he can already make a rudimentary description of some deferred actions or objects not present but that he has perceived. He is also capable of carrying out purposeful sequences of actions such as using an object to open a door, using a stick as a "tool" to attract an object that is out of reach to himself. In addition, the first symbolic games begin, that is, those that propose an imagined situation, of the type "act as if..." or "play that...".

Preoperative or preoperative stage

The preoperative or preoperative stage is the second of the four stages. It follows the sensorimotor stage and takes place between approximately two and seven years of age.

This stage is marked by egocentrism, it is a stage based on me, mine and me. Piaget stated that at this stage, children still show immature aspects. A clear example of this can be seen in the practice of conservation. According to Piaget, conservation is the ability of a child to verify that two identical materials remain identical after one of them has undergone some transformation. Various kinds of experiments were performed on it. The liquid experiment, for example, consists of pouring the contents of a glass into a test tube and asking the child how far he thinks the liquid will go. He will surely answer wrongly that at the same height as in the glass, because he has not taken into account that the dimensions of the new container (high and thin) influence the result.

Their conversation is known as group monologues. represent concepts by developing and using symbols, usually in the form of words.

The following processes are characteristic of this stage: symbolic play, concentration, intuition, animism, egocentrism, juxtaposition and lack of reversibility (inability to preserve properties –of an object–).

The preoperational stage begins when a child begins to learn to speak at age two and continues until age seven. During the preoperational stage of cognitive development, Piaget noted that children do not understand concrete logic and cannot mentally manipulate information. The increase in play in children and pretending occurs at this stage. However, children still have trouble seeing things from different points of view.

Children's play is mainly characterized by symbolic play and the manipulation of symbols. Such a game is demonstrated in the idea that checkers are cookies, pieces of paper are plates, and that a box is a table. His observation of symbols exemplifies the idea of playing with the absence of the actual objects involved. By observing game sequences, Piaget was able to show that, around the second year, a qualitatively new class of psychological function occurs, called the Pre-operational Stage [Santrock, John W. (2004). Life-Span Development (9th Ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill College-Chapter 8].

The pre-operational stage is sparse and logically inadequate for considering mental operations. Children are capable of forming stable concepts as well as magical beliefs; however they are still unable to perform operations (tasks the child can do 'rather' mentally than physically). Thinking at this stage is still egocentric, which means that the child has difficulty seeing the point of view of others. The preoperational stage is divided into two substages: the symbolic function stage, and the intuitive thought substage.

The symbolic function substage is when children are able to understand, represent, remember, and create images of objects in their minds without having it in front of them.

The intuitive thinking substage is when kids tend to ask "Why?" and "How?". This stage is when children want to know everything [Santrock, John W. (2004). Life-Span Development (9th Ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill College-Chapter 8].

Preoperational substages

The importance of the pre-operational period and after the semiotic function or also called symbolic function is fundamental in our learning development between the first year of life and two years of age, and this is so because it is directly related to the beginning of existence for the baby of objects, space, chance and time. As the first more specific beginning of the existence of the objects, it occurs at 18 months onwards.

Symbolic function substitute

Children as young as two years old are seen using symbols to represent physical models of the world around them. This is demonstrated through the drawing of his family, in which people are not drawn to scale or without precision in physical features. The child knows that they are not exact but it does not seem to be something of importance to them. One of the most notable things about the symbolic function substage is that during it people begin to form an image of the individuals around them and begin to search for the meaning of objects and everything that surrounds them in their environment.

Sub-stage of intuitive thinking

Between the ages of four and seven, children tend to become very curious and ask a lot of questions, beginning to use primitive reasoning. The interest in reasoning and seeking to know why things are the way they are emerges. Piaget called it the "intuitive substage" because children realize that they have a vast amount of knowledge, but they do not realize how they have acquired it. Centering, conservation, irreversibility, class inclusion, and transitive interference are all characteristics of preoperational thought.

