Bringing Knowledge Back In Quotes

“Outcomes-based qualifications, if seen as a basis for the curriculum, lead almost inexorably to an extreme version of social constructivism which in effect does away with the idea of a curriculum at all.”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“At the same time, it has to be recognized that the conditions for this objectivity are not easily won. They cannot rely on the outmoded claims of positivist social science or a comfortable consensus that can hide real differences. It also has to be accepted that serious attempts to establish a social realist theory of knowledge have not progressed very far. Claims to objectivity have to be based on the intellectual grounds and the traditions and values of the discipline that go back more than a century. With regard to the”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“Dialectics, Engestrom states, reverses the direction of conventional logic: instead of seeing 'concrete' phenomena as something sensually palpable and 'abstraction' as a conceptual or mentally constructed process, 'concrete' (things how they are) refers to the systemic interconnectedness of things. In other words, concrete phenomena are the outcome not the starting point of thinking. (Engestrom 1991; my italics)”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“In his excellent and extremely comprehensive text, Engestrom (1991) locates Vygotsky's ideas within a dialectic approach, which was undoubtedly the framework that Vygotsky himself was exploring but never had time to develop in detail. There is no doubt that Engestrom offers a very distinctive perspective on Vygotsky's approach to concept formation. At the same time, by making clear what is involved in thinking about concepts within the notoriously (and perhaps inevitably) slippery terms of dialectic logic, his account also suggests why, for all its evocative power as critique, the dialectical method is unable to fulfil its promise as a theory for generating new knowledge.”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“Engestom argues that in any classroom, workplace or community it is possible to develop what he refers to as 'theoretically grounded concepts' which go beyond the distinction between theoretical and everyday concepts, and provide the tools for actors to understand and change the world. It”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“The lessons for sociologists of education that I draw from my comparison of the UK and South African cases are (i) that it is important to make explicit the ways in which sociological knowledge can claim a degree of objectivity, (ii) that there are important conditions which make the creation of such knowledge possible, and (iii) that attempts to undermine such conditions must be resisted.”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education

“Education has a social specificity of its own that centres on the conditions for the acquisition of knowledge that can never be reduced to politics, economics or problems of administration (Bernstein 2000).”
― Michael F.D. Young, Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education