Piagetian Theory and Neo-Piagetian Analysis as Psychological Guides in Education

Chapters in this volume reflect the strong conviction that Piaget’s work has important implications for education. We share that conviction and wish to explore it further by emphasizing problems and suggesting solutions. The need for further exploration is shown in the other chapters by the way they display, and even acknowledge, a fundamental dilemma found in the vast literature on Piaget and education. The dilemma is that psychologists or educators, who presumably started from the same Piagetian theory, often arrive at very different conclusions regarding practice, and sometimes these conclusions seem less in keeping with Piaget than with other theoretical approaches. There is no question that some of these problems have resulted from incomplete or erroneous interpretations of Piagetian theory, as is often suggested in this volume by DeVries, Gallagher, or Reid. However, our own view is that even relatively sophisticated attempts to apply Piaget’s theory to education will continue to be plagued by ambiguities and contradictions until some basic theoretical problems have been solved.