After leaving school, Margaret Donaldson attended the University of Edinburgh, where she gained her first degree, followed by a master's in education and a doctorate. After an influential career, publishing insightful books and articles and becoming a highly respected professor of developmental psychology, she retired from full-time academic life. But she has continued her thoughtful contributions, including books for children and her work of scholarship exploring the relationship between thought and emotion, Human Minds.
In the 1950s, while still a student, Donaldson had become interested in children's thinking. This interest was further inspired when, just after finishing her PhD, she spent a term at Piaget's institute in Geneva (see Nursery World, 19 January). This encounter had, she states, 'a big influence on the subsequent direction of my work'. Professor Donaldson adds that, during the early 1960s, visits to the United States and the opportunity to undertake some work at Harvard University with Jerome Bruner and his colleagues were also key experiences.
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