Radical constructivism accentuates the subjectivity of constructions of reality and thus refutes the possibility of insights gamed by independent observers. In the context, constructivistic didactics hold out the prospect of a modelling of subject-oriented worlds of learning in the course of a corresponding averting of linear-causal models. The author examines constructivistically oriented didactic concepts as a result of pedagogical strategies of gratification with the help of which radical queries can be smoothed out and fitted into current debates on reform.

This paper highlights the educative consequences of contemporary constructivist perspective. Firstly, relationships between epistemology, psychology of knowledge and didactics are reviewed, and a relative autonomy of epistemological study is asserted. Second, the mail theses of radical constructivism are critically presented, and a constructivist perspective founded in Piaget’s work is discussed. Third, the adequacy of both perspectives in front of the educative challenge is evaluated: specifically, how to explain the child’s elaboration of knowledge in a didactical context; particularly, how disciplinary knowledge is included in the constructive process. As a conclusion, this discussion shows that Piagetian constructivism is compatible with the individual construction of knowledge inside didactical situations; by the contrary, radical constructivism has many insolvable difficulties in this regard.

This article offers a re-description of the concept of learning context. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann and Gregory Bateson, it suggests an alternative to situated, social learning and activity theory. The conclusion is that the learning context designates an individual’s reconstruction of the environment through contingent handling of differences and that the individual emerges as a learner through the actual construction. The selection of differences is influenced by the learner’s actual knowledge, the nature of the environment and the current horizon of meaning in which the current adaptive perspective becomes a significant factor. The re-description contributes to didactics through renewed understanding of the participants’ backgrounds in teaching and learning. Relevance: The paper focuses on learning context as individuals’ mental construction, on the distinction between teaching as context for learning and learning contexts, and on re-description of participants’ backgrounds as temporary horizons of meaning.

The article raises the problem of critical thinking from a constructivist perspective. In the course of argumentation, we justify the thesis that constructivism is a valuable basis for both a theoretical approach (as a model) to critical thinking and a didactic design of activities focused on shaping and developing appropriate skills and dispositions. In our article, we point out that the advantage of the concept of critical thinking based on the constructivist model is mainly related to the assumptions underlying constructivism itself. Its application to the theory and practice of critical thinking implies important solutions, for the most part, on the epistemological and ethical level, while at the same time providing an attractive alternative to the concepts of critical thinking present in contemporary educational discourse.

Key words: critical thinking, constructivism didactics, educational philosophy, educational theory

To a large extent, criticisms to constructivists epistemologies, in particular to Piaget’s theory, have come from fields like psychology and didactics, not from epistemology itself. Our goal is to show that the power of piagetian theory comes from its epistemological contents. One must not look for this power in education for its own sake. This does not mean that epistemology and educational theories are unrelated but that each one has to define its domain of applicability.

Excerpt: The relationship between constructivist epistemology and teaching is uneasy, as is often evidenced by the dissatisfaction or irritation which arises in discussions over didactics. This essay has been written with a dual objective in mind: The first consists in tentatively suggesting one possible explanation for the difficulties encountered in transposing constructivism into teaching practice, the second in proposing a number of speculations as to what might constitute a more relevant, if somewhat makeshift, type of epistemology for pursuing reflection on didactics. At the outset, however, I wish to exclude from this debate the case of specialists who have seized on constructivism to advocate respectable didactic principles which are merely compatible with this current of thought and nothing more. Take, for example, their insistence on the necessity of students’ participation in the reconstruction of knowledge, a principle which has been applied in various ways from the days of the venerable Active School down to the present. It is not constructivism’s duty to supply up-to-date arguments to pedagogical ideologies of even the most well-reasoned variety.

In my article I point to the essential meaning of the “theoretical content” of the accepted educational model. Lack of knowledge of the assumptions, assertions and implications resulting from a given concept or model generates simplifications and becomes the reason of inconsistencies in “didactic thinking” and acting. The purpose of this article is an attempt to provide justification for the claim about the absolutely theoretized character of considerations (of each type) in the field of education theory. As a consequence, I also put forward a thesis according to which we can not coherently and consistently use concepts such as knowledge and learning “beyond” the paradigmatic context (understood here as a specific theoretical model).

Key words: constructivism, didactics, model of education, knowledge.

In September 1991 on the Pedagogical Faculty in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a Tempus project with the title Primary Science Development has begun in which preservice and in-service education of primary teachers is being developed with the help of three institutions: Centre for Educational Studies, King’s College, London, England; National Institute for Curriculum Development SLO, Enschede, Netherland; and Department for Didactics of Physics, Karlsruhe University, Germany. For in-service training, a 20-day course is being prepared by science teachers of the Pedagogical Faculty and advisers of the Board of Education which constitute the Tempus working group in Ljubljana.

This paper links the science of complexity and its nonlinear logic to didactics and the dynamics which characterizes teaching theory, along with the necessity to re-qualify the cognitive and structural background on which to base a new teaching professionalism. A new element is the reconsideration of the distinction between objective and subjective. The pillar of this conception is found in the passage from intellectual ability to cognitive strategies. While intellectual abilities are learned in situations of objectivization of the teaching–learning processes and are translated into objectively verifiable applications, the possibility of learning cognitive strategies is linked to a nonlinear logic. These are taught through nonlinear didactics in a field of subjectivization of educative processes. Relevance: This approach intersects the concept of innovative teaching and the processes of objectification and subjectification of learning with the enactive perspective and the concept of autopoiesis.

Abstract: The article examines the reception of (radical) constructivist thought in Practical Theology, by example of religious pedagogy and pastoral care. It demonstrates that to a great extent constructivist thinking has been received by the diverse fi elds of Practical Theology independently from each other. A specifi c model of Practical Theology built on a constructivist foundation does not yet exist. A constructivist religious pedagogy problematizes confessional religious teaching, and may serve to support ideas of a general, supra-confessional religious teaching, even though distinguishing it from the teaching of ethics is problematic. In religious pedagogy, constructivism leads to an abandonment of a curricular theory strictly oriented to learning objectives. Rather, emphasis in the understanding of learning is given to the individual activity (Selbsttätigkeit) of the subject. This in turn leads to new didactic propositions, but does not mean renouncing didactics as the ideal of fully self-directed learning. The introduction of educational standards (Bildungsstandards), as well as the competency-driven orientation both in learning and in teacher education, can be understood as an expression and didactic adaptation of a constructivist religious pedagogy. The development of child theology and of “theologizing” with children can be seen as a consequence of constructivist thinking. In the psychologically-oriented pastoral care, the reception of constructivist thought has taken place through systemic family therapy and Luhmann’s systems theory. Based on Christoph Morgenthaler’s systemic pastoral care we demonstrate how theological refl ection presents the reference to God as a dynamic reality in the sense of a critical correction of God constructs, thus contributing to make the religious development in relational systems more dynamic. Finally, taking the point of view that Practical Theology is a second order observation system, we problematize the universal scope of the religion of the subject, or religion in society/the public realm and we ask to what extent the churches are receptive for a constructivist Practical Theology oriented toward a plural praxis, and which political interests are served by the thematization of a non-confessional religion in society.

Key words: radical constructivism, practical theology, religious education, pastoral care.