Constructivist approaches have played a significant part in educational studies since the 1970s. In contrast to supposed ontological and metaphysical truths, constructivism – a paradigm developed in a range of disciplines, including biology (Maturana, Varela), social philosophy (Luhmann) and psychology (Piaget, Watzlawick) – insists that reality and its cognition are always mental constructs. These approaches become particularly important in the educational context by putting the question of the conditions and possibilities of education processes in a radically new way, according to constructivist premises: If human development is primarily a self-organized process, what impact does this have on the conceptual approach towards education? And what are the implications for teaching and learning if knowledge is no longer to be measured by criteria of truth or validity, but of “viability”, i.e. its usefulness?
From the constructivist viewpoint, individuals are characterized by the fundamental features of being structure-determined, self-referential and non-trivial. A particular reaction cannot be induced or determined in a person from the outside; rather it is always the person's internal structure that determines how he or she responds to stimuli from the surrounding environment. Any form of influencing, on the basis of pedagogical, therapeutic or commercial interests, etc., must take account of the impossibility of any direct, instructive interactive relationships. Pedagogic constructivism emphasizes the subjective perspective of the construction of living environments, as opposed to the traditional perspective of the linear imparting of knowledge. The focus is not on the communication of specialist knowledge, but the ability to build knowledge networks.