Piagetian and post-Piagetian conceptions of development and their implications for science education in early childhood

Abstract

The present article discusses how the post-Piagetian conception of development differs from that of Piagetians, and what implications these differences have for science education in early childhood. Although both conceptions are based on constructivism, the post-Piagetian conception assumes that the process of construction of knowledge is facilitated under a variety of domain-specific constraints (i.e., internal cognitive constraints and sociocultural constraints), whereas the Piagetian conception assigns roles almost exclusively to domain-general constraints or structures of thinking. These differences produce different implications for early science education: the possibility of starting science education early with domains where innate constraints are supposed to work, the flexible choice of content areas as goals of science education by respecting children's acquired domain-specific knowledge, and the use of sociocultural constraints to enhance the construction process.