History, Culture, Emergence Informing Learning Designs

Abstract

New understandings about learning are reconceptualizing our definition of what it means to know. It is also increasing our questions about how knowledge materializes. What becomes eminently clear is that knowing and learning is a complex process. Kelly and Sezen refer to this complexity as they discuss the shift from an individual to a social view of learning. Their chapter Activity, Discourse, Meaning reflects upon the shift in science education to articulate potential new research directions for the field. The chapter describes that these prospective directions arise from the movement away from behaviorist models and toward constructivist ones. These research trajectories are not only an outgrowth of this shift, but also a reflection of the limitations of conceptual change theory. Rather than offer a comprehensive research direction for science education, Kelly and Sezen highlight three particular themes. These include examining knowing as developing within a contextualized set of practices that include thinking, acting, or speaking, attending to the social and personal construction of learners’ identities and finally, questioning whose and what knowledge is true, correct, and privileged.

This response to Kelly and Sezen’s analysis of the changing landscape of science education and what it means for potential research directions has a particular intention. The aim in this response is to offer a reflection of how the field of cultural sociology is assisting in uncovering this complex process. Further, its purpose is to extend the conversation in the areas projected by these authors. Like Kelly and Sezen, I do not attempt to provide a comprehensive survey of the field. Rather, I offer an extension of Activity, Discourse, Meaning by focusing here on their main three points: contextual learning, social and personal identity, and legitimating knowledge as a means of continuing the conversation of the shifting inspection of conceptual change. More specifically, I examine Kelly and Sezen’s three points by bringing a cultural sociology theory to the forefront of these discussions to suggest the implication for the design of learning environments.