The psychology of education is interested in cognitive behaviors and processes related to the educational context, studies in this area provide strategies and tools to ensure adequate education to the individuals of our society, despite being a discipline with little social visibility, has great potential we can discover through the best books of psychology of education.
Numerous authors have contributed their research and reflections to this field of psychology, in this article we have selected some of the most relevant books on the subject.
- The following works present a common framework based on socio-constructionism.
- Because this theoretical perspective helps us to understand education in its broader aspects and to better guide its objectives.
The first sentence Gardner presents the book with is “how children think and how schools should teach. “In this book, the author explains everything about children’s intuitive theories and, above all, emphasizes the importance of breaking with previous conceptions of formality. instruction to achieve true understanding.
It is one of the most important books of the psychology of education, which shows us that today’s teaching rarely achieves a deep understanding of the contents and focuses more on superficial learning and memorization.
As a result, on many occasions, a “double discourse”, in Orwell’s manner, in which, when they are in an academic context, they respond adequately to problems, but in everyday life often do not know how to act. .
This book is particularly interesting because Gardner bases his conclusions on a multitude of experiences and research, and also shows us an abundant literature that supports his interpretation of the results.
Although on the cover we saw the names of Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev, it is actually a compilation of reports from many psychology authors of Soviet education who show us a revolutionary education, totally different from the one we are used to in today’s society.
These psychologists assumed that education could not be motivated by economic forces. Their goal could not be to generate ‘work’. For them, education was a tool to develop the intellectual potential of all individuals.
This is one of the psychology books of education that is worth reading, because it helps us break with dogmas that hinder the progress of education, shows us a multitude of studies that prove that a class without hierarchy, where open debate and individualized teaching are a priority, has incredible results in learning students.
This book may not be strictly in the category of “education psychology books” because it is closer to the political aspects of education. However, it is a book that can help us understand education in the broadest sense of the word. Noam Chomsky is distinguished by a political thought that deserves to be read and by a great criticism of the facts.
In this book, Chomsky explains how the system uses education to stay stable, this shows us a vision of the failures in the education system, which cannot really be errors, thanks to them the system can be maintained with a stable hierarchy of power. that keeps everyone in place.
Throughout the book, Chomsky gives us as an example America’s performance in Latin American countries: how advertising and the media contribute to distorting the reality of events that have occurred, which shows America as carriers of justice and truth, when reality is far from that.
Bruner is one of the authors who revolutionized cognitive psychology, his studies have led to the abandonment of extremely mechanistic and computer perspectives and the acceptance of a sociocultural view of the facts. This author thought that, to understand the human being, one could not separate him from his social environment.
In the book we find a detailed explanation of the socio-constructivist vision of education, this shows us the great importance of the cultural structure and how it influences different educational systems, a very interesting perspective because it helps us to understand the influences of education and its magnitude.
It is an essential book because it teaches us how culture and education build our reality and how both are the engine of change for today’s social system.
John Dewey was one of the fathers of the psychology of education and, although his works are almost 100 years old, they show revolutionary ideas about education.
In “Experience and Education”, the author shows us a reconstruction of the educational models of his time from a constructivist paradigm, his pedagogical model focuses on a concept that is at the center of all his pedagogical reflection: the continuity of the experience. , education is only correct when promoting future educational experiences. If education involves stagnation, it’s not education.
?Experience and education? It is one of the great books of psychology of education, although it is a small book, it gives us an educational model and a critique of the traditional and progressive educational systems that deserve to be read.
As we see, the psychology books of education are fundamental if we want to deepen the roots of education or explore proposals for improvement to promote quality education.