Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development



Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

Scenario 1

Ekatarina is an immigrant whose family just moved to this country from an eastern European country. Her English language skills are fairly well developed but still somewhat limited. She smiles at other students who stare at her and is generally having a difficult time making friends in her class. She is doing quite well academically, “A’s” , in math and science class. A couple of students have started to ask her for help on their homework in those subject areas but the language barrier makes it difficult and rather halting for Ekatarina and her classmates. She wishes that they would invite her out with them and that they would become better friends, but she is frightened.

What stage of development would Erikson say Ekatarina is in?

What might you as a teacher be able to do to help her through this “crisis?”

Scenario 2

Winter comes; it’s December and the lake has frozen over. Josh is standing on the shore in his winter clothing. He stands looking at the ice for a few minutes. He wants to go out on the ice but isn’t sure. He steps over to some sumac and gets a pretty good sized stick. He throws the stick onto the ice and sees that it doesn’t break through. He looks around and finds a heavy rock which he also throws out on the ice. It doesn’t break through either. This makes Josh feel pretty safe so he taps it a few times with his toe before lacing up his skates and stepping out onto the ice. Later, after skating for a half-hour, he returns home and announces to his mother, “Mom! I just went skating. It was really fun!” His mother scolds him with, “Oh no Josh. You could have fallen through the ice and frozen or drowned. What were you thinking?”

What stage of development would Erikson say that Josh is in?

What is the likely outcome according to Erikson for Josh?

What might have been done differently for Josh?

Scenario 3

Juan is the middle child of five children in his family. His oldest brother was a captain of the football team for two straight years and was nominated for homecoming king in his senior year. His older sister was a very beautiful woman and performed mariachi dancing at weddings and other festivals at church and in the neighborhood. Juan, however, is an average student. He enjoys sports but only plays sparingly on the team. He is shorter than his older brother and not as fast. He plays guitar a little bit and sings in the church choir. He also takes art classes. Juan does all of these things but doesn’t feel that sense of respect that his two older siblings seemed to have. He feels lost at times like he really doesn’t have a niche. The possibilities in his future, at times, overwhelm him, and he just wants to run away.

What stage of development would Erikson say Juan is in?

What advice would Erikson give Juan?

Scenario 4

Betty has been teaching at McCarty Creek elementary school for 16 years. You are serving on the curriculum committee with her. The responsibilities of the committee are to revise and implement changes in the science program to ascertain compliance with the new state learning requirements. The state learning requirements are slated to be tested on a large-scale basis in 2 years. Betty has been attending the meetings regularly. She tends to point out how the new state initiatives are nothing original or essential. She spends a great deal of the meeting time relating old stories of other educational reforms that came and went in her career. She seems to resent the state’s intrusion and implication that she can’t be trusted as a teacher. “I’ve been teaching for years and I don’t see why the curriculum I’ve been using has to change. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” she says.

What stage of development would Erikson say Betty is in?

As Betty’s colleague, how could you handle serving on this curriculum committee productively?

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