Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

142 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
in cognitive development. His emphasis on identity occurring in relationship has tremendous
relevance to educational psychologists today who are attempting to unravel the notion that we
create identities in isolation, that we are individuals divorced from the larger society. From
his theories, we come to understand the contradictions inherent in identity building—we are
creating and being created by language at the same time. Any reconceptualization of educational
psychology must continue to grapple with this paradox and, by doing so, we may inject new
possibilities into future theories.
FURTHER READING
The European Graduate School. Jacques Lacan biography. Retrieved June 28, 2005, from http://www.egs.
edu/resources/lacan.html.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jacques Lacan. Retrieved June 28, 2005, from http://www.iep.
utm.edu/l/lacweb.htm.
Kincheloe, J. L., and Steinberg, S. R. (1993, Fall). A Tentative Description of Post-formal Thinking: The
Critical Confrontation with Cognitive Theory. Harvard Educational Review, 63(3), 296–320.
Lacan, J. (1999). ECRITS: A Major New Translation (B. Fink, H. Fink, & R. Grigg, Trans.). New York: W.
W. Norton & Company.
Pitt, A. (2001). The Dreamwork of Autobiography: Felman, Freud, and Lacan (pp. 89–107). In Weiler, K.
(Ed.), Feminist Engagements: Reading, Resisting, and Revisioning Male Theorists in Education and
Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.