El constructivismo y la adquisición del conocimiento social

Este texto constituye una versión revisada de la conferencia inaugural de la V/b European Conference on Developmental Psychology: Sevilla, 6 de septiembre de 1992; que llevaba por título Constructivism and the acquisition of social knowledge.El niño liene que construir modelos o representaciones de la realidad social en la que vive. La mayor parte de esas representaciones mentales no son simples copias de las de los adultos, sino que constituyen una construcción personal y difieren cualitativamente de las de los mayores. El estudio del desarrollo del conocimiento social en el niño atrae cada vez más atención por parte de los investigadores. Tres son los enfoques teóricos principales. La posición constructivista, según la cual el niño tiene que realizar su propia construcción de los conocimientós con ayuda de los instrumentos intelectuales de que dispone. La tradición del estudio de las representaciones sociales originada en la sociología francesa y renovada por Moscovici, y la psicología histórico-cultural de tradición vigotskiana. La primera posición pone el acento sobre la actividad del sujeto, mientras que las otras dos enfatizan las influencias ambientales y constituyen un necesario contrapunto de la posición constructivista. Sin embargo, la existencia de creencias infantiles diferentes de las de los adultos y del contexto social y la universalidad de algunas de estas creencias nos obligan a no olvidar la labor personal de construcción que tiene que realizar el sujeto. Pero no todos los elementos de esas representaciones tienen la misma naturaleza. Así, mientras que las reglas, los valores y la información fáctica dependen mucho de la influencia del contexto y de la transmisión adulta, en cambio en las nociones o explicaciones de los procesos es donde mejor se pone de manifiesto la labor constructiva del sujeto. Esta distinción ayuda a entender las divergencias entre distintas perspectivas teóricas ya que según el aspeclo estudiado se verá más clara la labor del sujeto o la influencia del contexto. Para ilustrar estos punlos se examinan investigaciones realizadas en diferentes campos y problemas del conocimiento acerca de la sociedad, y en particular acerca de la comprensión de la estratificación y la movilidad social en niños españoles y mexicanos trabajadores. Palabras clave: Representación infantil del mundo social, movilidad social.Children should build models or representations of social reality in which they are involved. Most of the children’s representations are not simple copies of those of adults, but constitute a very personal construction. Three are the fundamental theoretical approaches to the study of development of children societal knowledge. The constructivist approach hypothezises that children’s representations of social world are elaborated on the basis of their intellectual instruments. On the other hand, both the tradition of social representations –originaled in the work of Durkheim mise au jour by Moscoviciand the cultural– historical psychology –rooted in Vygotski work– insist on the role of environmental influences. For this reason, they constitute in some way a counterpoint to lhe constructivist position. However,the existence of children’s notions different from those of adults and those of the social context, as well as the universality of some of these notions, compels us to take Crucially into account the constructive-world organizing activity of the subject himself. Nevertheless, not all the elements of such representations are of the same nature. To be more specific, rules, values and factual knowledge appear lo be strongly dependent on context and adult transmission, while notions and explanations related to processes show more clearly the subject’s idiosyncratic contribution. The critlical and comparative consideration of this distinction could help US to understand the divergencies among different theorelical positions about the process of elaboration of such representations. In this construction of different aspects of social reality children seems to pass through a series of stages of general character. It’s necesary to explore in deep te existence of stages in different areas of social represenrtation. Unfortunately we still lack a sufficient amount of research in several arcas of the field. In order to iIIustrate the preceding points, research on children’s understanding of social stratification and social mobility as well as of other different areas and problems of societal knowledge are examined

La memoria y el aprendizaje escolar

Desde finales del siglo XIX, y quizá desde antes, una serie de autores han venido criticando que la actividad escolar consista fundamentalmente en aprender de memoria una serie de hechos y de datos. Las voces contra ese aprendizaje memorístico han sido muy numerosas, pero en muchas escuelas de multitud de países se sigue teniendo que aprender de memoria una gran cantidad de cosas. Frente a ello un número creciente de autores han defendido que la escuela no puede limitarse hoy en día a transmitir informaciones y valores (Delval y Lomelí, 2013), sino que se debe aprender sobre todo a resolver problemas y que los sujetos desempeñan un papel activo en su aprendizaje, que el conocimiento no se recibe ya hecho, sino que hay que construirlo, y que lo que se aprende tiene que tener un significado y relacionarse con el resto de los conocimientos y acciones que realizan los sujetos.Since the late nineteenth century, and perhaps before, a number of authors have been criticizing that the school activity consists mainly of memorizing a series of facts and data. Voices against that rote learning have been very numerous, but in many schools from many different countries it’s usual still to memorize a lot of things. Faced with this growing number of authors have argued that the school can not be limited today to transmit information and values (Delval and Lomeli, 2013), but is due primarily to learn and solve problems and that individuals play an active role in their learning, that knowledge is not received already done, but you have to build it, and what you learn has to have a meaning and be related to the rest of the knowledge and actions performed by the subjects

