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Culture, Knowledge, and Assessment in Active Learning 11

Active learning and student-centred approaches are grounded on Dewey’s progressivist
education and Piaget’s constructivism. Both approaches support implicit instruction and

student-led learning, in contrast of Vygotsky’s constructivism that support apprenticeship model.
Active learning’s grounding on Piaget’s constructivism may lead to some issues in the actual
pedagogical practice.

Some Considerations in the Use of Active Learning
We have established, in the previous section, an understanding on the link of constructivism
to active learning. This section sets out three important considerations teachers should have in

their uptake of active learning in their classroom. First is the learners’ past experiences which are
influenced by their cultural capital. Second is the recontextualization of horizontal discourses
into vertical discourses. Third is the relation of the type of assessments to active pedagogical
practice. Potential ways to address these possible drawbacks will be discussed.

Learner’s Culture and Past Experiences
Based on constructivism, learners’ past experience plays a significant role in teaching and
learning. These prior experiences are influenced by the learners’ cultural capital. Bourdieu
(1977) defines cultural capital as the knowledge, skills, and material and social resources that
a person possesses and can use to achieve their goal. Students have unequal cultural capital.

The inequality has serious implications in the education settings as students who have more
cultural capital ratiocinatively succeed in school than those who are not. For example, students
who belong to the dominant culture – wealthy or highly educated families – tend to dominate
and perform better in class than their counterparts.
Education trends in the 21st century can induce robust stratification of learners due to their
unequal cultural capital. The demands of the 21st century education are life-long learning,
problem-solving, and critical thinking. These demands have become the new standard of Thai

education. Consequently, students who are active, enthusiastic, critical thinkers, problem solvers,
and have the sufficient language – English – are seen as the best students. These qualities are
often achieved by learners with higher cultural capital. For example, a child who belongs to
a wealthy family can travel outside Thailand and experience different languages and cultures.
Their low-income counterparts, contrastingly, may only experience a different culture through
textbooks (if they are lucky enough), or often, none at all. A local example of cultural capital
can be observed in student-group demarcations in some Thai schools. Students are ranked
based on their academic achievement. High academic achievers are placed in hong king (King’s
room) or group 1, while the low achieving students are placed in the lower ranks. Hong king

students have higher social capital as they are regarded as intellectually superior than any other
groups. Senior teachers tend to choose hong king groups as their advising class leaving lower
rank groups to newer and more inexperienced teachers.
Studies show that cultural capital have a significant impact in student learning (Altinyelken,
2015; Bosio & Origo, 2020; Tramonte & Willms, 2010). Tramonte and Willms (2010) find out