Epistemology is often presented as an abstract body of knowledge accessible only to a small minority of intellectually capable individuals. In this paper, we elaborate the educational possibilities that present themselves when we question this prejudice and consider epistemology as a social practice. We argue that epistemology looses its air of divine mystery and becomes one of many language games they learn to play. We provide illustrations for this argument from high school students” conversations conducted in the context of their physics course. Enacting epistemological practice in the educational context is therefore not only possible but also desirable. It triggers a recursive self-organizing process that transforms pedagogical practice itself and thus brings to the foreground the socio-political and ethical character of the educational endeavor. Our brief argument is written in the form of a reflexive text and is presented as the starting point for the readers to begin a conversation about the problematic subjects raised.

Excerpt: In a typical study of students’ conceptions and conceptual change, researchers analyze what a student does or says in a classroom or in an interview and recognizes ideas that match or do not match their own understanding of the topic. Attributing the perspective they recognize in the student, those studies support the idea that a conception is the way by means of which an individual intrinsically conceives (of) a given phenomenon. They then hypothesize the existence of some mental structures that can be theoretically and objectively re-constructed based on what is observed in a student’s performance. Thus, researchers studying conceptions commonly assume that the observer and the observed are separate entities. However, even in the most theoretical and hardest of all sciences, physics, the independence of the measured object and the measuring subject is not taken for granted: Light, for example, will present itself as waves or as particles depending on how we examine it. The artificial sense of separation from the object(s) of study found in many accounts on students’ conceptions makes irrelevant the relationship that exists between the observer and the observed: an interdependence and co-emergence of the observer and the observed. This tight relation exists because each participant not only reacts upon what others say but also acts upon the reactions that his/her own actions give rise to. With this situation come epistemological, practical, and ethical implications for those researching in mathematics and science education. Positing or questioning the existence of an objective reality mediates how we accept or reject another human being and the worldviews s/he develops. It provides a rationale that guides our actions. This is especially important when it comes to teaching and learning at a time where the ability to deal with the plurality and diversity of human culture have emerged as significant referents for our social behavior.

This book is addressed to all those in the field of education or related fields, including teachers, teacher-trainers, consultants, and researchers, who are interested in exploring the question, “What does it mean to know, to learn and to teach?” Contrary to popular conceptions, an enactive perspective assumes that knowing and learning are not disembodied operations that take place solely in a person’s head. Rather, they are a function of the whole person who is firmly situated in the world and who acts in the world to transform it, just as she is transformed by it. The dynamic and transformational nature of knowing and learning are reflected in the relationship between the person and her world, a relationship that evolves through acting in and with the world rather than abstracting oneself from it. Knowing develops as a function of the person’s availability, that is, her full involvement and presence in the here- and-now. The aim of education is thus to foster the development of this relationship in a never-ending quest for deep interiority with the world. Drawing on their experiences as teachers, curriculum developers, students, Zen practitioners, karateka, bicyclists, hobby mathematicians, and gardeners, the authors provide many concrete examples of what it means to think about knowing and learning in terms of enaction and how teachers and curriculum developers who take enactivism seriously might go about designing and implementing lessons.

Existing educational practices focus on subject matter knowledge that is, through the act of teaching, brought into the heads of students. Materials, texts, or images qua aspects of the learning environment are treated as given in terms of fixed and unambiguous structures (ontologies). Drawing on examples from a large data base on learning physics through laboratory activities, I show that (a) students do not perceive and act in worlds shared with physicists and physics teachers and (b) during collective activities, students evolve new domain ontologies and language games by interacting with each other. Because of structural constraints in the environment (teacher, textbook, equipment), initially quite different ontologies and language games converge, the shared language games often become more commensurable with (existing) scientific ontologies and language games. In this co-evolution of ontology and language game, gestures provide an important bridge between laboratory experiences in science and scientific discourse about abstract entities.

Although laboratory activities have long been recognized for their potential to facilitate the learning of science concepts and skills, this potential has yet to be realized. To remediate this problem, researchers have called for constructivist learning environments in which students can pursue open inquiry and frame their own research problems. The present study was designed to describe and understand students’ experimenting and problem solving in such an environment. An interpretive research methodology was adopted for the construction of meaning from the data. The data sources included videotapes, their transcripts, student laboratory reports and reflections, interviews with the students, and the teacher’s course outline and reflective notes. Forty‐six students from three sections of an introductory physics course taught at a private school for boys participated in the study. This article shows the students’ remarkable ability and willingness to generate research questions and to design and develop apparatus for data collection. In their effort to frame research questions, students often used narrative explanations to explore and think about the phenomena to be studied. In some cases, blind alleys, students framed research questions and planned experiments that did not lead to the expected results. We observed a remarkable flexibility to deal with problems that arose during the implementation of their plans in the context of the inquiry. These problems, as well as their solutions and the necessary decision‐making processes, were characterized by their situated nature. Finally, students pursued meaningful learning during the interpretation of data and graphs to arrive at reasonable answers of their research questions. We concluded that students should be provided with problem‐rich learning environments in which they learn to investigate phenomena of their own interest and in which they can develop complex problem‐solving skills.

Students’ views of the nature of scientific knowledge have been recognized as an important component of science learning environments. In this study, we analyze an extensive data base consisting of 23 students’ written and oral discourse about ontology, epistemology, and sociology of scientific knowledge collected over a 15-month period in the context of two consecutive junior- and senior-level physics courses. Over a 2-month period at the beginning of the second year, students read, reflected on, and talked about a text which discusses epistemology in the context of physics. Our study shows that students drew on nine types of discursive resources to support their ontological, epistemological, and sociological claims. Toward the end of the study, the range and number of supportive statements had increased. Simultaneously, few students changed their ontological and sociological claims, but a considerable number changed their epistemological claims. Two case studies illustrate the development of student discourse in the course of the study.