Lechebnaia pedagogika: The Concept and Practice of Therapy in Russian Defectology, c. 1880-1936.

Therapy is not simply a domain or form of medical practice, but also a metaphor for and a performance of medicine, of its functions and status, of its distinctive mode of action upon the world. This article examines medical treatment or therapy (in Russian lechenie), as concept and practice, in what came to be known in Russia as defectology (defektologiia) - the discipline and occupation concerned with the study and care of children with developmental pathologies, disabilities and special needs. Defectology formed an impure, occupationally ambiguous, therapeutic field, which emerged between different types of expertise in the niche populated by children considered 'difficult to cure', 'difficult to teach', and 'difficult to discipline'.

V. M. BEKHTEREV IN RUSSIAN CHILD SCIENCE, 1900S-1920S: "OBJECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY"/"REFLEXOLOGY" AS A SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT.

In the early 20(th) century the child population became a major focus of scientific, professional and public interest. This led to the crystallization of a dynamic field of child science, encompassing developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and special education, school hygiene and mental testing, juvenile criminology and the anthropology of childhood. This article discusses the role played in child science by the eminent Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev.

Turning pedagogy into a science: teachers and psychologists in late imperial Russia (1897-1917).

The article explores the Russian teachers' tortuous campaign at the beginning of the twentieth century to rise above the status of "semiprofessionals" by rooting the legitimacy of their professional expertise, training institutions, and working practices in the authority of "science." This involved a radical reshaping of traditional pedagogy and its fusion with new, controversial approaches to child psychology. It also led to a proliferation of teacher-training courses and conferences devoted to "pedagogical psychology," "experimental pedagogy," and "pedology.