HENRI WALLON: BIOGRAPHY, EDUCATIONAL THEORY, STADIUMS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

Henri Wallon (1879 - 1963) was a French-born pedagogue and psychologist who dedicated his life to researching child psychology and the maturation phases that people go through during our childhood. His works, theories, and ideas are considered some of the most important in developmental psychology, along with those of such renowned figures as Lev Vigotsky and Jean Piaget.

Unlike these two authors, Henri Wallon was not an extremist in the debate on genetics versus environment, and believed that both factors had a great weight in the development of children's abilities, personality and way of being. Thus, for him genetics served as the basis, and the experiences of each individual led to the development to a greater or lesser extent of certain traits in the person.

senat.fr

On the other hand, Wallon believed that cognitive, affective, biological and social development was not continuous, but rather occurred in a staggered manner. For this psychologist, children enter moments of crisis in which their characteristics are reorganized, which were known as the "stages of development." The main focus of his work was to describe each of them.

In addition to this, Henri Wallon was also a well-known political activist in his time, having been influenced by the Marxist ideas that were gaining popularity at the time. From this field, he achieved a position of importance within the French educational system and tried to reform it to suit his thinking.

Biography

Early years

Henri Wallon was born on June 15, 1879 in Paris. He was the grandson of the famous Henri-Alexandre Wallon, from whom he received his name. His grandfather played a decisive role in the creation of the French Third Republic, which gave him the nickname "father of the Republic." Because of this, this psychologist and philosopher came from a fairly wealthy family.

Little is known of the first years of his life. However, it is known that he began studying at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, from which he obtained two degrees: one in philosophy, in 1902, and the other in medicine six years later.

Even so, he barely had time to practice when he had to serve on the French front due to the outbreak of the First World War.

Two were the factors that influenced the life of Henri Wallon while fighting in the war. On the one hand, during this time he was able to analyze the brain injuries of soldiers killed or wounded on the battlefield. The discoveries he made during this time served him later when he was practicing as a psychiatrist.

On the other hand, the horrors of the war made him acquire a deep hatred against the totalitarian thoughts of the right, and he began to become increasingly close to the socialist ideas of the French left of the moment.

This ended up leading to his affiliation with Marxist ideas, which had a great influence on both his personal life and his research.

Life after the war

After returning from the French front, Henri Wallon was practicing medicine in different psychiatric hospitals, probably influenced by his own experiences in the war.

However, despite working in this field until 1931, during this time he also became interested in the educational development of children, even giving lectures on this subject at the prestigious Sorbonne University.

In fact, in 1925 he founded his Child Psychobiology Laboratory in this educational center, where he began to conduct research on child development.

That same year, he received his doctorate in psychology thanks to his thesis on education for troubled children, which he later used to write his book The Turbulent Child, in 1945.

At this time, after the creation of his laboratory, he carried out numerous investigations that allowed him to write a large part of his most influential works. In addition, he also gradually became involved in the political sphere.

For example, in 1931 he joined the New Russia Circle in Moscow, a group devoted to studying the discipline of dialectical materialism.

I work in politics and teaching

In 1937, Wallon became president of one of the most important child protection institutions in his country: the International Office pour l'Enfance, often known by its acronym OIE. This organization is one of the precursors of UNESCO.

After returning from the war front, Wallon also collaborated with other intellectuals of his time to develop a project that was aimed at reforming the French educational system, based on socialist ideals such as equal opportunities and the difference in education based on circumstances of each student. However, this project could never be carried out.

Finally, from his position as director of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Paris, this researcher created one of the most important publications in the field of childhood and educational psychology: Enfance, which began to be published in 1948.

However, his political ideals brought him many problems throughout his life. Because he was initially sympathetic to the French liberal left, during World War II the Gestapo (the secret police of the Nazi party) was looking for him to arrest him, so he had to remain hidden for a time.

Over the years, his anti-fascist positions became radicalized, to the point where he affiliated with the French Communist Party in 1942. His relationship with this institution remained in force until his death.

Educational theory

Henri Wallon's starting point was very decisive in shaping his thinking. On the one hand, his first years of life passed between studies in philosophy and medicine, both disciplines that greatly influenced his work.

In addition to this, at that time psychology was still a very young discipline and there was much debate regarding its foundations.

At that time, many researchers believed that a scientific psychology could not exist, due to the purely subjective nature of the human experience. Furthermore, the most influential current was the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, which was based on explanations without any empirical basis and gave extreme importance to the unconscious.

