The Reception of Piaget’s Ideas: Assimilations and Contemporary Views in Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to report how the spread of Jean Piaget’s ideas in Brazil occurred. The universe of data with which we worked was based on historical-descriptive research that led us, among others, to the following conclusions: the New School movement opens space for the dissemination of Piaget’s ideas in Brazil; the spread of his ideas begins in the late 1920s and is consolidated in the 1970s with the formation of Piagetian “nuclei” in seven Brazilian states; in the 1980s the presence of intercultural Piagetian research directed to the Brazilian reality begins to be felt and the dissemination of Piaget’s ideas through the expansion of the constructivist movement begins; from the 1990s on, variations of the Vigotskian ideology become the main sources of opposition to Piaget’s ideas; the conception of the subject incorporated into the National Curricular Parameters (PCNs) is influenced by Piagetian constructivism; since the 2000s, educators and researchers who work with constructivism have increasingly valued the functional aspects of Piaget’s theory; currently most research on Piagetian references is carried out by individual initiatives.