Bruner

It is surely the case that schooling is only one small part of how a culture inducts the young into its canonical ways. Indeed, schooling may even be at odds with a culture's other ways of inducting the young into the requirements of communal living.... What has become increasingly clear... is that education is not just about conventional school matters like curriculum or standards or testing. What we resolve to do in school only makes sense when considered in the broader context of what the society intends to accomplish through its educational investment in the young. How one conceives of education, we have finally come to recognize, is a function of how one conceives of culture and its aims, professed and otherwise. (Jerome S. Bruner 1996: ix-x)

Jerome S. BrunerHis books The Process of Education and Towards a Theory of Instruction have been widely read and become recognized as classics, and his  work on the social studies programme - Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) - in the mid-1960s is a landmark in curriculum development. More recently Bruner has come to be critical of the 'cognitive revolution' and has looked to the building of a cultural psychology that takes proper account of the historical and social context of participants. In his 1996 book The Culture of Education these arguments were developed with respect to schooling (and education more generally). 'How one conceives of education', he wrote, 'we have finally come to recognize, is a function of how one conceives of the culture and its aims, professed and otherwise' (Bruner 1996: ix-x).

Jerome S. Bruner - life

Bruner was born in New York City and later educated at Duke University and Harvard (from which he was awarded a PhD in 1947). During World War II, Bruner worked as a social psychologist exploring propaganda public opinion and social attitudes for U.S. Army intelligence. After obtaining his PhD he became a member of faculty, serving as professor of psychology, as well as cofounder and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies. 

Beginning in the 1940s, Jerome Bruner, along with Leo Postman, worked on the ways in which needs, motivations, and expectations (or 'mental sets') influence perception. Sometimes dubbed as the 'New Look', they explored  perception from a functional orientation (as against a process to separate from the world around it). In addition to this work, Bruner began to look at the role of strategies in the process of human categorization, and more generally, the development of human cognition. This concern with cognitive psychology led to a particular interest in the cognitive development of children (and their modes of representation) and just what the appropriate forms of education might be.

From the late 1950s on Jerome Bruner became interested in schooling in the USA - and was invited to chair an influential ten day meeting of scholars and educators at Woods Hole on Cape Cod in 1959 (under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation). One result was Bruner's landmark book The Process of Education (1960). It developed some of the key themes of that meeting and was an crucial factor in the generation of a range of educational programmes and experiments in the 1960s. Jerome Bruner subsequently joined a number of key panels and committees (including the President's Advisory Panel of Education). In 1963, he received the Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association, and in 1965 he served as its president. 

Jerome S. Bruner also became involved in the design and implementation of the influential MACOS project (which sought to produce a comprehensive curriculum drawing upon the behavioural sciences). The curriculum famously aimed to address three questions:

What is uniquely human about human beings?

How did they get that way?

How could they be made more so? (Bruner 1976: 74)

The project involved a number of young researchers, including Howard Gardner, who subsequently have made an impact on educational thinking and practice. MACOS was attacked by conservatives (especially the cross-cultural nature of the materials). It was also difficult to implement - requiring a degree of sophistication and learning on the part of teachers, and ability and motivation on the part of students. The educational tide had begun to move away from more liberal and progressive thinkers like Jerome Bruner. 

In the 1960s Jerome Bruner developed a theory of cognitive growth. His approach (in contrast to Piaget) looked to environmental and experiential factors.  Bruner suggested that intellectual ability developed in stages through step-by-step changes in how the mind is used. Bruner's thinking became increasingly influenced by writers like Lev Vygotsky and he began to be critical of the intrapersonal focus he had taken, and the lack of attention paid to social and political context. In the early 1970s Bruner left Harvard to teach for several years at the university of Oxford. There he continued his research into questions of agency in infants and began a series of explorations of children's language.  He returned to Harvard as a visiting professor in 1979 and then, two years later, joined the faculty of the new School for Social Research in New York City. He became critical of the 'cognitive revolution' and began to argue for the building of a cultural psychology. This 'cultural turn' was then reflected in his work on education - most especially in his 1996 book: The Culture of Education. 

The process of education

The Process of Education (1960) was a landmark text. It had a direct impact on policy formation in the United States and influenced the thinking and orientation of a wide group of teachers and scholars, Its view of children as active problem-solvers who are ready to explore 'difficult' subjects while being out of step with the dominant view in education at that time, struck a chord with many. 'It was a surprise', Jerome Bruner was later to write (in the preface to the 1977 edition), that a book expressing so structuralist a view of knowledge and so intuitionist an approach to the process of knowing should attract so much attention in America, where empiricism had long been the dominant voice and 'learning theory' its amplifier' (ibid.: vii).

