EDUCATORS
Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)
Alberto Munari1
A portrait of an educator that is also a portrait of
the great Swiss epistemologist and psychologist
might, at first glance, seem surprising. Indeed, why should Jean Piaget
be regarded as an
educator? — since he never practised that profession and always refused
the title of educationist,
going so far as to affirm: ‘I have no views on teaching’ (Bringuier,
1977, p. 194), and since all his
writings on education2 do not amount to more than a
three-hundredth3 part of his oeuvre as a
whole.
Such bafflement is altogether in order if we refer
only to Piaget’s own scientific output. But
it is less surprising if we remember the many books that we owe to other
authors on the educational implications of Piaget’s achievement4.
Indeed, for several years, we have ceased to count the number of
educators and educationists in different countries who explicitly refer
to Piaget’s work to justify their methods and principles. But is the
interpretation always the same? Do writers invariably refer to Piagetian
psychology, or do they evoke other aspects of his complex and
manysided work? To which of the very different Piagets do we owe the
most important contributions: to Piaget the biologist, Piaget
the epistemologist or Piaget the psychologist? or are
we particularly indebted to the educational ‘politician’? — as
one might call Piaget in his capacity as Director of the International
Bureau of Education.
A lifelong cause: science
Let us start, however, by filling in the background. Jean Piaget
epitomizes the ‘enlightened’
academician who struggled all his life against the institutions and
intellectual prejudices of his day — and also perhaps against his own
youthful idealistic and spiritual concerns (Piaget, 1914, 1915, 1918) —
in order to defend and promote the scientific approach.
Encouraged by his father, whose ‘scrupulous and
critical mind disliked hasty generalizations’ (Piaget, 1976), he was
introduced very early to the precision of naturalist observation by the
malacologist Paul Godet, Director of the Natural History Museum in
Neuchâtel, his native town (ibid., p. 2–3). While still a schoolboy, he
entered the arena of international scientific controversy by publishing
as early as 1911, at the age of 15, the first of his articles in
highcirculation journals. Piaget was very quickly attracted by the charm
and rigour of scientific
research. In his own words:
Precocious as they were, these studies were nevertheless very useful in my scientific training. Moreover, they acted, if I may say so, like protective weapons against the demon of philosophy. Thanks to them, I had the rare privilege of catching a glimpse of science and what it represented before I went through the philosophical crises of adolescence. The early experience of these two sets of problems constituted, I am sure, the hidden inspiration for my subsequent activity in psychology (ibid., p. 3).
Thus, in spite of two major ‘adolescent crises’, one
religious and the other philosophical (ibid.,
p. 4), Piaget was gradually brought to the firm conviction that the
scientific approach was the only valid way of gaining access to
knowledge, and that the introspective approaches of the
philosophical tradition could, at best, help to develop a certain wisdom
(Piaget, 1965a).
This increasingly strong conviction determined the
fundamental choices that Piaget made in
the 1920s or thereabouts, and which, from then on, did not waver,
whether they involved the
psychology he decided to study, the academic policies he chose to defend
or the commitment he
undertook with regard to educational issues. On the subject of
psychology, he declared: ‘This made me decide to devote my life to the
biological explanation of knowledge’ (ibid., p. 5), thereby abandoning,
after an initial interest linked to his own family experiences (ibid.,
p. 2), psychoanalysis and pathological psychology. With regard to his
work as a researcher and university teacher, the constant concern
influencing and guiding his work and, indeed, his entire life was that
of winning recognition, especially by his colleagues in physics and the
natural sciences, for the equally scientific nature of the
human sciences and, more specifically, of psychology and epistemology.
His attitude and his involvement in the field of education led him quite
naturally to champion the pupil’s active participation as the royal road
to the scientific approach in school.
The discovery of childhood and education
It was, then, this plan that motivated Jean Piaget to move away from
philosophical introspection
and to go to work in Paris with Janet, Piéron and Simon in the
laboratories founded by Binet. It
was there that he discovered for the first time the rich world of
children’s thinking. It was also on
this occasion that he prepared the first rough draft of his critical
method — which he sometimes also referred to as his clinical
method — of questioning very young children, on the basis of a wholly
novel and remarkable distillation of what he had just learned from Dumas
and Simon in clinical psychology and from Brunschvicg and Lalande in
epistemology, logic and history of the sciences. The originality of the
Piagetian exploration of a child’s thought resides in the methodological
principle whereby the flexibility and subtlety of the ‘in-depth’
interview, characteristic of the clinical approach, need to be modulated
by the systematic search for the logico-mathematical processes
underlying the reasoning put forward. To conduct this type of interview,
however, it is necessary to refer to the various developmental stages
through which the concept to be examined has passed in the course of its
historical evolution. Hence, the Piagetian methodology emerges from the
outset as an attempt to associate the three traditionally Western
approaches that had hitherto remained separate: the empirical method of
the experimental sciences, the hypothetico-deductive method of
logico-mathematics and the historical-critical method of the historical
sciences (Munari, 1985a, 1985b).
