Constructivism and the acquisition of social knowledge

Abstract

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 -originated in the work of Durkheim mise au jour by Moscovici- and the cultural-historical psychology -rooted in Vygotski work- insiston the role of environmental influences. For this reason, they constitute in some way a counterpoint to the 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 to be strongly dependent on context and adult transmission, while notions and explanations related to processes show more clearly the subject's idiosyncratic contribution. The critical and comparative consideration of this distinction could help us to understand the divergencies among different theoretical 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 the existence of stages in different areas of social representation. Unfortunately we still lack a sufficient amount of research in several areas of the field.

In ordertoillustrate 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.