EJ. They have been identified four key theoretical perspectives in Sociology: functionalism, theory of conflict, interactionism and the Exchange theory. 2 Formal theories and intermediate-range set of interrelated propositions whose purpose is to explain an abstract class of human behavior. EJ. Theories on social learning and development, applied to the child and the adult.
3. Substantive theories. Propositions or interrelated concepts that focus on certain aspects of population, scenarios, or time. I.e. limited to identifiable populations, stages and time characteristics in its realization.
EJ. Theories developed to explain formal teaching and learning in schools, especially the Ethnography in education. Note. Table prepared with information taken from LeCompte, and Goetz (1988, pp. 60-62) based on the issues raised above, it can be stated that systematic sets of explanations, which give an account of the different elements that make up the complex process of learning, have been developed becoming a coherent corpus of ideas, which underlies the reason for each of the elements and processes that comprise itgiving rise to the so-called theories of learning. In this context, be understood as learning theory to construct that explains and predicts how humans learn. However, learning as a complex process, designed numerous interpretations and theories that seek their explanation. In this way, different theories of learning that emerged as part of the social sciences, respond to scientific approaches that have emerged in the historic passing of the man, to explain them. Interpreting the approaches made by Kuhn (1998), these movements scientists, who have influenced the theories of learning, are paradigmatic revolutions, followed by its corresponding period of normal science. A scientific revolution corresponds to the abandonment of a paradigm and the adoption of a new, by the consensus of the scientific community in its entirety Kuhn (op. cit). Theories of learning, these revolutions would be given by the behavioral theory, cognitive theory and the constructivist theory.