Elkind, David

As one of the leading scholars in the field of developmental psychology, David Elkind has had significant impact on our understanding of children, particularly in the areas of perceptual, religious, and adolescent development. Furthermore, his theories have changed how we interact with children. Before the term applied developmental science was even coined, Elkind worked to fundamentally change both child development theory and application.

David Elkind was born March 11, 1931, in Detroit, Michigan, the sixth and last child of Peter and Bessie [Page 400]Elkind, Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father was a skilled machinist and was able to continue working during the tough times of the Depression. Despite a familial emphasis on blue-collar work, David became enthralled with reading and writing at a young age, even publishing in the school newspaper. After World War II, the Elkinds moved to San Diego, California. David worked for a clothing manufacturer in high school and subsequently entered the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) as an apparel-merchandising major. Inspired by an introductory psychology course and encouraged by exceptional grades, he soon changed his major to psychology.

After graduating with highest honors, Elkind entered the Veterans Administration Clinical Psychology Training Program, to pay for his continuing education at UCLA. It was in graduate school that he first encountered the schism common to psychology departments: Social, behavioral, and physiological psychologists emphasized experimental science, while the clinical faculty adhered to traditional psychoanalysis and Freudian theory. He would attend an experimental course that denounced projective testing in the morning, and then learn how to use the Rorschach Ink Blot Test in the afternoon. Elkind would struggle to balance experimental science and clinical practice throughout his career.

After completing his clinical training, the young academic started a postdoctoral fellowship at the Austin Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. While preparing for his new position, Elkind was introduced to the work of a then-obscure Swiss child psychologist named Jean Piaget. Interested in but skeptical of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Elkind began to test the theory with rigorous scientific procedures and materials. Despite Elkind's skepticism, Piaget's ideas were repeatedly supported by the experiments. He became an enthusiastic convert and began to see Piaget as a means of solving the scientific and clinical schism that he had experienced in graduate school.

Furthermore, Elkind's investigation of Piaget's theory brought to the surface his inclination and skill for working with children, and consequently, in 1957, he left Austin Riggs for the child psychiatry department at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He worked tirelessly, taking on a night-teaching position and pouring himself into writing. He was able to find some personal time in the midst of his work; he met and married Sally Malinsky, an English teacher, in 1960.

Over the next 4 years, Elkind took various faculty positions, working at Wheaton College, UCLA, and the University of Denver, searching for an arrangement that allowed for teaching, clinical work, and research. In Denver, Elkind felt satisfied with the balance of all three aspects of psychology, and his work began to thrive, particularly his research. He continued his Piagetian investigations, applying the concepts to religion.

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