Wallon started from a different base than these ideas. His interest was in understanding human consciousness as the main engine of the mental progress of individuals, but he believed that this process was influenced by both biological and social factors.

Thus, he thought that to understand child development, it was necessary to study four elements: emotion, environment, action and the people around the individual.

In this way, Wallon took an intermediate position between the two positions of the debate and affirmed that psychology belongs to both the field of natural and humanistic sciences. Many of his ideas can be seen as precursors to other current approaches, such as systems theory.

Bases of his thought

Wallon's ideas were enormously influenced by Marxism, specifically by dialectical materialism. In this sense, he recognized the importance of biology in human behavior but tried not to reduce human action to a simple set of chemical and genetic elements.

In addition to this, he also rejects rational idealism, which argued that each individual was completely unique and therefore could not create a scientific psychology. Despite acknowledging that there were individual differences, Wallon believed that there were also elements common to all people, something that today is accepted within this discipline.

Therefore, to study the development of children and the best way to educate them, Wallon tried to understand both the biological bases of behavior and the influence of different factors on the intellectual formation of students.

For this, he used different methods, such as comparing the performance of normotypical students with that of others with various disabilities.

In addition, it also studied the influence of factors such as family structure, parenting environment, socioeconomic status of families and different educational techniques and methods on children's performance in the academic environment.

Stages of child development

In Henri Wallon's theory, child development is closely related to a series of mental stages, as was the case in Piaget's work.

However, while Piaget relied on the ability of children to solve logic problems to determine the phases of his theory, Wallon was more interested in the relationship of the individual to his environment.

In this way, Wallon differentiated between two elements to which it was necessary to pay attention to understand what stage of development a child is in:

- The dominant function, that is, the activity that the individual carries out the most. According to Wallon, there is a different one for each of the stages of development.

- The orientation of this activity. In some phases the individual is more self-oriented, while in others his attention is external.

In this way, the researcher described five different stages of child development: motor and emotional impulsivity, sensorimotor and projective, personalism, categorical thinking, and puberty and adolescence.

Each of these stages will be described below.

1- Stage of motor and emotional impulsivity

The first stage described by Wallon is the one that extends up to the first year of the child's life. In it, the orientation is inward, since the individual is focused on building himself. In addition, the greatest influence at this stage is emotion, which allows the infant to relate to her environment effectively.

2- Sensorimotor and projective stage

The second stage of Walon's development covers up to 3 years of life. In this two main goals appear: to acquire the skills that the child needs to manipulate all kinds of objects, and to be able to imitate the people around them. Because of this, at this stage the orientation is mainly external.

3- Stage of personalism

From 2 - 3 years of life and until approximately 5, the child begins to become aware of who he is and mainly seeks to differentiate himself from the rest.

For this, motor and expressive skills develop dramatically, while a very marked narcissism appears for the first time. At this stage, again, the orientation is inward.

4- Stage of categorical thinking

At this stage, which covers approximately up to 9 years of life, the child begins to organize his knowledge and thoughts, first in a imprecise and general way and then more and more systematically.

His main intention is to understand the world around him, using the tools available to him. Again, the orientation is outward.

5- Stage of puberty and adolescence

Until the arrival of 12 years, children begin to experience certain contradictions between what they think they know and what they begin to observe for themselves in their environment. Her main motivation, therefore, is to resolve these contradictions, so her orientation is internal. Again, one of the main concerns is the affirmation of the self.

Other contributions

In addition to his famous theory of development, which has not been as popular as Piaget's, mainly due to the author's political affiliations, Henri Wallon also worked in other fields such as the creation of educational programs, the study of individual differences between children and the application of Marxist ideas to fields such as psychology and education.

On the other hand, Wallon was one of the first psychologists in history to affirm that both biological and social factors are equally important in the development of children. For this reason, it is considered one of the forerunners of some trends such as systemic therapy.

Published works

Wallon was quite a prolific author. Next we will see some of his most important works.

- The origins of character in the child.

- Child psychology from birth to 7 years.

- The psychological evolution of the child.

- From act to thought.

- The origins of thought in the child.

References

1. "Henri Wallon" in: Biographies and Lives. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Biographies and Lives: biografiasyvidas.com.
2. "Henri Wallon" in: Famous Psychologists. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Famous Psychologists: famouspsychologists.org.
3. "Henri Wallon" in: Ecured. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Ecured: ecured.cu.
4. "Henri Wallon: biography of the founder of Genetic Psychology" in: Psychology and Mind. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Psychology and Mind: psicologiaymente.com.
5. "Henri Wallon" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org.