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10 - Social studies, trivial constructivism, and the politics of social knowledge
- Edited by Marie Larochelle, Université Laval, Québec, Nadine Bednarz, Université du Québec, Montréal, Jim Garrison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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- Book:
- Constructivism and Education
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 13 August 1998, pp 156-172
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Summary
In most departments of psychology and schools of education, teaching continues as though nothing had happened and the question for immutable objective truths were as promising as ever.
von Glasersfeld, 1989, p. 122The growing popularity in mathematics and science education of the body of ideas known as constructivism is a hopeful sign of renewed interest in educational theory and practice in the United States. This is especially fortunate for social studies education, which has been bereft of significant developments in these areas in recent years. Recent research programs of social studies educators are showing promise, but the nearly exclusive attention on the development of historical understanding fails to address the need for a broader and more comprehensive social knowledge (Ashby, Lee, and Dickinson, 1997; Barton, 1997; Barton and Levstik, 1996; Brophy, VanSledright, and Bredin, 1992; Seixas, 1997, 1994; Thornton, 1997). May (1992) observes that no one has proposed the “radical restructuring” of social studies for studying the social, scientific, and technological issues that riddle the contemporary world; she asserts that a postmodern approach is needed to “promote an ecological, moral, cultural, pluralistic, and spiritual perspective, an ‘ethic of caring’ and a critical pragmatism”; and laments that social studies educators have instead “been guilty of rationalizing and simplifying the most intriguing and complex human endeavors and problems” (p. 81).
Constructivism is a postmodern theory of knowledge with the potential to transform educational theory. Its present popularity in science and mathematics education, however, is no assurance of its enduring influence on education in general or social studies in particular. One need only recall how Piaget's work has been previously misunderstood and effectively misused to bolster narrow curricular ends (Egan, 1983).
15 - Critical-constructivism and the sociopolitical agenda
- Edited by Marie Larochelle, Université Laval, Québec, Nadine Bednarz, Université du Québec, Montréal, Jim Garrison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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- Book:
- Constructivism and Education
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 13 August 1998, pp 253-270
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- Chapter
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Summary
In reading over the different chapters in this book, one cannot but acknowledge that they constitute a convincing illustration of the theoretical and practical educational pertinence of constructivism conceived as a theory of cognition. In adopting a constructivist stance toward the individual and collective production of knowledge in different contexts, educators have been able to elaborate and test sound and promising pedagogical practices, thereby showing how it is possible to initiate significant transformations at different educational levels.
In another sense, these chapters also constitute a well-articulated response to some of the criticism constructivism has been subject to lately, in particular for supposedly favoring student-centered pedagogies in line with the dominant individualistic ideology in Western societies (Muller and Taylor, 1995). As one may notice in this book, constructivists do not picture the student as an isolated, almost schizophrenic subject, alone in face-to-face interaction with the world. The intrinsic social character of the educational process is taken into account in numerous ways. For instance, different authors posit that, in the process of the construction of the subject, the alter ego, the other, is constitutive of the self and not an indifferent thing-in-the-world. To be sure, this does not mean that the theoretical discussion about the social or psychological nature of learning has undergone closure in the educational field. However, as Cole and Wertsch (1996) argue, in respect of the debate which has most often crystallized around Piaget and Vygotsky, too much emphasis is put on the opposition between psychogenesis and sociogenesis.
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