In Paris, most of the children questioned by Piaget
were children in hospital. Only when he
was called to Geneva by Edouard Claparède and Pierre Bovet did he begin
to study children in their ‘normal’ surroundings, especially at school.
The Maison des Petits of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute then became
the principal venue for his research. His work in this leading centre of
modern education — and subsequently in the primary schools of the day in
Geneva, perhaps less ‘modern’ than the Maison des Petits — probably
helped Piaget to understand the distance which too often separated the
unsuspected intellectual skills that he had just discovered in children
and the teaching practices commonly adopted by teachers in State
schools. Moreover, the fact that he was working this time within a
Jean-Jacques Rousseau institute, entirely dedicated to developing and
improving educational systems and practices, and no longer in hospital
establishments or medical laboratories dealing with sick or handicapped
children, was bound to have a certain influence on Piaget’s awareness of
the wider education issue.
‘However’, Piaget admitted, not without candour,
‘teaching did not interest me at the time,
since I had no children of my own’ (Piaget, 1976, p. 12). It was only
later, when he returned to
Geneva after a brief period in Neuchâtel where he had replaced his
former teacher, Arnold
Reymond, and was made co-director, with Claparède and Bovet of the
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Institute, that his commitment to education first took tangible form.
‘In 1929, I unwisely accepted the post of Director of the International
Bureau of Education, yielding to the insistence of my friend Pedro
Rosselló’ (ibid., p. 17). This was a decisive turning-point in Piaget’s
life, for it led him to the discovery of the socio-political issues that
are inseparable from any educational undertaking and prompted him to
embark on the grand scheme of international education.
From the IBE adventure to Piagetian
educational principles
‘This adventure was something of a gamble’, Piaget said (ibid.), as if
he wanted to play down its
importance. Nevertheless, he remained at the head of this international
organization from 1929 to 1968! This is, undoubtedly, a remarkable fact,
not only in itself but especially in view of Piaget’s own personality,
since he was notoriously reluctant to commit himself to non-scientific
tasks. Was it his desire to improve teaching methods by ‘the official
adoption of techniques better
adapted to the mind of the child’ (ibid.) and therefore, once again,
more scientific? Or should the
project be viewed as a way of becoming more effectively involved in
official school institutions
through the action of a supragovernmental organization? Or, again, did
it hold out the hope of
combating misunderstanding among peoples, and hence the evils of war,
through an educational
effort directed towards international values?
Every year, from 1929 to 1967, Piaget diligently
drafted his ‘Director’s Speeches’ for the
IBE Council and subsequently for the International Conference on Public
Education. It is in this
collection of some 40 documents — forgotten by most reviewers of
Piaget’s works that we find
features of Jean Piaget’s educational credo expressed much more
explicitly than in his other
writings. Hence, it is those documents, rather than the few general
works that Piaget agreed to
publish on education (Piaget, 1969, 1972b), which provide illustrations
of the underlying principles guiding his educational plan. We shall see
that this plan is far less ‘implicit’ and less ‘unconscious’ than has
often been claimed.
Above all, Piaget — contrary to what is usually
thought — attached very great importance to
education, for he unhesitatingly declared that ‘only education is
capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent,
or gradual’ (Piaget, 1934c, p. 31). In his view, the educational
endeavour is therefore worth fighting for, since the outcome is sure:
‘We need only remember that a great idea has its own intrinsic strength5,
and that what exists is largely what we want6, in order to
feel confident and to be sure that, starting from nothing, we shall
succeed in giving education its rightful place internationally’ (ibid.).
