A little detailed but worth taking a look at, especially to see that the various philosophical traditions that underlie contemporary educational inquiry developed across about the same historical time frame. Too often positivism, interpretivism and critical approaches to inquiry are presented as if their were an evolution from one to the next. Each of these traditions has evolved over the past two hundred plus years and although the ideas of Comte, Husserl, and Marx live on in our contemporary orientations to inquiry their ideas are not static and we continually reinterpret them in the present.
Category Archives: big abstract ideas
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What is the difference between constructivism and constructionism?
You will note in the Crotty readings that his emphasis is on constructionism, what he at times calls social constructionism (or sometimes social constructivism). While it may seem at first reading this is all about different words for the same or different things, these are indeed critical differences that matter. Constructivism, especially social constructivism, is the epistemological foundation for interpretative and critical research perspectives. Davis & Sumara’s article, that refers more to teaching than research, is nonetheless excellent on these distinctions. Knowing whether you adopt a subject-centred constructivist epistemology or a subject object interdependent constructionist epistemology is an important step in finding a research orientation that is sensible.
