IB Philosophy 3.3 Application of Knowledge Key Definitions

Banking model of education: Paulo Freire’s term for a pedagogical approach in which teachers deposit knowledge into passive students, reinforcing existing power structures rather than developing critical thinking.

Contemplative epistemology is a tradition of inquiry that treats disciplined practices such as meditation, introspection, and mindful observation as legitimate methods for producing knowledge about the self, the mind, and the nature of reality.

The digital divide is the gap between individuals, communities, and nations that have meaningful access to digital technologies and those that do not, resulting in unequal opportunities to access, produce, and benefit from digitally mediated knowledge.

Epistemic access: the conditions under which a person or group can acquire, share, or contribute to knowledge. Barriers to epistemic access include censorship, institutional gatekeeping, language, and the systematic exclusion of certain ways of knowing.

Epistemic power is the capacity to shape, control, or restrict what counts as knowledge, who has access to it, and how it is used within a society.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge, including the distinction between knowledge and opinion, the role of reason and experience, and the conditions under which beliefs count as justified.

Knowledge dissemination is the process by which knowledge is communicated, distributed, and made accessible to wider audiences through various media and technologies, from oral tradition and print to digital platforms and artificial intelligence.