The place of Psychological Theory in Education

Abstract

Education is a field of study and of social, cultural and historical practices, a synthesis of knowledges. Around it orbits a multitude of satellites: Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and other sciences. In the present text, two possibilities of understanding the relationship between psychological theory and educational research, particularly Special Education, are examined. The first, the instrumental perspective, understands the field of education as a large laboratory of application of psychological laws and principles. The second - the perspective of a concrete psychology, according to Vygotsky's vision - understands Education as synthesis of knowledges and linked to the concrete world of social life. As a consequence, it becomes larger than any particular science and has the power to guide the investigation of its satellite sciences. This second way of thinking the relation between psychological theory and Special Education, by inverting the vector, enlarge the horizons of Psychology. So, Psychology can touch the living world.