Aspects of the construction of knowledge about society

El niño tiene que construir modelos o representaciones de la realidad social en la que vive, para tratar de dar un sentido al mundo que le rodea y además esas representaciones sirven de marco para su acción. La mayor parte de esas representaciones mentales no son simples copias de las de los adultos, sino que constituyen una construcción personal y difieren cualitativamente de las de los mayores. El estudio del desarrollo del conocimiento sobre la sociedad en el niño atrae cada vez más atención por parte de los investigadores. Tres son los enfoques teóricos principales. La posición constructivista, según la cual el niño tiene que realizar su propia construcción de los conocimientos con ayuda de los instrumentos intelectuales de que dispone. La tradición del estudio de las representaciones sociales originada en la sociología francesa y renovada por Moscovici, y la psicología histórico-cultural de tradición vygotskiana. La primera posición pone el acento sobre la actividad del sujeto, mientras que las otra dos enfatizan las influencias ambientales y constituyen un necesario contrapunto de la posición constructivista. Sin embargo, la existencia de creencias infantiles diferentes de las de los adultos y del contexto social, y la universalidad de algunas de estas creencias nos obligan a no olvidar la labor personal de construcción que tiene que realizar el sujeto.The child has to construct models or representations about the reality of thesociety where he or she lives in order to give a meaning to the surroundingworld and, furthermore, taking into consideration that these representationsserve as landmarks to his action. Most of the mental representationsconstructed by the child are not simple copies of the adult representations;instead, they are personal constructions and differ qualitatively from thoseof the older people. The study of the development of knowledge aboutsociety in children is attracting the attention of many investigators. Thereare three main theoretical approaches to this subject: the constructivistposition says that the child has to construct their own knowledge countingon their personal intellectual instruments; the traditional study aboutsocial representations originated in the French School of Sociology, thathas been renewed by Moscovici; and the Historical Cultural Psychologyof vygotskyan approach. The first position emphasizes the activity of thesubject, while the others put the emphasis on the environmental influencesand so hold a counterpoint to the constructivist position. However, theexistence of children beliefs different from those from adults’ as wellas from the social context, and the universality of some of these beliefs,compel us not to forget the personal work of construction made by the subject

Vygotski, Piaget: a formação do conhecimento e a cultura

O velho problema da influência da cultura sobre a formação do conhecimento voltou a chamar muito a atenção dos psicólogos. O interesse pela cultura está ligado à defesa de posições que se atribuem a Vygotski, cuja obra contrapõe-se à de Piaget, que é criticado pela sua falta de atenção à influência social e à cultura. Analisa-se neste artigo a pretendida separação entre desenvolvimento natural e cultura, que Vygotski estabelece, e defende-se que essa separação não pode ser estabelecida. Examinam-se, também, as idéias do autor soviético sobre a formação de conceitos científicos e sobre as funções psicológicas superiores. Mostra-se que a posição de Vygotski tem muitos traços empiristas, pois enfatiza enormemente a influência do meio, o que entraria em contradição com seu pretendido caráter marxista. Além disso, ele não consegue dar conta das transformações que acontecem no interior do sujeito por ocasião da construção de novos conhecimentos; aliás, é este o principal problema que os psicólogos precisam enfrentar. Sinaliza-se, ainda, que a posição de Piaget possui elementos para explicar essas transformações

LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL CONOCIMIENTO SOBRE LA SOCIEDAD

El conocimiento sobre la sociedad no se transmite directamente en el medio social y es asimilado sin más por los sujetos, sino que requiere de una construcción. Si estudiamos la génesis de esos conocimientos sobre la sociedad tal y como se produce en los sujetos en desarrollo encontramos que tiene lugar un proceso lento de construcción que depende mucho también del desarrollo cognitivo de los sujetos. Ya se trate de las ideas sobre el funcionamiento económico o político de una sociedad, sobre la organización social, sobre la nación, sobre la guerra y la paz, o incluso sobre la idea de dios, podemos ver que las ideas de los sujetos en desarrollo no son una copia de las concepciones dominantes en la sociedad, que los sujetos incorporarían, sino que estos realizan un trabajo de construcción muy personal que depende mucho de sus capacidades cognitivas. Por ello, si estudiamos la génesis de las ideas sobre cualquier aspecto de la realidad social podemos asistir a un lento proceso de construcción en el que los sujetos desempeñan un papel muy activo, que refleja claramente la actividad constructiva de los sujetos. Tomar en cuenta la génesis de esas ideas y las diversas concepciones que los sujetos elaboran resulta esencial para proporcionar una educación adecuada y una formación democrática, cosa que no suele realizarse en la actividad escolar

La Ontología y Epistemología del Conocimiento sobre la Sociedad

El proceso de construcción del conocimiento sobre la sociedad no ha sido estudiado en la misma medida que el conocimiento sobre el mundo físico. Nos referimos a cómo se construyen las ideas sobre el funcionamiento económico de la sociedad, sobre la organización política, la estructura social, la nación, las guerras o la historia, por referirnos sólo a unos pocos ámbitos del mundo de la sociedad

