Sowing Seeds of Synergy: Creative Youth Workshops in a Multi-Cultural Context
Anni Vassiliou and Thalia Dragonas
Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice
Editors: Thalia Dragonas, Kenneth J. Gergen, Sheila McNamee, Eleftheria Tseliou
Drawing from the rich array of ideas and practices surrounding social constructionist theory, the present volume showcases work from a variety of different cultural settings in education. This demonstrates how constructionist initiatives in education can be successfully shared across national boundaries. More important, we come to see how ideas and practices can be re-formed as they shift from one cultural context to another. Social constructionist logics do not demand regimentation and restriction; rather, they invite continuous emergence. Thus, we include 20 contributions in this volume from 12 countries across four continents, with each contribution carrying its own special qualities and creativity. We divided the contributions into four sections, including theory, practice, systems change, and research and evaluation. In many respects the organization of this book is arbitrary. Constructionism does not, for example, make a clean separation between theory and practice. Theory is itself a practice, and all practice carries with it often unspoken conceptual assumptions. Further, changes in micro-practices (for example, classroom pedagogy) are not fundamentally distinct from system change. Thus, while this sectioning may successfully prevent reader vertigo, the adventurous reader will find it useful to explore the whole of which the various chapters represent faceted reflections. We hope that the process of sharing these contributions will continue to shape education in the years to come.
