Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The book’s introduction sets out the historical, social, cultural, and political background, linking the rise of child science in Russia and elsewhere with processes of rapid modernization characteristic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapter begins by relating the emergence of the sciences of the child at this particular historical juncture to the expansion of the professional middle classes, highlighting the role that the concept of development played in the latter’s social self-understanding, which in turn helped shape the ideologies of the rising welfare/warfare states. The historical roots of the child study movement are identified in an evolving post-Enlightenment biopolitics of childhood. The chapter stresses the normative nature of the sciences of child development and outlines the different kinds of norms that came to shape this field’s interests and priorities. Next, the chapter dwells on the multidisciplinary and inter-professional character of child science, elaborating how this both influenced and problematized its mobilization and self-identification as a movement. Also highlighted is the transnational nature of this movement. An analysis of the positioning of Russians within it is followed by a discussion of the path that child science took in the Soviet Union in the interwar era. The concluding section is a review of extant historiography on Russo-Soviet child science and a brief outline of the content and approach of the present study.