Myth of Education

Introduction

The myth of education of Judith Rich Harris is a text that forces us to reassess traditional views that have been held on the socialization in the social sciences, but particularly in psychology. This test would affect not only in the level of specific theories, but on one of the assumptions that based: that parents have a privileged role in the psychological development and social development of their children. The origin of this book is in an article published in Psychological Review (Harris, 1995) 1, which was awarded the George A. Miller Partnership American Psychological (APA). Throughout this text, the author began to be known in the academic world, lacking links with universities or research institutes. Away from these institutions, their work had concentrate on writing psychology textbooks.

Discussion

In his work, Harris (1999) develops a strong argument with which shows that in parenting are two main factors: heredity genetics and peer groups, in this process, parents are relevant substantially smaller and comparatively irrelevant .. It argues that there has been a overestimation of the role of parents in raising children, and with the supported by an extensive literature review refers to the explanations on formation of personality can be located mainly in the inheritance (Nature) and the rearing environment (nurture). Indeed, consider the reader take consideration that this thesis, central to the text, it is not well expressed in the castellena translation of the title. Would be more appropriate to think of a direct translation of its English title (The nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do?), the would be the most related to the work. In his reading of the theories of human development, Harris explains that prevalence of parental figures appear in the developmental psychology course the popularization of the proposals of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. The role of parents are located in these proposals, in the foreground as the concebírseles implementing methods to control bowel and the use of rewards and punishment, among others. Similarly, parents are linked to the formation Super I, to mention only a Freudian categories.

Thus, to ask how children are shaped by experiences they have while they are growing?, she states that it has privilege the nuclear family in this process, which is "to she fails to subsequent reasons:

a. - The nuclear family as an independent structure of a group is a "invention" recent.

b. - The child is not behaving like other members of society because they do not behave in a uniform manner. Behaviors depend on the specific characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, etc..) and therefore behave as children seek social status which belong, in this sense, socialization is something that children construct, no something that they are poured.

c. - The behavior of individuals depends on the terms of the context in which they are, so that one child will behave differently at school, home, neighborhood, among others.

d. - Not taken into account the importance of genetic inheritance.

e. - In evolutionary terms, the living in groups is much more extensive than ...