Stage of concrete operations

From 7 to 12 years old. When we talk about operations here, we refer to the logical operations used to solve problems. The child in this phase or stage no longer only uses the symbol, he is able to use the symbols in a logical way and, through the ability to conserve, reach sound generalizations. Around 6/7 years of age, the child acquires the intellectual capacity to conserve numerical quantities: lengths and liquid volumes. Here for 'conservation' it is understood the ability to understand that the quantity remains the same even though its form varies. Before, in the preoperative stage, for example, the child has been convinced that the quantity of a liter of water contained in a tall and long bottle is greater than that of the same liter of water transferred to a short and wide bottle (here there is a contact with the theory of Gestalt Psychology). On the other hand, a child who has reached the stage of concrete operations is intellectually capable of understanding that the quantity is the same (for example, a liter of water) in containers of many different shapes.

Around the age of 7/8 the child develops the ability to conserve materials. For example: taking a ball of clay and manipulating it to make several balls, the child is already aware that by gathering all the balls the amount of clay will be practically the original ball. The capacity just mentioned is called reversibility.

Around 9/10 years of age, the child has accessed the last step in the notion of conservation: the conservation of surfaces. For example, when faced with squares of paper, one can realize that they have the same surface even if these squares are piled up or even if they are scattered.

Stage of formal operations

From 12 onwards (all adult life).

The subject that is still in the stage of concrete operations has difficulty in applying their knowledge or abilities, acquired in concrete situations, to abstract situations. If an adult tells him "don't make fun of him because he's fat... what would you say if it happened to you?", the subject's response in the concrete operations stage would be: I am not fat. Due to the inability to consider at the level of thought two variables at the same time, or due to the fact of not having acceded to the notion of conservation, before the stage of formal operations a subject could, for example, think that after organizing his suitcase, it will weigh less because it has more free space.

According to this theory, from the age of 12 onwards the human brain would be potentially capable of truly abstract cognitive functions, since all the notions of conservation would already be consolidated, the ability to solve problems by handling several variables, the reversibility of thought can already be handled simultaneously and thus hypothetical deductive reasoning could be accessed. Piaget called this set of characteristics of adult thought the «stage of formal operations».

Balance of cognitive structures

The three kinds of equilibrations are the result of the progressive adjustment of assimilation and accommodation, which occur spontaneously or intuitively by successive trials, eliminating failures and retaining successes; but to the extent that the subject seeks a regulation in them, that is, he tends to obtain a coherent stability, then it becomes necessary to use the exclusions in a systematic way, ensuring only the balance with an exact correspondence of affirmations and denials.

"The progressive equilibration is an essential process of development, a process whose manifestations will be modified at each stage in the sense of a better balance both in its qualitative structure and in its field of application" (The equilibration of Cognitive structures: Central problem of development, Piaget, 1975).

Main Designations

• 1921-25. Research Director, Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, Geneva.
• 1925-29. Professor of Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy of Science, University of Neuchatel.
• 1929-39. Professor of History of Scientific Thinking, University of Geneva.
• 1929-67. Director, International Bureau of Education, Geneva.
• 1932-71. Director, Institute of Education Sciences, University of Geneva.
• 1938-51. Professor of Experimental Psychology and Sociology, University of Lausanne.
• 1939-51. Professor of Sociology, University of Geneva.
• 1940-71. Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Geneva.
• 1952-64. Professor of Genetic Psychology, Sorbonne, Paris.
• 1955-80. Director, International Centre for Genetic Epistemology, Geneva.
• 1971-80. Professor Emeritus, University of Geneva.

Other Designations

• Chairman

Swiss UNESCO Commission

Swiss Psychological Society

French Language Association for Scientific Psychology

• Co-director: Department of Education, UNESCO.

• Member: Executive Board, UNESCO and 20 other academic societies

• Coeditor: Archives of Psychologie and seven other scientific journals

Honorary doctorates

• 1936 Harvard University
• 1946 Sorbonne
• 1949 University of Rio de Janeiro
• 1949 Bruxelles
• 1953 Chicago
• 1954 McGill
• 1958 Warsaw
• 1959 Manchester
• 1960 Oslo
• 1960 University of Cambridge
• 1962 Brandeis
• 1964 Montreal
• 1964 Aix-Marseille
• 1966
• 1966 University of Barcelona
• 1970 Yale University

Awards

• Erasmus Award (1972) and 11 other international awards.

