Ausubel's meaningful learning and Educational segregation

Abstract

This article analyzes from the evidence of the various sciences the context in which educational segregation was imposed by some governments and the pseudo-theories that legitimized it. Ausubel's conception of meaningful learning was one of those conceptions and here its promotion parallel to the Spanish LOGSE education lawis particularly analyzed. It is concluded that there is no evidence that schools based on this conception have improved their results and that some of Ausubel's assertions are not justified neither empirically nor from a theoretical point of view nor from the values shared today about the relationships between different cultures. The article analyzes the contributions of dialogic learning and the lines of dialogic research on which it is based to education and to the different sciences. It specifies the reasons why the less dialogic learning is mixed with meaningful learning, the better results it achieves.