Social-cultural constructivism

Active and cooperative learning methods are consistent with social/cultural constructivism, provide a better learning enviromnent and contribute to deeper understanding and development of learning skills (Duncan-Hewitt, Mount, Apple, 1995 Johnson, Johnson, Smith, 1991). This form of learning is traditionally used in laboratory work. It was also used in the project-emiched physical chemistry laboratoiy described above (Tsaparlis Gorezi, 2005 2007). 

Educational constructivism extended the realism-empiricism dichotomy into how individuals learn, and assumed two main forms (19) (i) personal constructivism, which is associated with Piaget (5) and (ii) social-cultural constructivism which is linked to Vygotsky. Piagetian constructivism is associated with an idealized person (the epistemic subject ). On die other hand, according to Vygotsky (20), the learner constructs actively his/her knowledge, but this process is greatly assisted by interactions with peers and with the teacher who acts at the students zone of proximal development. 

Nowadays, the notion of a unitary organisational crrlture has lost popularity in favour of a view promoting differentiation (Martin 2002 Richter and Koch 2004). In this view, (an organisational) culture is not considered unitary but consists of multiple srrbcrrltirres. A qirite radical view is based on social constructivism and proposes that culture is predominantly dynamic and much more defined situationally, i.e. a fragmentation view (Martin 2002). The heart of the matter lies perhaps between these latter two views, in that culture in the form of basic assumptions will be the ultimate result of continual interaction between group members, partly shown situationally and partly shown universally. 

VIII Constructivism Cultural relativism Qualitative descriptions Judgment, values and perceptions Risk is a cultural or social phenomenon. Lay people oriented. 

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