JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 30, NO, 9, PP. 1203-1207 (1993)

Some Further Questions for Piagetian Constructivists: A Reply to Fosnot

Michael O’Loughlin

Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11550

Catherine Fosnot’s labeling of my essay (O’Loughlin, 1992a) as “nihilistic, culturally relative, and dangerous” is rancorous and perplexing. Her characterization of my research on Piaget as meager, erroneous, and flawed is amusing, considering her stance as an avowed constructivist, and her argument for a rapprochement between her kind of cognitive constructiv- ism and the social constructivism she attributes to me is mystifying considering the lambasting she gives my position. I stand by my original text. It depicts my attempt to weave together a story from diverse sources-and emphatically not from the single source Fosnot alleges-that articulates my concerns about the limitations of Piagetian forms of constructivism as the basis for a pedagogy that might enable diverse learners to gain ownership over scientific discourse and allow them to construct a critical understanding of the role of science in our society. My text is open to multiple interpretations and Fosnot is entitled to hers. However, she does a disservice by not laying bare the interpretive frameworks and interests on which her critique is based. Clues to her stance are to be found in her response, however, and I will use the brief space available to me to identify some of these so readers can draw their own conclusions about the relevance of her critique.

Cartesian Anxiety and the Problem of Relativism

Fosnot accuses me of ignoring the discussion of phronesis in her book (1989). This discus- sion, which is limited to approximately a single page, is revealing:

Constructivism and phronesis have much in common. Both share the belief that knowl- edge is constructed in the process of reflection, inquiry, and action, by learners them- selves, and thus must be seen as temporary, developmental, and nonobjective. Both insist that ideas, principles, and theories are not immutable and purport instead that energies be spent in discourse, action, and reflection (p. 21).

In her reply to my article, however, Fosnot appears to argue that knowledge that has stood the test of time and experimentation is superior, and that models of scientific rationality are appro- priate because that is what scientists do. She accuses me of nihilism and dangerous relativism precisely because I do not stand for these objective standards. Bruno Latour (1987) would surely chuckle at the dualism inherent in this argument! In a chapter on rationality (pp. 179-213) Latour argues that scientific discourse is better characterized as a clash between competing

0 1993 by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/93/0901203-05

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worldviews than as the triumph of rationality over relativism. He characterizes scientific debate this way:

From the observer’s point of view none of these people think either illogically or logically, but always sociologically, that is they go straight from elements to elements until a controversy starts. When this happens they look for stronger and more resistant allies, and in order to do so, they may end up mobilising the most heterogeneous and distant elements, thus mapping for themselves, for their opponents, and for the observers, what they value most, what they are most clearly attached to. . . To call a claim ‘absurd’ or knowledge ‘accurate’ has no more meaning than to call a smuggler trail ‘illogical’ and a freeway ‘logical’ (p. 205).

Lather (1991) argues that people who express fears about nihilism and relativism do so because they are structuralists at heart. As Chenyholmes notes, “Relativism is an issue for structuralists because they propose structures that set standards” (cited in Lather, 1991, p. 115). Lather (1 99 1) elaborates:

Caputo asks, ‘How many of our questions arise from foundational compulsions, Cartesian anxieties?’ To see relativism as a Cartesian obsession is to argue that it is an issue only within the context of foundationalist epistemologies which search for a privileged stand- point as a guarantee of certainty (p. 115).

Lather says that attacks on relativism are a means of protecting the hegemony of the authorita- tive discourse of (in this case) constructivism and science, and hence the dominance of those who subscribe to the received view. The problem, as Lather explains, and as 1 noted in my earlier essay, is that this stance ignores the power relations inherent in the discourses in which knowledge is embedded. Space does not permit the articulation of an alternative, but Haraway captures the essence of what is required: “The alternative to relativism is partial, locatable, critical knowledge. . . ” (cited in Lather, 1991, p. 117)

