Biología, magia y religión en la infanciala coexistencia de diversos sistemas de pensamiento
ISSN: 0210-3702, 1578-4126
Year of publication: 2006
Volume: 29
Issue: 3
Pages: 343-358
Type: Article
More publications in: Journal for the Study of Education and Development, Infancia y Aprendizaje
Abstract
All through development we elaborate and employ different systems or frames of thinking to explain phenomena around us. The main aim of this work is to explore how children employ and reconcile some of these frames-sometimes contradictory-when they need to explain different facts. Specifically, we focus on biological knowledge, magical thinking and religious thinking. Children seem to use, from approximately five or six years of age, theoretical systems of intuitive but coherent thinking to explain some biological events. At the same time, they use a different frame to explain events of the magical or fictitional world. Therefore, from that age, children do not mix up different elements or causal explicative systems. However, what happens when they are faced with biological events explained by both natural and supernatural causalities? Through the death phenomenon we can explore how children reconcile, maintain and employ coherently different frames of thinking.