Approaches to Reduction in Treatments of Culture-Cognition Relations: Affordances and Limitations

Culture and Cognitive Development

“…In a comment on a paper by Gauvain and Munroe (2012) that summarizes the results on modernization and cognitive development, Greenfield (2012) notes that this study could have paid more attention to cognitive strengths developed in subsistence village environments, and that studies of globalization should also pay attention to losses in this process, notably family closeness and interdependence, and respect for elders and tradition. Saxe (2012a) similarly notes that the use of standardized cognitive assessments leads to a “home field advantage” in favor of individuals schooled in industrial societies.…”

Ethos through traditional construction processes: Historical development between community builder in the Minho Area of the North-western Iberian Peninsula and Pico Island in the Azores

“…Therefore, culture and psychology could and should be taken in research as a whole (Kottak, 2011). Culture and personality were considered as two sides of the same coin (Shweder, 1991). The culture makes reference to the patterned forms of thinking, feeling and behaving of members of a population, personality also refers to the patterned forms of thinking, feeling and behaving, but centered on the individual.…”

“…In the other extreme it is radical contextualism, a theory that assumes that socialization is not necessary and everything can be explained by giving it meaning in the momentary and immediate scene of action (Erickson, 1982). They are extreme positions that do not allow us to understand the processes through which norms evolve, where environments are modified and differentiated both physically and by historical events, although mutually influential (Bicchieri, 2006;Hall & Jurow, 2015;Jurow & Shea, 2015;Saxe, 2012).…”

Changing Concepts in Activity: Descriptive and Design Studies of Consequential Learning in Conceptual Practices

“…(p. 241) With variations in topic and focus, the idea that concepts exist in distributed cultural practices and change through processes that extend beyond individual thinking is now widely accepted among researchers working on learning and conceptual change in a sociocultural tradition. Notable examples include studies of "learning through intent participation" as children engage in everyday joint activity with adult caregivers (Rogoff, Paradise, Arauz, Correa-Chavez, & Angelillo, 2003), studies of historical change in the form and function of concepts of arithmetic and quantity as they are influenced by participation in practices of currency-based mercantile exchange and Western schooling (Saxe, 1991(Saxe, , 2012, and research on language diversity and heterogeneous cultural resources in classroom learning of science concepts (Rosebery, Ogonowski, DiSchino, & Warren, 2010). All of these studies approach concepts and conceptual change in terms of learners' shifting participation in and contributions to the valued conceptual practices of communities.…”