Equilibration Versus Ecosocial Evolution

The central thesis of Fosnot’s reply is that Piaget’s recent work offers a new model of equilibration that is contemporary and helpful. My reading of Piaget (1975, 1987) suggests otherwise. Despite a nod to Prigogine’s work in a single footnote (Piaget, 1975, p. 4), Piaget’s recent work still involves a preoccupation with the identification of operational structures and the explanation of how individuals develop putative logicomathematical reasoning structures (cf. Piaget, 1987, pp. 3-7). In addition, all of the concerns presented in my earlier essay are applicable to the experiments reported in Piaget (1987). Contrary to Fosnot’s assertion that Piaget’s model of equilibration approximates the contextually sensitive and socioculturally situated model articulated by Lave (1988), Piaget (1975) actually argues for a model of equili- bration that strives for “coherence” or “a better equilibrium” (p. 3 1). This hierarchical model of progressive integration of schemes and subschemes invokes shades of the autonomous, mental- ist reasoner that was the focus of my critique in the original essay. Space does not pennit the articulation of a credible ecosocial model that is sensitive to history, culture, subjectivity, and the matrix of interactions that constitute the dynamic of development, but a useful attempt to specify the parameters of such a model is presented by Lemke (1991). Lemke (1991), whose work in science education is grounded in social semiotics, as well as in the evolutionary models emerging from recent work in physics, chemistry and biology (p. lo), proposes a successional

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model of development that takes account of the patchy nature of development. The contrast between this dynamic model and the impoverished, structural model underlying work such as Piaget’s is captured by Lemke (1991) as follows:

The traditional paradigm of embryological development, relatively autonomous and inter- nalist, does not fit well with the needs of educational, or social theory. It also does not extend well from the classical notion of an ‘individual’ organism to notions of the devel- opment of groups, communities, or ecosystems. That is why the paradigm itself has been undergoing change and generalization. . . The weakness of developmental models is that they were fashioned to describe relatively autonomous development, such as embry- ogenesis. They focus on a single individual and create the environment as a black box from which the system extracts (actively at best) needed nutrients or information. They assume that development, so far as it is of interest, proceeds in the same way each time. They ignore individuation of development (unique aspects), evolution of developmental trajectories, and interdependence (current and historical coevolution of trajectories) of system and environment. Successional models for ecosystem development, on the other hand, look at how complexes of interdependent species, whole animal and plant commu- nities, develop over time in (two-way) interaction with one another and with the geophysi- cal environment. . . Human community patchiness also has its scales, down, for present purposes, to the individual organism, whose developmental trajectory as a member of a social group is an integral part of the successional history of the group and the larger communities of which it is in turn a part. Learning is an essentially social process: it takes place in communities, through social interaction. What is transmitted are social systems of practices and their meanings. . . that are characteristic of social communities. But both the traditional autonomous learner and that of teaching and learning as transmitting and receiving are hopelessly inadequate scientifically and even seriously misleading as meta- phors (pp. 10-12).

Decentration and Abstract Thought

Fosnot devotes considerable space to taking me to task for denying the merits of abstract, decentered thought. My position is that the decontextualized or disembedded (Donaldson, 1978) abstract thought characteristic of the formal operational level of Piaget’s theory is problematic. I am aware of the value of forms of abstract thinking that enable people to articulate and critique their own subjectively and socioculturally constituted perspectives, and that allow them to try out and perhaps adopt other forms of discourse and ways of knowing. The purpose of ernancipa- tory approaches to pedagogy, as I have noted elsewhere (O’Loughlin, 1992b), and as I explained in my earlier essay (cf. O’Loughlin, 1992a, p. 814), is to engender just such critical reflection. Furthermore, Fosnot’s nod to subjectivity is woefully inadequate, and takes no account of the sociocultural situatedness of identity, nor of the politics of identity formation, as discussed, for example, in the writings of Henriques, Holloway, Urwin, Venn, and Walkerdine (1984) and Ellsworth (1989). Lather (1991) argues that the whole point of feminist postmodern critique has been to ensure the demise of the kind of essentialized subjectivity that appears to characterize Fosnot’s position:

What has “died” is the unified, monolithic, reified, essentialized subject capable of fully conscious, fully rational action, a subject assumed in most liberal and emancipatory discourse. Such a subject is replaced by a provisional, contingent, strategic, constructed subject which, while not essentialized, must be engaged in processes of meaning-making given the bombardment by conflicting messages (p. 120).

