Publications [#351834] of Michael Tomasello

Book Sections/Chapters

1. Kruger, AC; Tomasello, M "Cultural Learning and Learning Culture." The Handbook of Education and Human Development: New Models of Learning, Teaching and Schooling. February, 2008: 353-372. [doi]
   (last updated on 2024/04/22)

   Abstract:
   The universals and cultural variations of human development have been the focus of fruitful study by anthropologists for decades. In recent years psychologists also have directed their attention, long overdue, to understanding development in cultural context. There are striking differences among psychologists, however, in the approaches they take to culture and development. Most markedly, Cole (1989) distinguishes two very different theoretical perspectives on cultural psychology and its approach to human development. In one perspective the focus is on culture as a collective enterprise (e.g., Gauvain, in press: Shweder, 1990; Super and Harkness, 1986). There is no need in this view for focusing on the individual development of individual children since all important forms of learning are socially distributed; children simply become more skillful over time at participating in various collective activities (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Indeed, in some versions of this more sociological view of cultural psychology the focus on the cultural collective is so strong that there is really no justification for reference to the development of individuals at all: "Individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural processes constitute each other and cannot be separated" (Rogoff, Chavajay, and Matusov, 1993, p. 533).