On the eve of the Second World War, Piaget again declared: ‘After the
upheavals of these last few months, education will once more constitute
a decisive factor not only in rebuilding but also, and especially, in
construction proper’ (Piaget, 1940, p. 12). Hence, in his view,
education was the prime challenge facing all peoples, transcending
ideological and political divergences: ‘The common wealth of all
civilizations is the education of the child’ (ibid.). But what kind of
education? Here, too — and contrary to what he would later say to
Bringuier (1977, p. 194) — Piaget was not afraid to enlarge on his
opinions in his ‘Speeches’. First, he stated a basic precept: ‘Coercion
is the worst of teaching methods’ (Piaget, 1949d, p. 28).
Accordingly, ‘in the field of education, example must play a more
important role than coercion’
(Piaget, 1948, p. 22). Another precept, just as fundamental, which he
put forward on several
occasions, is the importance of the pupils active participation: ‘A
truth learnt is only a half-truth; the whole truth is reconquered,
reconstructed and rediscovered by the pupil himself/herself’ (Piaget,
1950, p. 35). In Piaget’s view, this educational principle rested on an
indisputable psychological fact: ‘All modern psychology teaches us that
intelligence proceeds from action’ (ibid.), hence the fundamental role
that the exercise of research must play in all educational strategies.
That research, however, must not be an abstraction, for ‘Action
presupposes prior research, and research has value only with a view to
action’ (Piaget, 1951, p. 28).
A school without coercion, then, where pupils
actively experiment with a view to
reconstructing for themselves what is to be learnt. Here, in outline, we
already have Piaget’s
blueprint for education. However, ‘Children do not learn to experiment
simply by watching the
teacher performing experiments’, he warns ‘or by doing exercises
organized in advance; they learn by a process of trial and error,
working actively and independently, that is, without restriction and
with ample time at their disposal’ (Piaget, 1959, p. 39). On this
principle, which he considered paramount, Piaget did not fear
controversy: ‘In most countries, however, the school turns out
linguists, grammarians, historians and mathematicians but fails to
educate the inquiring mind. It is important to remember that it is much
more difficult to train an experimental mind than a mathematical mind at
primary and secondary school [...]. It is much easier to reason than to
experiment’ (ibid.). What, then, would be the role of books and
textbooks in such a school? ‘The ideal school would not have compulsory
textbooks for pupils but only reference works used freely [...]. The
only essential manuals are those for the teacher’s use.’ (ibid.) Are
these principles applicable only to children’s education?
On the contrary, active methods requiring a type of work that is both spontaneous and guided by the questions posed, and work in which the pupil rediscovers and reconstructs truths instead of receiving them ready-made, are as necessary for the adult as for the child [...]. For it should be remembered that every time an adult tackles new problems, his or her sequence of reactions resembles the way in which reactions occur in the course of mental development7 (Piaget, 1965b, p. 43).
So these are the basic principles of Piagetian
education. Nor, in his ‘Speeches’, did Piaget hesitate
to give plenty of sound advice concerning specific disciplines,
especially the teaching of
mathematics:
As small children are more developed on the sensorimotor plane than on the plane of verbal logic, it is advisable to provide them with patterns of action on which subsequent learning can be based [...]. An introduction to mathematics is [therefore] facilitated by a sensorimotor education, such as that practised, for instance, at the Maison des Petits in Geneva (Piaget, 1939c, p. 37).
His stance on this subject is very clear:
Mathematical understanding is not a matter of ability in children. It is therefore erroneous to consider that lack of success in mathematics is due to a lack of ability [...]. The mathematical operation derives from action, and it therefore follows that the intuitional presentation is not enough. The child itself must act, since the manual operation is necessarily a preparation for the mental one [...]. In all mathematical fields, the qualitative must precede the numerical (Piaget, 1950, p. 79–80).
The teaching of natural sciences also received Piaget’s special attention:
Those who by profession study the psychology of intellectual operations in children and adolescents are always struck by the resources at the disposal of every normal pupil, provided that he/she is given the means to work actively without the obligation of too much passive repetition [...]. From such a standpoint, science teaching is the active inculcation of objectivity and the habit of verification (Piaget, 1952, p. 33).
But the principle of active education may also be applied to less technical areas, such as the process of learning a modern language: ‘learning a language as directly as possible in order to master it; then thinking about it so as to clarify the grammar’ (Piaget, 1965b, p. 44); or it may even be applied to the development of an international outlook: ‘as a means of dealing with scepticism and relational difficulties between peoples, only remedies of a receptive order have been considered, in the form of lessons, appeals to the sensitivity and imagination of the pupils [...]. We need to create social links between children, especially adolescents, and to encourage them to act and assume responsibility’ (Piaget, 1948, p. 36).