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Pedagogic Discourses: Language, Culture, and Power in the Classroom

Fosnot’s inattention to my discussion of the effects of pedagogic discourses on student learning is disappointing. Apparently unaware that I work with teachers and students in New York City public schools throughout the year, and that most of my concerns about pedagogy and equity come from that work, as well as from inquiry into my own pedagogy (e.g., O’Loughlin, 1992b, 1993), Fosnot attempts to dismiss me as just-another-critical-theorist-unconcerned- with-practice. Fosnot’s attempt to pigeonhole my work, incorrectly, as grounded in Gadamer’s heremenutics reveals the difficulty she had in making sense of my approach. This, however, is hardly reason to dismiss it! The purpose of my essay, as the abstract makes clear, was to ask how we might develop a pedagogy for science education that is emancipatory rather than hegemonic. As I noted (O’Loughlin, 1992a): “. . . education into scientific ways of knowing requires understanding modes of classroom discourse and enabling students to negotiate these modes effectively so that they may master and critique scientific ways of knowing without, in the process, sacrificing their own personally and culturally constructed ways of knowing” (p. 79 1). The issue is not, as Fosnot suggests, one of adding a cultural appendage to our current models of cognitive development. Rather, we need to center our energies on understanding the crucial role of discourse as cultural practice in mediating the relationship between knowledge, power, and the formation of consciousness (O’Loughlin, 1992~). Bemstein’s (1990) critique of the power relationships of the invisible kinds of pedagogy advocated by Piagetian constructivists, as well as Lemke’s (1990) analysis of the language encounter of science classes in which the multiple discourses of home, of schooling, of textbook science, and of formal science potentially meet, provide useful entry points to this discussion.

To put it simply, consideration of an alternative to either transmission teaching or the student-centered approach emanating from Piagetian constructivism is in order for teachers who are interested in promoting personal validation as well as critical access to and mastery of the multiple discourses of science among their students. It is important to stress, too, as Lemke (1991) acknowledges, that the choice of pedagogies should not be determined by the intellectual force and technical features of the arguments, but rather by the moral purposes that we bring to teaching. Ultimately, beneath (or perhaps above?) all the jargon, we must ask whose science we are teaching, and in whose interest we are teaching it.

References

Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of pedagogic discourse: Vol. N, class, codes, and

Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s minds. New York: Norton. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive

myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 297-324. Fosnot, C.T. ( 1989). Enquiring teachers, enquiring learners: A constructivist approach to

teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Henriques, J., Holloway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C., & Walkerdine, V. (1 984). Changing

the subject: Psychology, social regulation, and subjectivity. London: Methuen. Lather, P. (1991). Getling smart: Feminist research and pedagogy withlin the postmodern.

New York & London: Routledge. Latour, B. (1987). Scieke in action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life.

Lemke, J. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

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Lemke, J. (1991, April). Science, semantics, and social change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

O’Loughlin, M. (1992a). Rethinking science education: Beyond Piagetian constructivism toward a sociocultural model of teaching and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29, 791-820.

O’Loughlin, M. (1992b). Engaging teachers in emancipatory knowledge construction. Journal of Teacher Education, 43, 336-346.

O’Loughlin, M. (1992~). The discourse of pedagogy and the possibility of social change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

O’Loughlin, M. (1993). Conspiracy in the women’s room: A tale of resistances in a college classroom. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Piaget, J. (1975). The development of thought: Equilibration of cognitive structures. New York: The Viking Press.

Piaget, J. (1987). Possibility and necessity, Vol. 1 : The role of possibility in cognitive development. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Manuscript accepted March 29, 1993.