Stefan Neubert

In the following, I will outline some implications of the Cologne program of “interactive constructivism” (founded by Kersten Reich) 1 for educational theory. I will proceed in three steps. In an introductory section, I will first briefly locate the Cologne program within the context of the so called „cultural turn“ in recent constructivist discourses. Secondly, I will introduce some main theoretical perspectives of interactive constructivism. Thirdly, I will elaborate on the relevance of interactive constructivism to a contemporary theory of education. In doing so, I will focus on six mutually interrelated conceptual levels: The interactive constructivist understanding of education involves, among other things, theoretical perspectives on (1) observers-participants-agents in cultural practices, routines, and institutions, (2) processes of communication with particular focus on the dimension of lived relationships, (3) the interplay between the symbolic resources of a life-world, the imaginative desire of subjects, and the occurrence of real events, (4) the connections between processes of construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction in the cultural production of realities, (5) involvements of discourse and power, (6) cultural diversity, otherness, and incommensurability in multicultural contexts. Although it does not stand in the foreground of my interest in this paper, I will at least indicate some theoretical connections along the way to the most important philosophical predecessor of constructivism in education – which, to my mind, is John Dewey. 2