ABS301 - On ‘Das Kapital’ of Science Education: Methodological Issues from a Vygotskian Perspective
Theme:
3.9 Other topics related to Theme 3
What:
Paper in a Working Group Roundtable (WGRT)
When:
11:00 AM, Thursday 31 Aug 2017
(1 hour)
Breaks:
Midday Meal 12:00 PM to 01:30 PM (1 hour 30 minutes)
Where:
Convention Center
- 2000 A - Table D
How:
The relevance of Vygotsky’s approach to Science Education is revealed by the increasing number of publications based on it, which brings us significant contributions to understand, for instance, classrooms dialogue, teaching and learning processes, school curricula and educational reforms. However, many aspects of the Vygotskian theory within Science Education field remain undeveloped, essentially those related to methodological aspects in a critical perspective.
Drawing from Vygotsky’s notion of “method” and his efforts to build a scientific theory about human development, committed to the transformation of reality, we engage here in the discussion about methodological issues in Science Education. We give insights to overcome current approaches in which reality is conceptualized as immutable (outside of human activity) and cognition as a process of mere adaptation to it, which establish a dualism between the reality (on the ontological level) and the ways we come to know (on the epistemological level).
Vygotsky claims for a “Das Kapital” of psychology, arguing that psychology needs to develop its own object of investigation and a particular method to grasp it. It means that neither the object nor the method have independent existence. Likewise, the engagement around a “Das Kapital” of Science Education brings us new and powerful insights to investigate Science Education aspects that have not been effectively grasped by current research; namely, the relation between Science Education and Human Development. This includes the possibility to build a project of society instead of justifying teaching and learning science based on abstract notions of skills for the future.
Drawing from Vygotsky’s notion of “method” and his efforts to build a scientific theory about human development, committed to the transformation of reality, we engage here in the discussion about methodological issues in Science Education. We give insights to overcome current approaches in which reality is conceptualized as immutable (outside of human activity) and cognition as a process of mere adaptation to it, which establish a dualism between the reality (on the ontological level) and the ways we come to know (on the epistemological level).
Vygotsky claims for a “Das Kapital” of psychology, arguing that psychology needs to develop its own object of investigation and a particular method to grasp it. It means that neither the object nor the method have independent existence. Likewise, the engagement around a “Das Kapital” of Science Education brings us new and powerful insights to investigate Science Education aspects that have not been effectively grasped by current research; namely, the relation between Science Education and Human Development. This includes the possibility to build a project of society instead of justifying teaching and learning science based on abstract notions of skills for the future.