Four key themes emerge out of the work around The Process of Education (1960: 11-16):

The role of structure in learning and how it may be made central in teaching. The approach taken should be a practical one. 'The teaching and learning of structure, rather than simply the mastery of facts and techniques, is at the center of the classic problem of transfer... If earlier learning is to render later learning easier, it must do so by providing a general picture in terms of which the relations between things encountered earlier and later are made as clear as possible' (ibid.: 12).

Readiness for learning. Here the argument is that schools have wasted a great deal of people's time by postponing the teaching of important areas because they are deemed 'too difficult'. 

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. (ibid.: 33)

This notion underpins the idea of the spiral curriculum - 'A curriculum as it develops should revisit this basic ideas repeatedly, building upon them until the student has grasped the full formal apparatus that goes with them' (ibid.: 13).

Intuitive and analytical thinking. Intuition ('the intellectual technique of arriving and plausible but tentative formulations without going through the analytical steps by which such formulations would be found to be valid or invalid conclusions' ibid.: 13) is a much neglected but essential feature of productive thinking. Here Bruner notes how experts in different fields appear 'to leap intuitively into a decision or to a solution to a problem' (ibid.: 62)  - a phenomenon that Donald Schön was to explore some years later - and looked to how teachers and schools might create the conditions for intuition to flourish.  

Motives for learning. 'Ideally', Jerome Bruner writes, interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning, rather than such external goals as grades or later competitive advantage' (ibid.: 14). In an age of increasing spectatorship, 'motives for learning must be kept from going passive... they must be based as much as possible upon the arousal of interest in what there is be learned, and they must be kept broad and diverse in expression' (ibid.: 80). 

Bruner was to write two 'postscripts' to The Process of Education: Towards a theory of instruction (1966) and The Relevance of Education (1971). In these books Bruner 'put forth his evolving ideas about the ways in which instruction actually affects the mental models of the world that students construct, elaborate on and transform' (Gardner 2001: 93). In the first book the various essays deal with matters such as patterns of growth, the will to learn, and on making and judging (including some helpful material around evaluation). Two essays are of particular interest - his reflections on MACOS (see above), and his 'notes on a theory of instruction'. The latter essay makes the case for taking into account questions of predisposition, structure, sequence, and reinforcement in preparing curricula and programmes. He makes the case for education as a knowledge-getting process:

To instruct someone... is not a matter of getting him to commit results to mind. Rather, it is to teach him to participate in the process that makes possible the establishment of knowledge. We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries on that subject, but rather to get a student to think mathematically for himself, to consider matters as an historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge-getting. Knowing is a process not a product. (1966: 72)

The essays in The Relevance of Education (1971) apply his theories to infant development.

The culture of education

Jerome Bruner's reflections on education in The Culture of Education (1996) show the impact of the changes in his thinking since the 1960s. He now placed his work within a thorough appreciation of culture: 'culture shapes the mind... it provides us with the toolkit by which we construct not only our worlds but our very conception of our selves and our powers' (ibid.: x). This orientation 'presupposes that human mental activity is neither solo nor conducted unassisted, even when it goes on "inside the head" (ibid.: xi). It also takes Bruner well beyond the confines of schooling

Pour Bruner, la médiation sociale lors des conduites d'enseignement-apprentissage (interaction de tutelle) s'exerce sur un mode communicationnel (dialogique). Il introduit deux concepts clefs rendant compte des processus de régulation dans ces interactions de tutelle, celui d'« étayage » et de « format ».

1) Interaction de tutelle : Interactions entre un adulte et un enfant grâce auxquelles l'adulte essaye d'amener l'enfant à résoudre un problème qu'il ne sait résoudre seul. Les processus d'étayage permettent la mise en place de formats (formes régulatrices des échanges) et l'adulte guide l'enfant pour qu'il se conforme à ces formes standardisées, à ces patterns d'échanges réguliers et ritualisés. C'est à l'intérieur de ces formes que l'enfant, grâce à l'étayage de l'adulte, pourra s'autonomiser vers des conduites de résolutions.

2) Étayage : Lié au concept de ZDP (Zone proximale de développement, concept clé de Lev Vygotski), il désigne « l'ensemble des interactions d'assistance de l'adulte permettant à l'enfant d'apprendre à organiser ses conduites afin de pouvoir résoudre seul un problème qu'il ne savait pas résoudre au départ ». L'adulte prend en charge les éléments de la tâche que l'enfant ne peut réaliser seul. Bruner repère 6 fonctions:

• L'enrôlement
• La réduction des degrés de liberté
• Le maintien de l'orientation
• La signalisation des caractéristiques déterminantes
• Le contrôle de la frustration
• La démonstration ou présentation de modèles

Il est considéré comme l'un des pionniers de ce qu'on appelle la révolution cognitive dans les années 1950, il émet l'idée d'une psychologie qui réintègre l'esprit dans l'explication des comportements. Pour lui le sens des choses ne se construit pas dans le cerveau mais est donné par la culture, il critique fortement la métaphore de l'ordinateur issue des théories du traitement de l'information et de l'intelligence artificielle. Le sens précède le message, il préexiste.Comment l'ordinateur fait pour traiter des mots qui ont plusieurs sens? Le système symbolique qu'on va utiliser pour construire la signification est en place avant nous, dans la culture.

