Child Developmental Psychology: Brazilian Publications in the First Decade of the 21st Century

Abstract

The aim in this paper was to characterize the Brazilian scientific production in child development psychology (0-12 years old) between 2001-2010, in Brazilian journals ranked as Qualis/CAPES A1, A2, B1. The 388 articles were analyzed in three groups of items: characteristics of authorship; themes and theoretical references; characteristics of the empirical articles. The results indicate a production over the decade. Most authors come from federal institutions and the co-authorships were local. Most studies were empirical and the most investigated age group was between 6-12 years old. Most of the studies involved children as participants in data collection. Surveys were the most used design, with a prevalence of quantitative methods. The results indicate that Brazilian research in child development psychology still presents simple, cross-sectional and quantitative designs. That is in disagreement with the trend presented by relevant international studies, which suggest a new paradigm in the area, especially with longitudinal research, appropriate to study child development.