With respect to the links between education and
psychology, Piaget, in his ‘Speeches’, is much more explicit than in his
other writings. Firstly, the link between education and psychology is,
in his opinion, a necessary link: ‘Indeed, I do not believe
that there is a universal method of
teaching, but what is common to all education systems is the child
itself, or at least a number of
general features of the child’s psychology’ (Piaget, 1934, p. 94). And
these are precisely the general features that psychology should
accordingly highlight, so that educational methods can take them into
account: ‘It is undeniable that psychologists’ research has been the
starting-point of almost all methodological or didactic innovations in
recent decades. It is unnecessary to reiterate that all methods
appealing to a pupil’s interests and actual activity have been inspired
by genetic psychology’ (Piaget, 1936b, p. 14). Nevertheless, ‘the links
between teaching and psychology are complex: teaching is an art, whereas
psychology is a science, but while the art of educating presupposes
unique innate abilities, it needs to be developed by the requisite
knowledge of the human being who is to be educated’ (Piaget, 1948, p.
22). Furthermore, ‘it is often asserted that education is an art and not
a science and therefore does not require scientific training. Although
it is true that education is an art, it has the same claim to be an art
as medicine which, while it requires abilities and innate gifts, also
calls for knowledge of anatomy, pathology, etc. Similarly, if teaching
is to train the pupil’s mind, it must emanate from knowledge of the
child, hence from psychology’ (Piaget, 1953, p. 20). In still more
specific terms, when writing about scientific research, Piaget claims —
rather argumentatively — that experimental teaching could not exist
without the help of psychology:
If experimental teaching seeks to remain a purely
positivist science, i.e. confining itself to recognizing facts but not
seeking to explain them, confining itself to recognizing achievements
but not ascertaining the reasons for them, it goes without saying that
psychology is unnecessary [...]. But if experimental teaching seeks to
understand what it discovers, explain the achievements it acknowledges,
and grasp the reason for the greater effectiveness of certain
methods compared with others, then, of course, it is essential to
combine educational research with psychological research — in other
words, to make constant use of educational psychology constantly and not
merely to measure achievements in experimental teaching (Piaget, 1966,
p. 39).
But, if the links between teaching and psychology
are complex, the dialogue between educators
and psychologists is equally so. Piaget went so far as to offer
strategic advice that, surprising as it
may seem, nevertheless reflects the wisdom and experience of a skilful
negotiator. He reminded us that it should always be borne in mind that
‘the most elementary of psychological rules is that no human being likes
being told what to do, and educators even less than all others. For a
long time psychologists have been well aware that, in order to be heeded
by teachers and administrators, one must be wary of appearing to have
recourse to psychological doctrines and must, instead, pretend to appeal
only to common sense’ (Piaget, 1954b, p. 28).
Is this opportunism? It may seem so at first glance,
but on further reflection we again find
Piaget’s underlying fundamental educational credo:
We have trusted in the educational and creative value of objective exchange. We have believed that mutual information and reciprocal understanding of different angles are ways of attaining the truth. We have shunned the mirage of general truths and instead have believed in that concrete and living truth which stems from free discussion and from the laborious and tentative co-ordination of different, and sometimes opposing, points of view (ibid.).
This credo is not confined to the sphere of
educational endeavours: it is, in Piaget’s opinion, the
sine qua non of all scientific work, the regulating principle
of all human activity and the rule of life of every intelligent being
The long process of genetic epistemology
It was, then, in this frame of mind that, for many years, Piaget pursued
the grand plan which had
fascinated him from the beginning of his career: that of being able to
establish ‘a kind of
embryology of intelligence’ (Piaget, 1976, p. 10). Thus, it was by
trying various approaches and
methods, and comparing scholars from various backgrounds and different
specialized fields, that he studied the development of intelligence from
earliest infancy. This led him to construct his famous theory of
‘parallelism’ between the process of constructing individual knowledge
and the process of constructing knowledge, i.e. between Psychogénèse
et histoire des sciences [Psychogenesis and history of science]
(Piaget and Garcia, 1983).
This theory aroused sharp controversy far beyond the
frontiers of the Geneva region and the
specific field of psychology. It was, however, from the heuristic
standpoint, remarkably fruitful: not only did it spark off the
tremendous scientific output of the International Centre for Genetic
Epistemology, whose studies now run to 37 volumes, but it was also at
the origin of the fresh
impetus given to the fundamental debate on education of Piagetian
inspiration, especially in the
United States8.
