Abstract
Most of secondary school science curricula discriminate neatly between two types of activity: knowing the world, on the one hand, and reflecting upon this knowledge, on the other. Moreover, this knowledge is usually based on an empiricist epistemology. The conceptual structure of a part of a typical secondary school physics curriculum is analysed from this point of view. This epistemological rationale causes difficulties in the understanding of scientific concepts which are predictable from the standpoint of the assimilation theory of Ausubel (1978). The difficulties are a consequence of the arbitrariness and lack of intelligibility of the concepts and problems presented to the student. Finally, a different epistemological rationale is proposed: that provided by genetic epistemology.
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