The cultural context of development: language as a means for thinking and problem-solving

Abstract

The present study, located in the socio-cultural tradition of research in developmental psychology, uses experimental tasks, adapted from the groundbreaking Lurian study (Luria, 1979(Luria, , 1976 to investigate South African children's acquisition and development of thinking and concepts -involving classification and generalisation, and how these concepts are linked to the specific cultural context of their manifestation.The paper provides new ways of understanding possible causes of contemporary problems that children encounter during classroom learning by examining the developmental roots of the specific modes of thinking and concept development in their concrete learning and developmental settings and specific tradition of learning within their schooling.

The principle of double stimulation: A path to volitional action

“…Double stimulation is primarily described as a method (Burman, 1996;Krange & Ludvigsen, 2008;Spiridonov, 1997;Valsiner, 2000;Van der Veer, 2001), although some refer to it also as a process (Gillespie & Zittoun, 2010), a theory-method (Muthivhi, 2011;Shotter, 1989) and a principle (Kozulin, 1990;Ritella & Hakkarainen, 2012;Sannino, 2011). While actual descriptions of double stimulation as a method are available, contemporary literature does not explain these other interpretations.…”