The construction of the concept of educational innovation through semantic adherences

Abstract

The challenge of defining the term innovation can be approached from different perspectives. One of them is that of semantics, which focuses on the linguistic act of transmitting an idea through the units of language. In this paper, the approach to the concept of innovation is carried out from this perspective, studying the terms that are most frequently used to search for innovation in the main scientific engines related to education.

To this end, four of the main search engines in education in Spanish have been chosen and words have been searched for following semantic adherence criteria, according to their use as an analogue to innovation. The articles published without time bias were selected, taking into account the appearance of the terms used in the title of the articles. The resulting computation is a set of articles showing the use of four main terms: change, improvement, novelty and transformation. Finally, these terms have been analysed in order to understand the impact of their presence and how they contribute meaning to a concept that is not defined from a universal perspective.

To this end, it has been investigated how these terms are present in different programmes, institutions and educational agents, which set out their vision of innovation and, in turn, process other visions. It also highlights how this permeable construction allows us to glimpse the future of innovation, and also what are the main obstacles to building critical perspectives in this regard. The aim of this paper is to delve into the need to conceptualise innovation, and how the concretisation of the linguistic in the field of education translates into practices, policies and relations between the agents involved in it.