Ciências da educação: epistemologia, identidade e perspectivas

Authors

João Amado
Universidade de Coimbra
João Boavida
Universidade de Coimbra
Keywords: Pedagogia

Synopsis

The specificity of the educational field is known, partly because of the ease with which plans are mixed, and it is at the mercy of light analyses and biased conclusions. For these reasons we have tried to pass, as a key idea, a concept and image of Education as a central and structuring phenomenon, both on a personal level (essential in the training of each human being) and on a social level (socialization and cohesion). The implications of this centrality are of all order and in all domains, even in the way all knowledge originates, is structured and develops. Indeed, the epistemological problem is one of the central themes in Educational Sciences, as a field of study, analysis and research. It is in this perspective that this work is developed. In the first part we seek to clarify the nature and evolution of the concepts of science, truth and method; the most important contributions throughout the history of thought to this clarification, and the interaction that is established between the three concepts in the production and evaluation of scientific knowledge. In the second, we analyze the epistemological specificity of the human sciences, and try to understand their effort of autonomization from the dominant positivism. In the third part we develop, in a problematizing way, the particular epistemology of the Educational Sciences, based on the specificity of the educational field and the centrality of the concept of Education. It is on this basis that the identity of the Educational Sciences is defined, that they are distinct from the other Human Sciences, and that their multi-referentiality is legitimated. Finally, we have sought to promote a reflection on the place and character of research that has as its object the "educational process", in the framework of contemporary thought around the nature of scientific production in general and the Human Sciences in particular. We also wanted to offer the reader a set of conceptual tools that allow him/her to have a critical attitude based on the multiplicity of discourses that take "Education" as a pretext.

Author Biographies

João Amado, Universidade de Coimbra

João Amado is an associate professor at the University of Coimbra’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. Among his research specialities can be found several publications on problems of violence and lack of discipline in the classroom (topics taken up in his doctoral thesis), from a pedagogical perspective, in addition to ethnography and the history of infancy. Amado is also involved in the initial training and professional development of teachers, subjects on which he has given many workshops and taken part in a wide variety of colloquia and national and international conferences. In addition to coordinating post-graduate courses, he also supervises thesis work at the master’s and doctorate levels.

João Boavida, Universidade de Coimbra

João Boavida is a full professor at the University of Coimbra. He completed a degree in philosophy in 1968 with a thesis on Infinity and a major in pedagogical sciences, both at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra. He was a High School teacher and did a teaching internship. It was during this experience that he came to realise the problems that existed in the teaching of Philosophy and came to make this the core object of his research and study. Having specialised in psychopedagogy at the Catholic University of Louvain, he then completed his doctorate in educational sciences at the University of Coimbra, where he also presented his credentials for aggregation in the philosophy of education. He has taught the following subjects: Methods and Techniques in Education, Pedagogical Psychology, the Epistemology of Educational Sciences, the Theory and Philosophy of Education, and Ethical and Deontological Training. He has been part of many workshop and conferences both national and international and has spoken at conferences at home and abroad. Boavida has had numerous articles published in specialist journals at both the national and international level in the fields of pedagogical assessment, teaching methods, ethics, deontology, and the epistemology and philosophy of education, and has collaborated in the writing of book collections at the University of Coimbra Centre for Psychopedagogy (Almedina) and U.N.E.D. of Madrid (Dykinson), having jointly coordinated the publication of the Teoria da Educação – contributos ibéricos [“Theory of Education – Iberian contributions”] (Coimbra University Press), Educação – reconfiguração e limites das suas fronteiras e Escola: problemas e desafios [“Education – reconfiguration and the limits of his frontiers and school: problems and challenges”] (Centro de Estudso Ibéricos). In tandem, Boavida also published Ciências da Educação – epistemologia, identidade e perspectivas [“Science in Education – epistemology, identity and perspectives”] (Coimbra University Press). As sole author, he wrote: Filosofia – do ser e do ensinar [“Philosophy – of being and of teaching”] (I.N.I.C.); Educação: objectivo e subjectivo – para uma teoria do itinerário educativo [“Education: objective and subjective: toward a theory of educational itinerary”] (Porto Editora); and Educação filosófica- sete ensaios [“Philosophical Education – seven essays”] (Coimbra University Press, 2010). In addition to these roles, Boavida was also director of the journal Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia.

Ciências da Educação
Published
June 30, 2008
Series

Details about the available publication format: PDF

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ISBN-13 (15)
978-989-26-0414-5
doi
10.14195/978-989-26-0414-5

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