The psychological foundation of the thought of Michael Young and Dermeval Saviani: a defense of powerful/classical knowledge

Abstract

Topics such as the function of schools, their relationship with knowledge, and the making of a curriculum have been discussed by several researchers in education. Michael Young (2007b) assimilated studies in sociology and the construction of knowledge based on Durkheim and Vygotsky to elaborate a defense of powerful knowledge in the curriculum. In a different country and based on references that are at times convergent and other times non-convergent, Dermeval Saviani (1999) elaborated the Historical-Critical Pedagogy (HCP), a curriculum based on classical knowledge, which the author deems to be a condition for emancipation. After a bibliographical research of the production of these authors and other researchers dedicated to curriculum within HCP, the present study has identified similarities in the elaborations concerning the conceptions of school and school knowledge. The search for a common ground that justifies this similarity resulted in the identification of the same psychological foundation in both perspectives: the psychology of Vygotsky. Based on an analysis of these two authors, we concluded that the psychological basis that fundaments the argument in favor of classical/powerful knowledge for the development of the individual is the psychological theory of Lev Vygotsky. We also emphasize that the contribution of these thinkers should be considered in the process of elaboration of a school curriculum that opposes the relativism and obscurantism that we have currently been facing.