Two Views of Knowledge and Teaching

Magnus Henrekson () and Johan Wennström

Chapter 5 in Dumbing Down, 2022, pp 81-93 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The chapter outlines two conflicting visions of knowledge: the classical view and the postmodern social constructivist view. According to the classical view, the purpose of schooling is to give students the kind of valuable knowledge and skills, including relevant knowledge of the wider culture in which they are expected to spend their lives as adults, that they cannot acquire in any other way. On the other hand, the postmodern social constructivist view rejects the existence of objective knowledge. In the context of schooling, this translates to a preference for student-directed pedagogy, the mixing of subjects, and an emphasis on developing generic critical thinking rather than on acquiring domain-specific knowledge. The chapter argues that the classical view is consistent with both modern scientific research and received wisdom. Moreover, it suggests that the stipulated view of knowledge is the single most important institution for the functioning and development of any school system.

Keywords: Communal knowledge; Institutions; Postmodernism; Social constructivism; Thought style; Views of knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-93429-3_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030934293

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93429-3_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().