ANÁLISIS DE LA FUNDAMENTACIÓN DIDÁCTICA DE LOS LIBROS DE TEXTO DE CONOCIMIENTO DEL MEDIO SOCIAL Y CULTURAL

Researchers’ interest in the learning process at university context, and inits evaluation, has increased in recent years. Great deals of papers have studied this process and the role that learning strategies play in it and how to measure them in an objective and reliable way. Following this trend, the aim of this study is to validate the Cuestionario de Evaluación de las Estrategias de Aprendizaje de los Estudiantes Universitarios (CEVEAPEU) in a sample of 238 Peruvian university students. Results examined factorial validity, reliability and validity evidence of the questionnaire. In order to test factorial validity of the affective, support and control strategies and information process strategies scales, two confirmatory factor analyses were estimated. Structures of 15 and 10 factors, originally proposed by the authors, were tested. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.879 for the first scale and 0.886 for the second one. As regards criteria validity, academic achievement was positively correlated with strategies of self-efficacy and expectations, context control, control/selfregulation, conception of intelligence as something changeable, information organization, personalization and creativity, information elaboration, storage,memorization, use of mnemonics, information selection, transfer, use of information, storage, simple repetition and management of resources to effectively use information. Current validation offers satisfactory results (equivalent to those of the Spanish context) of internal consistency, factorial and criteria validity in a sample of Peruvian university students, extending the existing literature in two ways: providing a first validation of the CEVEAPEU using confirmatory factorial analysis; and exploring the use of the questionnaire in a transcultural approach in Peru.Este artículo focaliza la atención sobre los materiales curriculares con el objetivo de analizar la fundamentación didáctica que explícita o tácitamente presentan los libros de texto de Conocimiento del Medio. Se han seleccionado los temas referidos a sociedades actuales e históricas y actividades económicas en Primaria, a través del estudio de las editoriales mayoritarias del panorama español y de entrevistas al profesorado que las utiliza. Entre las conclusiones, se identifican en los textos obstáculos epistemológicos, axiológicos y psicológicos que dificultan la comprensión por el alumnado de las complejas sociedades actuales y de las históricas, constatando la inadecuación de los textos a los avances producidos por la investigación didáctica y psicológica

Educar para la participación ciudadana en la Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales

Recoge los contenidos presentados a: Simposio Internacional de Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales (23. 2012. Sevilla

Educação moral: o aprender e o ensinar sobre justiça na escola

A educação moral é um tema importante do ponto de vista da área da moralidade, visto que aprender e ensinar valores morais estão entre as ações que promovem a humanização do homem, tanto no sentido moral (respondendo à pergunta como devo viver?), quanto no sentido ético (em resposta à questão que vida quero viver?). A educação moral pode acontecer em diferentes contextos sociais. A presente pesquisa enfoca a escola. Além disso, a referida educação envolve diversos temas morais. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar como aprenderam aqueles que ensinam, e como ensinam aqueles que aprenderam o valor moral da justiça. Para isso, entrevistamos vinte professoras do 6º ao 9º ano do ensino fundamental de cinco diferentes escolas particulares do município de Vitória, Espírito Santo, buscando identificar como elas julgam ter aprendido sobre justiça durante sua vida escolar e como julgam que ensinam esse valor moral em suas práticas pedagógicas. Nossa proposta incluiu, ainda, averiguar se houve mudanças nas práticas mencionadas e, em caso afirmativo, analisar tais transformações. Os resultados demonstraram que a maioria das professoras relata que aprendeu sobre o valor moral da justiça por meio de ações impositivas. A forma pela qual elas julgam que ensinam esse valor manifesta-se em exemplos em que a imposição ainda está presente, mesmo que esteja relacionada a conversas, revelando que as professoras ensinam do modo como aprenderam. Esses dados podem contribuir para a intervenção na prática pedagógica de tais profissionais e para o aprimoramento de sua formação, possibilitando a ruptura do círculo vicioso de aprender e ensinar por meio da imposição.Moral education is an important theme from the point of view of the field of morality, since learning and teaching moral values are among the actions that promote the humanization of man, both in its moral sense (answering the question how should I live?), and in the ethical sense (answering the question what life do I want to live?). Moral education can happen within different social contexts. The present research focuses on the school. The study of this kind of education involves several moral themes. The objective of this research was to investigate how those who teach have themselves learned, and how those who learned the moral value of justice teach. For that, we interviewed 20 teachers from the sixth to the ninth year of fundamental education from five private schools of the city of Vitória, Espírito Santo, trying to identify how they thought they had learned about justice during their school lives and how they reckoned they taught this moral value in their pedagogical practices. Our proposal included also to investigate the existence of changes in the practices mentioned above and, if so, to analyze such transformations. The results demonstrate that most teachers describe that they have learned about the moral value of justice through mandatory actions. The way in which they believe they teach about this value is manifested in examples in which imposition is still present, even if related to conversations, revealing that teachers teach the way they learned. This information can contribute to intervene in the pedagogical practice of these professionals and to improve their education, helping to break up the vicious circle of learning and teaching through imposition

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation