Mind, Culture, and Activity: Seminal Papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition

by Edited by Michael Cole , Yrjo Engestrom , Olga Vasquez

• ISBN13: 9780521552387
• ISBN10: 0521552389
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-07-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This volume brings together articles from The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. The selected articles are important benchmarks in the recent history of research and theory on the cultural and contextual foundations of human development. The central theme of this discussion can be posed as a question: How shall we develop a psychology that takes as its starting point the actions of people participating in routine, culturally organized activities? The discussion is organized in terms of a set of overarching themes of importance to psychologists and other social scientists: The nature of context; experiments as contexts; culture-historical theories of culture, context, and development; the analysis of classroom settings as a social important context of development; the psychological analysis of activity in situ; and questions of power and discourse. This text will appeal to graduate students and professionals in psychology, anthropology, education, and child development.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
Introduction	1	(21)
Michael Cole
Yrjo Engestrom
Olga Vasquez
When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence	22	(10)
Frederick Erickson
Jeffrey Schultz
Plying frames can be dangerous: Some reflections on methodology in cognitive anthropology	32	(17)
Charles O. Frake
Experiments as contexts
Concepts of ecological validity: Their differing implications for comparative cognitive research	49	(8)
Michael Cole
Lois Hood
Raymond P. McDermott
What's special about experiments as contexts for thinking	57	(13)
Jean Lave
Sociolinguistic structure of word lists and ethnic-group differences in categorized recall	70	(9)
Anderson F. Franklin
Looking for Big Bird: Studies of memory in very young children	79	(11)
Judy S. DeLoache
Ann L. Brown
``Body analogy'' and the cognition of rotated figures	90	(27)
Yutaka Sayeki
Paradigms and prejudice
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition	100	(17)
Exploring cultural historical theories
The early history of the Vygotskian school: The relationship between mind and activity	117	(11)
Norris Minick
One developmental line in European Activity Theories	128	(19)
Erik Axel
Activity, consciousness, and communication	147	(17)
David Bakhurst
The sound of the violin	164	(21)
Ernest E. Boesch
Non-Cartesian artifacts in dwelling activities: Steps towards a semiotic ecology	185	(20)
Alfred Lang
Historical analysis
The invention of writing and the development of numerical concepts in Sumeria: Some implications for developmental psychology	205	(21)
Ageliki Nicolopoulou
Collective memory: Issues from a sociohistorical perspective	226	(9)
James Wertsch
Classroom settings
Students' interactional competence in the classroom	235	(6)
Hugh Mehan
The competence/incompetence paradox in the education of minority culture children	241	(13)
Ronald Gallimore
Kathryn Hu-Pei Au
The organization of bilingual lessons: Implications for schooling	254	(15)
Luis C. Moll
Elette Estrada
Esteban Diaz
Lawrence M. Lopes
Kanji help readers of Japanese infer the meaning of unfamiliar words	269	(10)
Giyoo Hatano
Keiko Kuhara
Michael Akiyama
Functional environments for microcomputers in education	279	(13)
Denis Newman
``But it's important data!'' Making the demands of a cognitive experiment meet the educational imperatives of the classroom	292	(11)
Marilyn G. Quinsaat
Performance before competence: Assistance to child discourse in the zone of proximal development	303	(10)
Courtney B. Cazden
Cognition in the wild
Low-income children's preschool literacy experiences: Some naturalistic observations	313	(17)
Alonzo B. Anderson
William H. Teale
Elette Estrada
Selling candy: A study of cognition in context	330	(8)
Geoffrey B. Saxe
Mediation and automatization	338	(16)
Edwin Hutchins
Mind in action: A functional approach to thinking	354	(15)
Sylvia Scribner
Coordination, cooperation, and communication in the courts: Expansive transitions in legal work	369	(20)
Yrjo Engestrom
Katherine Brown
L. Carol Christopher
Judith Gregory
Power and discourse
The politics of representation	389	(20)
Michael Holquist
Wisdom from the periphery: Talk, thought, and politics in the ethnographic theater of John Millington Synge	409	(9)
R. P. McDermott
Learning to be deaf: Conflicts between Hearing and Deaf cultures	418	(14)
Carol Padden
Harry Markowicz
Why must might be right? Observations on sexual herrschaft	432	(41)
Esther Goody
Just say no: Responsibility and resistance	473	(12)
Bonnie E. Litowitz
Author index	485	(5)
Subject index	490