Posts

[N del T: when possible, the references in English or French have been replaced by those available in Spanish].

• Bibliography. Piaget published more than 50 books and 500 articles as well as 37 volumes in the series "Etudes d'Epistémologie Génétique" [Estudios de Epistemología Genética]. Most of these publications are:

• Jean Piaget Archives Foundation (1989). The Jean Piaget Bibliography [The Bibliography of Jean Piaget]. Geneva: Jean Piaget Archives Foundation. ISBN 288288012X.

A decade classification of these publications from the period 1919-1980 is available in the Preface to:

Smith, L. (1993). Necessary knowledge. Hove: Erlbaum Associates Ltd.

Main works of Jean Piaget

• The representation of the world in the child (1926, in Spanish in 1973, Madrid: Editions Morata. Written by Jean Piaget and ten other collaborators).
• Language and thought in the child (1931)
• Judgment and Reasoning in the Child (1932)
• The moral criterion in the child (1934)
• The birth of intelligence in the child (1936)
• Development of the notion of time (1946)
• The formation of the symbol in the child (1946)
• Psychology of intelligence (1947)
• Introduction to genetic epistemology (1950)
• Six psychology studies (1964)
• Memory and intelligence (1968)
• Psychology and pedagogy (1969)
• Psychology of the child (first edition 1969 and last in 2015, with Bärbel Inhelder. Madrid. Editions Morata).
• The Composition of Forces and the Problem of the Voters (1975) Madrid. Morata Editions.
• Balance of cognitive structures, a development problem (1975)
• The Take of Consciousness (1976) with 13 other collaborators. Madrid. Morata Editions.
• Sociological studies (1977)
• Correspondence investigations (1980)
• Psychogenesis and History of Science (1982, together with Rolando García)
• The elementary forms of dialectics (1980, in Spanish in 1982).
• Towards a logic of significance (1987, postuma, together with Rolando Gacía)
• Morphisms and categories (1990, posthumous, along with Henriques, Ascher and Papert)

Autobiographies

• Piaget, J. (1952). Autobiography [Autobiography]. In E. Boring (ed.) History of psychology in autobiography. Vol. 4. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press
• Piaget, J. (1976). Autobiographie [Autobiography]. Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, 14 (38-39): 1-43

