Science education is an intellectual and practical disciple and should indeed remain so. But the question is, should we allow philosopical arguments about science education's social foundations, for example the possibility of knowledge, capture us too much? It is my contention that simplicity in meta-theoretical issues is a good strategy. If a simple platform for science teaching and research could be formulated and accepted, more time and energy could be devoted to the main objectives of the discipline to do with explanations of the development and impact of science in society. Because of their connotations and general vagueness, both positivism and ultra-relativism in social constructivism tend to necessitate years of cumbersome philosophical studies. Realism does not have these implications. "Realism" was employed to signify ontological assumptions; in particular the epistemological position that we have provides at least partial access to social reality, emabling valid but fallible knowledge about it. "Causal" in causal realism is employed to suggest a general orientation in science education research - to explain by identifying generative mechanisms. The concepts of mechanism, causality, and explanation must be recaptured from the positivistic tradition. In particular, they must be tied to ontology, not simply epistemology.In the second section I examined the ongoing debate between "cognitive" and "situated learning" teaching approaches, in terms of methodilogical individualism, holism, and micro- and macro-sociology. By way of the natural sciences, I suggested a way out of these dilemmas is simply to start with accepting that what is happening in science.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245539 |
| Creators | Cross, Julian Stamford |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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