Chapter 36 - True to Child Development throughout a Changing Society

Summary

In this chapter I first focus on how I became a psychologist showing interest in child development in changing contexts at a time when Estonia was still incorporated into the Soviet Union. Back then certain themes of psychology were considered taboo and Estonian psychology was isolated from world psychology. Next, I address research questions that attracted me after restoration of Estonian independence in August 1991. I describe how significant world changes, for example, the return then to the Western world, digitalization of homes during the last decades, and recent pandemic-related restrictions, have radically modified the developmental context, raising many new research questions. I proceed to describe specific challenges that researchers face in a small country like Estonia, in a language spoken natively only by 1.1 million people. The chapter closes with an overview of possible directions that the discipline might take as a way to offer my advice to future developmental psychologists.