Barbara Tizard obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/13/barbara-tizard

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Barbara Tizard, who has died aged 88, was an eminent developmental psychologist. Her exhaustive research was driven by important theoretical questions, but also by her strong determination to make life as good as possible for children.

One set of studies, published as Early Childhood Education (1975), Adoption: A Second Chance (1977) and Involving Parents in Nursery and Infant Schools (1983), looked at the long-term effects of growing up in institutions and the influence of different types of care – residential, nurseries, playgroups, infant schools and the home – on future development. In another, Young Children Learning (1984), she found that children expressed more curiosity at home than at nursery school and that the language used by working-class families in the home was often richer than that used in a nursery school setting. This drew hostility from practitioners because it challenged received wisdoms about the benefits of nursery education to children from less privileged backgrounds.

In research on inner London infant schools, Young Children at School in the Inner City (1988), Barbara and her team found that differences between black and white children only emerged once they started school, with black boys performing least well. Another project, Black, White or Mixed Race? (1993), pointed to the emergence of a “mixed race” identity.

Some of the impetus for Barbara’s work came from her own early experiences, which she wrote about vividly in her autobiography Home Is Where One Starts From (2010), which begins: “I was born in 1926 and so spent my childhood in the aftermath of the first world war and the shadow of the second.”

She was born in West Ham, east London, to Herbert Parker, a journalist, and his wife, Elsie (nee Kirk), a teacher. Both her parents came from working-class backgrounds but, through education, became middle class. They separated when Barbara was nearly seven and she always firmly believed that divorce was preferable for children than living in homes blighted by conflict. Her mother became a headteacher and, in 1938, president of the National Union of Teachers. This was a remarkable feat at that time for a woman, particularly for a single mother.

Barbara and her brother were sent to boarding school and lived with their maternal grandparents during the holidays. As a child, she was aware of the differences between her circumstances and those of her peers. She recounted a telling anecdote to explain her early understanding of how social class and material conditions matter in family life. She saw a friend knock coffee on to a white tablecloth without censure; hearing this, her grandmother retorted that the maid probably did the washing in that household.

She won scholarships to St Paul’s school for girls, in London, and went on to Somerville College, Oxford, initially to study medicine, but changed to philosophy, politics and economics. She completed a qualifying course in psychology at University College London the year after graduating. While still an undergraduate, Barbara married Jack Tizard, who also went on to become a distinguished psychologist.

Barbara registered for a part-time PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry after the birth of her first child, completing it after five years and two more children. Despite working in a series of part-time positions, Barbara produced outstanding research concerning young children’s development in different types of settings.

In 1967 she moved to the Institute of Education where her husband, now a professor, set up the Thomas Coram Research Unit in 1973. Aged 50, Barbara finally achieved a senior academic position as reader in education at the Institute of Education and, after Jack’s death in 1979, she became the research unit’s director (1980-90) and was promoted to professor.

Barbara was a realist, and understood that the timing and machinations of politics and policy are key determinants of whether or not research findings are taken up. However, she was cautious about the relationship between research and “the impact agenda” (that is, the requirement for research to have as great as possible an influence on policy) and came to think that perceptions of impact were complex and partly dependent on a preconceived policy agenda.

Always committed to egalitarianism, Barbara was a peace activist, a socialist and an atheist all her life. However, her political ideals never clouded her forensic intellect and her devotion to scientific research. Characteristically, she was self-deprecating about her contributions. She said in an interview following retirement: “I can see weaknesses in everything I have done ... I think I have opened up some quite important issues and drawn attention to them … I wouldn’t put it stronger than that.”

Although some people considered her formidable, to those who were close to her she was a shy, modest, often exceedingly kind and generous person. Barbara loved poetry, theatre and art, and attained a diploma in fine art in retirement. She was a fellow of the British Academy and of the British Psychological Society.

She is survived by her children, Bill, Jenny and Lucy, and grandchildren, Sean, Lara, Owen, Troy and Ava.

• Barbara Tizard, developmental psychologist, born 16 April 1926; died 4 January 2015