Main works

• 1918, Recherche [Search]. Lausanne: La Concorde
• 1924, Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l ́enfant [Judgment and reasoning in the child. Madrid: La Lectura, 1929. Reissue, 1972; Buenos Aires: Guadalupe]
• 1936, La naissance de l’intelligence chez l’enfant. [The Birth of Intelligence in the Child. Madrid: Aguilar, 1969]
• 1957, La construction du réel chez l’enfant. [The construction of the real in the child. Buenos Aires: Proteo, 1965]
• 1941, La genèse du nombre chez l ́enfant (with Alina Szeminska). [The genesis of the number in the child. Buenos Aires: Guadalupe, 1967]
• 1946, La formation du symbole chez l ́enfant. [The formation of the symbol in the child. Mexico: Fund for Economic Culture, 1961]
• 1949, Traité de logique. Essai de logistique opératorie. [Ensay of operative logic. Buenos Aires: Guadalupe, 1977]
• 1950, Introduction à l'épistémologie génétique. [Introduction to Genetic Epistemology. T1: Mathematical Thought. T2: Physical thought. T 3: Biological thinking, psychological thinking and sociological thinking. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1975]
• 1954, Les relations entre l ́intelligence et l ́affectivité dans le développement de l ́enfant. [Intelligence and Affectivity. Buenos Aires: AIQUE, 2001]
• 1955, De la logique de l'enfant à la logique de l'adolescent: Essai sur la construction des structures opératoires (with Bärbel Inhelder). [From the logic of the child to the logic of the adolescent. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1972]
• 1962, Commentary on Vygotsky's criticisms. New Ideas in Psychology, 13, 325-40, 1995
• 1965, Etudes Sociologiques. [ Sociological studies. Barcelona: Ariel, 1977]
• 1967, Logique et connaissance scientifique. [ Logic and scientific knowledge. Buenos Aires: Proteo, 1979]
• 1967, Biologie et connaissance. [Biology and Knowledge. Madrid: 21st Century, 1969]
• 1970, Piaget's theory. [Piaget's theory. Child and Learning Monographs, 2, 1981]
• 1970, Main trends in psychology. [Principal corridors in psychology] London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973
• 1975, L'équilibration des structures cognitives: problème central du développement. [The balancing of cognitive structures. Central development problem. Madrid: 21st Century, 1978
• 1977, Recherches sur l'abstraction réfléchissante (1). L'abstraction des relations logico-arithmétiques [Investigations on reflective abstraction. I. Abstraction of logical-math relationships. Buenos Aires: Huemul, 1979]
• 1977, Essay on necessity [Ensay on necessity]. Human Development, 29, 301-14, 1986
• 1981, Le Possible et le Nécessaire (1): L'évolution des possibles chez l'enfant. [As far as possible and as necessary. The evolution of potential in children] (Portuguese translation, 1986)
• 1983, Psychogenèse et historie des sciences (with Rolando García) [Psicogénesis e Historia de las Ciencias. Mexico: 21st Century, 1982]
• 1987, Vers une logique des significations (with Rolando García). [Towards a logic of meanings. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1989]
• 1990, Morphismes et catégories. [Morphismos and categories]. Neuchatel, Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé

Bibliography

• Beilin, H. (1992). Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 28, 191-204

• Bringuier, J. C. (1977). Conversations with Piaget. Barcelona: Gedisa (Original in French, 1997)

• Chapman, M. (1988). Constructive evolution: origins and development of Piaget's thought. [Evolution of Constructivism: Origins and Development of Piaget Thought] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

• Evans, R. (1973). Jean Piaget, the man and his ideas. New York: Dutton

• Kitchener, R. (1986). Piaget's theory of knowledge. New Haven: Yale University Press.

• Smith, L. (1992). Jean Piaget: critical assessments. 4 vols. London: Routledge

• Smith, L. (1996). Critical readings on Piaget. London: Routledge

• Vidal, F. (1994). Piaget before Piaget. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. In Spanish (1998): Piaget before being Piaget. Madrid: Editions Morata

• Vonèche, J. J. (1985). Genetic epistemology: Piaget's theory. International Encyclopedia of Educationvol. 4. Oxford: Pergamon

Academic institutions related to the work of Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget Archives (created in 1974, Geneva, Switzerland): http://www.unige.ch/piaget/

Alexandría Database (dependent on the Jean Piaget Archives): http://ael.archivespiaget.ch/

Jean Piaget Foundation for Psychological and Epistemological Research (created in 1976, Geneva, Switzerland): http://www.fondationjeanpiaget.ch/fjp/site/en/traduction/accueil/index.php

Jean Piaget Society: Society for the Study of Knowledge and Development (international academic institution, created in 1970): http://www.piaget.org/

Acknowledgments

This information is adapted from a biographical review of the work of Jean Piaget by:

• Smith, L. (1997). Jean Piaget. In N. Sheehy, A. Chapman. W.Conroy (eds). Biographical dictionary of psychology. London: Routledge.

Ephemeris

Day of the Educational Psychologist

• On September 17, every year, the "Day of Psychopedagogo" is celebrated in his honor, an efeméride established at a professional congress held on that date in 1982 and established in the certificate of foundation of the Argentine Federation of Psychopedagogues. Although it was initially an Argentine celebration, it has been extended to other countries. This date would have been set to commemorate the death of Jean Piaget, although in fact his death occurred a day earlier (on 16 September).