Cognitive Pluralism Curriculum Ideology

Cognitive pluralism is a theory of knowledge acquisition that argues that there are multiple ways of receiving and perceiving information and that each individual's learning experiences are unique in the values, beliefs, assumptions, and ideas that accrete to his or her personal knowledge. As a consequence, these multiple-perspective inputs are incorporated into the learner's accumulated knowledge through mediating processes that reflect the influences and biases developed in prior learning. These internal and external influences have an impact on the process of representation, creating the individual's unique perspective and a personal base of accumulated knowledge.

Although many people in the education field acknowledge the existence of these multiple streams of data, there is some debate over the impact and influence cognitive pluralism exerts over learning. Cognitive pluralism adherents fall into three groups or categories: descriptive pluralism, normative pluralism, and evaluative-concept pluralism. Although descriptive and evaluative pluralism address critical issues such as race, culture, and gender differences, normative pluralism recognizes these issues, [Page 117]but argues that they are less significant to learning than the need to teach a common culture.

Descriptive pluralism holds that cognitive development occurs through the individual, personal activities and experiences of each learner. Knowledge acquisition takes place through a process of evaluation of beliefs and the creation of unique and personal systems of morality, rationality, and lore. A group of learners may experience the same lesson, but because individuals developed and learn from their own set of lived experiences, the way they perceive, imagine, evaluate, and incorporate the lesson into their thinking will be singularly distinctive.

Normative-cognitive pluralism argues that although individuals may learn through differing systems of learning, those systems may be equally good. This position argues that there is little difference between the kinds of data individuals process or in the methods they use and that the effect on learners would be minimal and noninvasive to normal cognitive development, implying that different culture's systems of learning may be equally effective in cognitive development.

Evaluative-concept pluralism maintains that the process of learning starts when there is a rationale for gaining knowledge. The reasons for learning, the goals for success, and the value systems of different cultures vary greatly in their focus and in the direction they drive learners. This is a relativistic position arguing that generally systems are good for different people, and what constitutes a good system depends on the living and learning environments of the individual.

The opposite of cognitive pluralism would be cognitive monism, the belief that all peoples use essentially the same cognitive processes. It has been the long-held view that language is the sole tool of mediation for thought. Many critics of this belief have pointed to complex symbols, formulas, and images that have co-opted language in cognitive development process in cases where language would be too effusive or cumbersome. As language and other symbolic references evolve with the culture, the predominance of word in the thought process remains unchallenged, but the growing recognition of the mediating abilities of other forms of symbolism and additional sensory information has led many educators to take note of their impact on the field of curriculum studies.

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