Public Education and Public Perceptions of Learning

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum Theory-Making: Tensions and Possibilities

Abstract

Educational research has long called for changes in views of education and learning, but research findings are not implemented widely. Those who use the findings (administrators, politicians, curricular designers, teachers, etc.) may have different conceptualizations of learning than those held by the researchers. Critical theorists argue that the dominant conceptualization of learning in society is grounded in the transfer/acquisition metaphor, but that empowering and emancipatory learning requires a conceptualization of learning grounded in the construction metaphor. They also argue that the construction conceptualization is incompatible with the transfer/acquisition conceptualization, and that widespread change requires changing conceptualizations of learning. Critical metaphor analysis of data from 200 members of the public found empirical evidence regarding the nature of public perceptions of learning.

Author

• Jonan Phillip Donaldson, Drexel University