A critical sociology

As a postmodern philosophy, pure contextualism is anti-positivist, seeing mechanistic and organismic lenses as tools "serving to maintain the status quo within a society" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 302). Not surprising then, contextualism focuses its attention on how "developmental models treat traditionally disenfranchised groups" (p. 302) in Western societies.

While organicists embrace progress toward personal and societal potential, contextualists "question the very concept of progress" (Goldhaber, 2002, p. 297) as a Western construct that benefits a ruling class in industrialized nations at the expense of others. The contextualist considers objective reality an illusion; there is no universal truth, no right or wrong, no objectivity, and no facts. Everything is relative to time and place. Individuals will behave differently in different settings. Contextualists also question whether change is beneficial, proposing that society should be able to sustain its ways indefinitely.

Goldhaber (2000) identifies four key contributions of contextualism to the human development theory, an emphasis on practical and immediate, individuals are active meaning makers in social settings, human development is open-ended, and scientific inquiry is a human endeavor, as follows:

An emphasis on practical and immediate

Contextualism sprouts from the roots of philosophical pragmatism, which rejects absolutes, foundational truths or assumptions of the universe (ACBS, 2007). Since they believe there is no universal condition to observe and since they reject the concept of objectivity, contextualists focus on the practical and immediate as "active participants and critics" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 52) shaping the human condition.

According to Wartofsky (1986), theorists should not be involved in determining norms but "have the responsibility to engage in the criticisms of these norms… They are, moreover, responsible to recognize the historicity or situatedness of these norms and to come down on the right side" (p. 125). This "right side" means that the field of human development should be "a branch of social ethics" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 55) that advocates global, collectivist, anti-Western perspectives that liberate the disenfranchised while implementing postmodern perspectives like "Marxism, critical theory, critical multiculturalism, critical race theory, postcolonialism, queer theory, and feminist theory" (Merriam et al., 2007, p. 272). The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (2007) summarizes this concept by saying that the purpose of contextual theory is not to reveal the truth, but "to aid in the achievement of some goal" (para. 3) or agenda.

Individuals are active meaning makers in social settings

While all developmental perspectives view people as interdependent with their environment, contextualists use a systems approach to understand the relationship among all elements in a system. Viewing the sum of elements plus the sum of relationships allows contextualists to "say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that the meaning of a person and context is to be found in the relationships among the elements rather than solely in the elements themselves" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 52). Systems tend to self-stabilize and self-reorganize, with a change in one area likely to cause a change in other areas.

Human development is open-ended

Mechanists view human development as a progressive behavioral change, while organicists see a series of development stages toward an ideal purpose. Contextualists, however, see many possible developmental paths. Since universals do not exist, no path is any better than is any other; the individual developmental pattern simply is what it is, "an interdependent system functioning within a specific socio-historical context" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 53). This becomes what contextualists call an argument of liberation, which finds "no basis to argue the value of one culture's accomplishments over another, the level of civilization of one culture over another, or anything else for that matter" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 54). Each culture and each person is a unique expression of a system within a sociohistorical context.

Scientific inquiry is a human endeavor

While mechanists and organicists attempt to practice objective inquiry into human development, contextualists argue that objectivity is not possible; observations filter through the researcher's personal lens. Rather than attempt objectivity, the contextualist places the researcher at the center of the research, engaging in what Bentz and Shapiro (1998) call a "biased" approach to research that "may contribute to social action and be part of social action" (p. 7). Important to emphasize here is that scientific inquiry is not about understanding reality or revealing the truth but about advancing an agenda. 

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