Piaget the psychologist had already supplied the
educator with a substantial series of
experimental data in support of the active methods that were also
advocated by Montessori,
Freinet, Decroly and Claparède. Through his work on the developmental
stages of intelligence, he
had already incited teachers to gear their teaching methods more
effectively to the level of
operation attained by the pupil. And now Piaget the epistemologist
suggested another approach,
namely, that teachers should to some extent distance themselves from the
pupils, their level of
attainment, their difficulties and their individual skills, with a view
to becoming more broadly aware of the cultural context and taking into
account the various lines of progression and historical paths of
development followed by the very concepts that they were setting out to
study or to teach. In particular, the basic postulate of genetic
psycho-epistemology whereby the explanation of all phenomena, whether
physical, psychological or social, is to be sought in one’s own mental
development and nowhere else, helped to give the historical dimension a
new role, in teaching methods as well as in general debate on education.
Every theory, concept or object created by a person was once a strategy,
an action, an act. From this basic postulate then emerges a new teaching
precept: if to learn properly it is necessary to understand properly,
then to understand properly it is essential to reconstruct for oneself
not so much the concept or the object in question but rather the path
that led from the initial act to that concept or object. Furthermore,
this principle is applicable both to the object of knowledge and to the
knower: hence the need to develop, in parallel to all learning
processes, a metalanguage in which to talk about the very process of
learning9.
The double reading of genetic constructivism
But the facts and theories of Piagetian genetic constructivism, and more
especially its description of the developmental stages of intelligence
and scientific knowledge, were the subject of very different readings
depending on the type of conception, avowed or not, that each reader had
of culture, which is undeniably the ultimate goal of any educational
endeavour.
Among these various conceptions, two marked
tendencies may be distinguished: one which
sees culture as a sort of structure to be built gradually according to a
well-planned procedure, and the other which considers it rather to be a
kind of network endowed with a certain flexibility and capacity for
self-organization and whose construction or reconstruction may
accordingly be
prompted, facilitated, but not entirely controlled (Fabbri and Munari,
1984a).
The interesting fact is that both tendencies refer to Piagetian genetic
constructivism, or to be
precise to its theory of stages, but give two interpretations of it
which are situated at different
levels, one more specifically psychological and the other more strictly
epistemological. These
interpretations have, in the practice of teaching, ultimately become
radically opposed to each other. The first, that which places greater
emphasis on the psychology of the child, considers a stage to be a
degree, a precise and necessary step in the construction of the
cultural edifice; it is a step determined by the very nature — almost
the biological nature — of the developmental process, and is supposed to
represent a stable and solid acquisition without which any subsequent
construction is impossible. Typical of this position is, for instance,
recourse to Piagetian ‘tests’ so as to give a more ‘scientific’
justification to educational guidance and selection procedures aimed at
organizing both the education system and educational practices into a
hierarchy of levels regarded as ‘homogeneous’ and increasingly difficult
to attain.
Opposed to this first interpretation of Piagetian
genetic constructivism is the second, which is
more concerned with epistemological analysis. This school of thought
interprets the stage rather as a sort of structuring or sudden
restructuring, partially unpredictable, always temporary and
unstable, of a complex network of relations which link a number
of concepts and mental operations together in a continually changing
pattern. A typical example of this second position — which is strongly
reminiscent of Kuhn’s (1962) — is the jettisoning of all rigid forms of
programming and standardization in teaching practices in favour of close
attention to setting up the right contexts, i.e. those believed to
foster the emergence of the desired patterns of organization of
knowledge (Munari, 1990d).
Although opposed, these two positions are often
found simultaneously in various areas (both
literal and figurative) of the complex and heterogeneous world of
education. Sometimes one or the other gains the upper hand, depending on
the precise historical circumstances, local traditions, economic issues
and the political forces at work.
However, the latter seems to be the one that is
gaining ground today, perhaps less in
conventional schooling than in non-formal education, and in particular
in managerial training
strategies for company executives, possibly as a result of the new
challenges that a more and more interconnected and unpredictable
environment imposes on the organization of human dealings10.
So, while Piaget the psychologist has left an undeniable stamp
on educational practices, especially where early childhood education is
concerned, and while Piaget the educational ‘politician’ has
unquestionably contributed to the promotion of movements for the
international co-ordination of education, Piaget the epistemologist
now influences the educational task in fields he never dreamed of. Here
we have an undeniable indication of the wealth of theoretical
implications and concrete suggestions that his work still offers to
educators.