Il est lauréat du Prix Balzan pour la psychologie humaine (1986) « pour avoir abordé, dans ses recherches, tous les grands problèmes de la psychologie humaine, et conféré à chacun un apport original, important non seulement d'un point de vue théorique mais aussi pratique pour le développement des facultés psychiques de l'homme » (motivation du Comité Général des Prix Balzan)

• Hacia una teoría de la instrucción (1972)
• Acción, pensamiento y lenguaje (1984)
• El habla del niño (1986)
• La importancia de la educación (1987)
• Actos de significado (1991)
• La educación, puerta de la cultura (1997)

La fábrica de Historias. Derecho, literatura, vida (2003 al español

Bruner ha distinguido tres modos básicos mediante los cuales el hombre representa sus modelos mentales y la realidad. Estos son los modos actuante (inactivo), icónico y simbólico.

1. Representación actuante (inactivo): consiste en representar cosas mediante la reacción inmediata de la persona. Este tipo de representación ocurre marcadamente en los primeros años de la persona, Bruner la ha relacionado con la fase senso-motriz de Piaget en la cual se fusionan la acción con la experiencia externa.
2. Representación icónica: consiste en representar cosas mediante una imagen o esquema espacial independiente de la acción. Sin embargo tal representación sigue teniendo algún parecido con la cosa representada. La elección de la imagen no es arbitraria.
3. Representación simbólica: Consiste en representar una cosa mediante un símbolo arbitrario que en su forma no guarda relación con la cosa representada. Por ejemplo, el número tres se representaría icónicamente por, digamos, tres bolitas, mientras que simbólicamente basta con un 3.

Los tres modos de representación son reflejo de desarrollo cognitivo, pero actúan en paralelo. Es decir, una vez un modo se adquiere, uno o dos de los otros pueden seguirse utilizando en estos tiempos.

aspectos de bruner

Bruner sostiene que toda teoría de instrucción debe tener en cuenta los siguientes cuatro aspectos:

1. La predisposición hacia el aprendizaje.
2. El modo en que un conjunto de conocimientos puede estructurarse de modo que sea interiorizado lo mejor posible por el estudiante.
3. Las secuencias más efectivas para presentar un material.
4. La naturaleza de los premios y castigos.

Implicaciones educativas.

Las siguientes son las implicaciones de la teoría de Bruner en la educación, y más específicamente en la pedagogía:

• Aprendizaje por descubrimiento: el instructor debe motivar a los estudiantes a que ellos mismos descubran relaciones entre conceptos y construyan proposiciones.

• Diálogo activo: el instructor y el estudiante deben involucrarse en un diálogo activo (p.ej., aprendizaje socrático).

• Formato adecuado de la información: el instructor debe encargarse de que la información con la que el estudiante interacciona esté en un formato apropiado para su estructura cognitiva.

• Currículo espiral: el currículo debe organizarse de forma espiral, es decir, trabajando periódicamente los mismos contenidos, cada vez con mayor profundidad. Esto para que el estudiante continuamente modifique las representaciones mentales que ha venido construyendo.

• Extrapolación y llenado de vacíos: La instrucción debe diseñarse para hacer énfasis en las habilidades de extrapolación y llenado de vacíos en los temas por parte del estudiante.

• Primero la estructura: enseñarle a los estudiantes primero la estructura o patrones de lo que están aprendiendo, y después concentrarse en los hechos y figura.

  El aprendizaje consiste esencialmente en la categorización (que ocurre para simplificar la interacción con la realidad y facilitar la acción). La categorización está estrechamente relacionada con procesos como la selección de información, generación de proposiciones, simplificación, toma de decisiones y construcción y verificación de hipótesis. El aprendiz interacciona con la realidad organizando las entradas según sus propias categorías, posiblemente creando nuevas, o modificando las preexistentes. Las categorías determinan distintos conceptos. Es por todo esto que el aprendizaje es un proceso activo, de asociación y construcción.

  Otra consecuencia es que la estructura cognitiva previa del aprendiz (sus modelos mentales y esquemas) es un factor esencial en el aprendizaje. Ésta da significación y organización a sus experiencias y le permite ir más allá de la información dada, ya que para integrarla a su estructura debe contextualizar y profundizarla.

