Constructivism has its philosophical roots in the European tradition of thinking drawn from the philosophy of Berkeley and Kant, who emphasized the subjectivity of our perception. More recently, the links with construc- tivism have been made with the thinking of Piaget. Gelcer and Schwartzbein (1989) have summarized two important assumptions of Piaget's theory: that there are different levels of knowing the same experi- ence, and that the higher or greater the level of abstraction, the more flexible is the individual's approach to problem-solving.
Key writers who have contributed to theory relating to constructivism include the Chilean biologist Maturana and his colleague Varela (1988), and the cybernetician von Foerster (1973). The systems thinking of Gregory Bateson, discussed later in this chapter, also had an impact on constructivism.
The important assertion of constructivism is that reality cannot be revealed to us in only one true way. It is through the process of construing that we come to know reality, as in Kelly's theory, which we mentioned previously: 'each organism creatively constructs its world within the limits of whatever biological or environmental context it encounters' (Gelcer and Schwartzbein, 1989: 440). Constructivism emphasizes a proactive view of the individual, who as an observer participates actively in the process of observation. It is through this process of active participation that the
co-creation of meaning occurs. Such a proactive view of the person con- trasts with much of mainstream psychology, which views the individual as reactive.
The theory of the North American psychologist Jerome Bruner (born in 1915) reflects a constructivist approach, and has been greatly influenced by the thinking of Piaget and the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (see Chapter 7). While Bruner's theory is similar to that of Piaget in many respects, it also differs in crucial aspects. For Bruner, language is intimate- ly related to a child's cognitive growth. In his view, thinking would not be possible without language. Bruner (1987) has also argued that the compe- tences of children are greater than Piaget's theory leads us to believe. He places great emphasis on the child as a social being whose competences 'are interwoven with the competences of others' (Bruner, 1987: 11).
Bruner (1966) has identified three major themes in understanding cog- nitive growth and the conditions that shape it. The first relates to how humans organize and represent their experience of the world. Bruner argues that as children develop they pass through three stages, or three modes, of representing their world: enactive, iconic and symbolic. Each of these three modes enables the child to represent the world in unique ways (Bruner, 1987).
A second theme in his theory relates to the impact of culture on growth.
Bruner notes that cognitive growth is shaped as much 'from the outside in as the inside out' (Bruner, 1966: 13). We will take this idea further in later chapters.
A third major theme relates to the evolutionary history of humans.
Bruner believes that humans are particularly suited to adapting to their environment by social means rather than by morphological means (Bruner, 1986).
In reading Bruner's work, several key assumptions are evident. One of these is that reality is constructed. Bruner places a great deal more em- phasis than Piaget on the notion that humans actively construct meaning from the world. In Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986) Bruner cites Goodman's notion of a constructivist philosophy:
Contrary to common sense there is no unique 'real world' that pre- exists and is independent of human mental activity and human sym- bolic language; that which we call the world is a product of some mind whose symbolic procedures construct the world.
(Bruner, 1986: 95) As such, the world we live in is 'created' by the mind, an idea consistent with the postmodern philosopical ideas we encounter elsewhere in this book. Bruner argues that the idea that we construct the world should be quite congenial to developmental or clinical psychologists, who observe that humans can attach quite different meanings to the same event.
Another of Bruner's key assumptions is that development is culturally and historically embedded (Bruner, 1986; Bruner and Haste, 1987). In Bruner's words (1986: 67), 'It can never be the case that there is a "self"
independent of one's cultural-historical context'. In this way Bruner's out- look is closely aligned with that of Vygotsky (see Chapter 7). Culture is the means by which 'instructions' about how humans should grow are carried from one generation to the next (Bruner, 1987). That is, culture helps transmit knowledge and understanding.
Bruner also assumes that the child is a social being. Bruner and Haste (1987: 11) observe that 'we are now able to focus on the child as a social being whose competencies are interwoven with the competencies of others'.
Bruner and Haste are critical of the legacy bequeathed by Piaget, suggest- ing that while the child is active in the construction of the world, the pic- ture that emerges from Piagetian theory is one of a rather isolated child working alone at problem-solving tasks. They emphasize that the child is in fact a social operator, who through a social life 'acquires a framework for interpreting experience, and learns how to negotiate meaning in a manner congruent with the requirements of a culture' (Bruner and Haste 1987: 1).
Bruner (1966) proposes that children pass through a number of stages in their cognitive development. The first is enactive representation, equiva- lent to Piaget's sensori-motor period. Bruner argues, as does Piaget, that the infant gains knowledge about the world not from mental images but rather from action. Comparing his enactive stage with Piaget's sensori- motor stage, Bruner notes that Piaget regards the 'first part in sensori- motor intelligence as one in which things are lived rather than thought' (Bruner, 1966: 17; Piaget, 1954). Bruner likens this type of intelligence to an irreversible and fixed succession of static images, each connected to an action. The child seems able to 'hold an object in mind by less and less direct manual prehension of it' (Bruner, 1966: 17). During the enactive stage infants can perform actions but do not know how they perform them. To this extent, Bruner agrees with Piaget that the infant's intelli- gence is one in which things are 'lived rather than thought' (Piaget, 1954).
Bruner's second stage of knowing, that of iconic representation, involves using a mental image or picture in the mind: 'A second stage in representa- tion emerges when a child is finally able to represent the world to himself by an image or spatial schema that is relatively independent of action' (Bruner, 1966: 21). The word 'iconic' comes from the word 'icon' (from the ancient Greek word for likeness or image). A mental image is a genuine cognitive representation. It is representative of a body of information but takes a different form from that which it represents. In Bruner's (1966) view, iconic knowledge has a number of identifiable characteristics.
• It is inflexible.
• It focuses upon small details.
• It is self-centred in relation to having central reference to the child as an observer.
• It is subject to distortion because of the child's needs or feelings.
• Perception is closely tied to action or doing.
• Perception is unsteady in terms of the young child's unsteadiness of concentration.
Bruner and Piaget disagreed about the role of iconic representation in a child's thinking. In Bruner's theory the role of iconic knowledge is crucial to the explanation of conservation or the ability to understand that the physical attributes of objects (for example, mass) do not vary when the object's shape is changed.
Bruner's third stage of knowing, symbolic representation, refers to the ability to represent our experience of the world by using symbols. Bruner writes (1966: 31): 'The idea that there is a name that goes with things and that the name is arbitrary is generally taken as the essence of symbolism'.
Thus, a written sentence describing a beautiful landscape does not look like a landscape, whereas a picture of a landscape looks like a landscape.
The landscape is symbolized in the language describing it. In Bruner's (1966) theory, symbolic representation is enhanced through language acquisition in particular. Without the ability to symbolize, the child will grow into adulthood dependent upon the enactive and iconic modes of representing and organizing knowledge of the world.
Bruner's writing could be considered as not receiving the attention it deserves in the mainstream developmental psychology and educational psychology fields. Nonetheless his research and writing have important implications for psychologists' understanding of the developing child. By emphasizing the constructive nature of cognitive development and the influence of cultural factors, Bruner has added a richer dimension to our contemporary understanding of the nature of children's thinking.