Conceptual development as rising from the abstract to the concrete: from thought energy to experienced energy

Abstract

The development of scientific concepts is usually described as a pathway from the realm of concrete life to the abstract principles of science, in a higher level of generalisation. In this paper, we argue that the appropriation of scientific concepts occurs in the return to concrete in a higher level of conceptual development, which means a transition from the given concrete to a thoughtful and recreated concrete. In the first part of the paper we ground this point of view based on the intellectual routes of Lev Vigotski and on the Philosophy of Language of Michail Bakhtin. From Vigotski, we discuss the dialectic method of research, the concept of semiotic mediation and its implications to conceptual development, the relationship between everyday and scientific concepts and the role of concrete and abstract realms in conceptual development. From Bakhtin, we understand conceptual development as sense making in the dialogue between voices in different spheres of social life. In the second part of this paper we present empirical evidence to support this thesis. This will be done by analysing the meanings evoked by rural teacher students to the concept of energy in narratives produced by them at the end of a module of study on this subject. We seek to examine how the subjects of this experience populate with new meanings, dialectically and dialogically, the concept of energy. The main result of this study is the presence of a hybridisation of scientific and everyday life discourses in the efforts of subjects to confer relevant meanings (in both personal and social aspects) to the abstract statements of science. We conclude with some implications of this thesis to science education research and practice.