  Para formar una categoría se pueden seguir estas reglas: a) definir los atributos esenciales de sus miembros, incluyendo sus componentes esenciales; b) describir cómo deben estar integradas sus componentes esenciales; c) definir los límites de tolerancia de los distintos atributos para que un miembro pertenezca a la categoría.

  Bruner distingue dos procesos relacionados con la categorización:

  Concept Formation (aprender los distintos conceptos), y Concept Attainment (identificar las propiedades que determinan una categoría).

  Bruner sostiene que en personas de 0 a 14 años se da más a menudo el proceso de "Concept formation" que el "Concept attainment", mientras que el "Concept attainment" es más frecuente que el "Concept formation" a partir de los 15 años.Mit seinen entwicklungspsychologischen Studien hat er bahnbrechende wie umstrittene Theorien zur Entwicklung des Denkens und Sprechens vorgestellt. Dabei zeigt er die Bedeutung der Umwelt für das Lernen auf. So stellt er in seiner Theorie des Spracherwerbs (1983) die Bedeutung der Mutter-Kind-Interaktion im Spiel in der vorsprachlichen Phase für die Ausbildung logischer Strukturen im Denken wie der Subjekt-Objekt-Differenzierung heraus. Damit erweitert er Noam Chomskys Ansatz des angeborenen Spracherwerbssystems (LAD: Language Acquisition Device) um den eines elterlichen Spracherwerb-Unterstützungssystems (LASS: Language Acquisition Support System). Kritiker wenden ein, dass die vorgetragenen Fallbeispiele schichtspezifisch seien und als solche nicht verallgemeinert werden könnten.

  Die Menschen bilden nach Bruner Konzepte, um die Umwelt zu vereinfachen und herauszufinden, wie sie in dieser agieren sollen. Die Konzepte dienen auch zur Kategorisierung der Welt, wodurch diese vereinfacht und damit operationalisierbar wird. In Folge dieser Theorie erforschte Bruner unterschiedliche Arten von Konzepten sowie Strategien des Konzepterwerbs. Wenngleich seine Ergebnisse teilweise nur schwer für das Alltagsleben generalisierbar sind^[2], so sind sie dennoch von systematischer Relevanz.

  Bruner plädiert dafür der "Bedeutung" als einem zentralen psychologischen Konzept mehr Geltung zu verschaffen. Die Konstruktion von Bedeutung – das meint die Frage, wie Menschen aus dem Durcheinander physikalischer Sinneseindrücke einen Sinn entwickeln – soll nach Bruner verstärkt erforscht werden. Die Bedeutung des Selbst im Kontext der Kultur greift Bruner in jüngeren Schriften ebenso auf. Eine Erklärung des menschlichen Zustandes können keinen Sinn ergeben, „wenn sie nicht im Licht der Symbolwelt interpretiert wird, die die Grundlage menschlicher Kultur bildet"^[3], schreibt Bruner 1990.

  In der Schulpraxis bekannt geworden ist Bruners Vorschlag, Lernstoff in Form eines Spiralcurriculums anzuordnen. Aber auch die Repräsentationsmodi (enaktiv = handelnd, ikonisch = bildhaft, symbolisch = sprachlich) sind auf ihn zurückzuführen, deren Entwicklung beim heranwachsenden Kleinkind er als Addition beschreibt. Wirkungsvoll war sein Eintreten für entdeckendes Lernen als Weg zum Wissenserwerb. Er gilt dabei als Kontrahent von David Ausubel, der die Leistung eines Lehrers in Form von Anleitung und Erklärung (auch als Lehrervortrag) höher bewertet. Bruners Lerntheorie weist Anknüpfungspunkte mit einer konstruktivistischen Lerntheorie auf.

Um aspecto relevante de sua teoria é que o aprendizado é um processo ativo, no qual aprendizes constroem novas idéias, ou conceitos, baseados em seus conhecimentos passados e atuais. O aprendiz seleciona e transforma a informação, constrói hipóteses e toma decisões, contando, para isto, com uma estrutura cognitiva.

A estrutura cognitiva (esquemas, modelos mentais) fornece significado e organização para as experiências e permite ao indivíduo "ir além da informação dada". A aprendizagem torna-se, então, um processo interno e não um produto direto do ambiente, das pessoas ou de fatores externos àquele que aprende.

Bruner pesquisou o trabalho de sala de aula e desenvolveu uma teoria da instrução, que sugere metas e meios para a ação do educador, baseada no estudo da cognição. Muito da teoria está ligado à pesquisa do desenvolvimento infantil (especialmente Jean Piaget).

Embora Bruner seja um psicólogo por formação e tenha dedicado grande parte das suas obras ao estudo da psicologia, ganhou grande notoriedade no mundo da educação graças à sua participação no movimento de reforma curricular, ocorrido, nos EUA, na década de 60.

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