Notes
1. Alberto Munari (Switzerland). Psychologist and epistemologist,
professor at the University of Geneva where, since 1974, he has been
running the Unit of Educational Psychology. From 1964 to 1974 he
collaborated with Jean Piaget and , under his tutelage, obtained his
doctorate in experimental genetic psychology in 1971. He is the author
of numerous publications, including The Piagetian approach to the
scientific method: Implications for teaching; La sculoa di ginebra dopo
Piaget [The Geneva school since Piaget]; and (1993) Il sapere
ritrovato: conoscenza, fromazione, organizzazione [Knowledge
rediscovered: acquisition, training, organization].
2. Piaget, 1925, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933a, 1933b, 1934a, 1934b, 1935, 1936a, 1939a, 1939b, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1949a, 1949b, 1949c, 1954a, 1957, 1964, 1965, 1966a, 1966b, 1969, 1972a, 1972b, 1973; Piaget and Duckworth, 1973. Piaget also drafted, as Director of the International Bureau of Education, some 40 speeches and reports, all published courtesy of the IBE between 1930 and 1967.
3. In other words, slightly less than 1,000 pages (including speeches and reports written for the IBE) out of a total estimated at approximately 35,000 pages, not counting translations!
4. In this connection, world literature is extremely
rich and it is difficult to draw up a complete list. ‘Classic’ reference
works include Campbell and Fuller, 1977; Copeland, 1970; Duckworth,
1964; Elkind, 1976; Forman and Kuschner, 1977; Furth, 1970; Furth and
Wachs, 1974; Gorman, 1972; Kamii, 1972; Kamii and De Vries, 1977;
Labinowicz, 1980; Lowery, 1974; Papert, 1980; Rosskopf et al., 1971;
Schwebel and Raph, 1973; Sigel, 1969; Sinclair and Kamii, 1970;
Sprinthall and Sprinthall, 1974; Sund, 1976; Vergnaud, 1981. We
ourselves, with the help of a number of colleagues who collaborate with
our group and in particular with Donata Fabbri, have on several
occasions analysed the educational implications of Piaget’s
psychoepistemology: Bocchi et al., 1983; Ceruti et al., 1985; Fabbri,
1984, 1985, 1987a, 1987b, 1988a, 1988b, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992; Fabbri
and Formenti, 1989, 1991; Fabbri et al., 1992; Fabbri and Munari, 1983,
1984a,
1984b, 1985a, 1985b, 1988, 1989, 1991; Fabbri and Panier-Bagat, 1988;
Munari, 1980, 1985a, 1985b, 1985c, 1987a, 1987b, 1987c, 1988, 1990a,
1990b, 1990c, 1992; Munari et al., 1980.
5. This was one of Jean Piaget’s fundamental convictions, already to be found in his very earliest writings: cf. La mission de l’idée (Piaget, 1915).
6. A worthy constructivist act of faith!
7. We have deliberately emphasized this excerpt — too often unfamiliar to those who see the Piagetian approach as relevant only to the child — for it seems to us of paramount importance from the educational standpoint. For the same reason, we have also developed, with Donata Fabbri, a strategy for an educational approach applicable to adults, which we have called ‘Laboratory of operative epistemology’ (Fabbri, 1988a, 1990; Fabbri and Munari, 1984a, 1985b, 1988, 1990, 1991; Munari, 1982, 1989, 1990a, 1992, 1993).
8. Cf. Copeland, 1970; Elkind, 1976; Furth, 1970; Gorman, 1972; Schwebel and Raph, 1973.
9. In this connection, and although they do not seem to have had direct links with Piagetian psychology — except of course in Geneva — the various tendencies that incline increasingly towards the use of ‘educational biographies’ or ‘life stories’ as teaching tools could be regarded as a specific development of this principle (cf. for example, Dunn, 1982; Ferrarotti, 1983; Josso, 1991; Pineau and Giobert, 1989; Sarbin, 1986). Similarly, even if its origins are elsewhere (Flavell, 1976), the rising tide of educational research and initiatives relating to metacognition can also be hailed as part of the same trend (cf. Noël, 1990; Weinert and Kluwe, 1987; and also Piaget, 1974a, 1974b).
10. Cf. for example, Fabbri, 1990; Fabbri and Munari, 1988; Landier, 1987; Munari, 1987b.
This feature was originally published in Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), XXIV, 1/2. 1994. pp.311–327.
©UNESCO:International Bureau of Education, 2000. This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source.