






Within modern developmental psychology, two classic dilemmas persist.
The first is the problematic relationship between learning and
development. The second is the equally problematic relationship between
individual and societal development.
The first dilemma may be provisionally formulated as follows.
"The central question for our purposes is whether learning is identical to
development or, at least, whether development can be conceptualized as
consisting of some kind of accumulation of units of learning." (Baltes,
Reese & Nesselroade 1977, 208.)
Another way of putting the problem is found in the work of Ann L. Brown.
For her, development is essentially� the process of going from the
specific and context-bound to the general and context-free.
"Basically, the problem is how does the learner go from specific learned
experiences to the formulation of a general rule that can be applied to
multiple settings. (...) How does the learner come to use knowledge
flexibly? How do isolated skills become connected together, extended and
generalized?" (Brown 1982, 107.)


