In the first part of the article I present an epistemological critique of forms of pedagogy founded on Piagetian constructivism. Despite the appeal of the notion that learners construct their understanding, I argue that constructivism is problematic because it ignores the subjectivity of the learner and the socially and historically situated nature of knowing; it denies the essentially collaborative and social nature of meaning making; and it privileges only one form of knowledge, namely, the technical rational. I then present a critique of active learning and student-centered forms of pedagogy. I argue that in our models of teaching we rely on too many unexamined assumptions from developmental psychology and we take for granted the problematic notion that children learn by doing. My central thesis is that constructivism is flawed because of its inability to come to grips with the essential issues of culture, power, and discourse in the classroom. In the concluding section of the article I present a preliminary account of a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning that takes seriously the notion that learning is situated in contexts, that students bring their own subjectivities and cultural perspectives to bear in constructing understanding, that issues of power exist in the classroom that need to be addressed, and that 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.

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 constructivism 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.