Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) was a Swiss development psychologist, famous for working out a sequence of stages of cognitive development, and notable for his idea that children (and indeed adults) are continually generating theories about the external world (which are kept or dismissed depending on whether we see them working or not in practice).

Major works and achievements

Single "best read"

• Bringuier, J-C. (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Major works

• Inhelder, B. and J. Piaget (1958). The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
• Piaget, J. (1962). Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton.
• Piaget, J. (1970). Structuralism. New York: Harper & Row.
• Piaget, J. (1971). Biology and Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.
• Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
• Piaget, J. (2000). Commentary on Vygotsky. New Ideas in Psychology, 18, 241-59.
• Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Appointments

• 1921-25 Research Director, Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Geneva
• 1925-29 Professor of Psychology, Sociology and the Philosophy of Science, University of Neuchatel
• 1929-39 Professor of the History of Scientific Thought, University of Geneva
• 1929-67 Director, International Bureau of Education, Geneva
• 1932-71 Director, Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Geneva
• 1938-51 Professor of Experimental Psychology and Sociology, University of Lausanne
• 1939-51 Professor of Sociology, University of Geneva
• 1940-71 Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Geneva
• 1952-64 Professor of Genetic Psychology, Sorbonne, Paris
• 1955-80 Director, International Centre for Genetic Epistemology, Geneva
• 1971-80 Emeritus Professor, University of Geneva