Cognition, development, and cultural practices

This chapter presents a developmental frameworkfor the study of culture and cognition in which cultural practice is a key organizing cons tmct. Cognition, Development, and Cultural Practices GeoffYey B. SaxeIn this chapter, I sketch a research approach for gaining insight into relations between culture and cognition, with a focus keyed to the overarching theme of this volume-the interplay between cognitive development and cultural change.Treatments of cultural change and cognitive development are often linked to different disciplines, analyses of cognitive development belonging to psychology and analyses of culture and cultural change linked to sociology and cultural anthropology.Like others who have broken with this disciplinary tradition, I argue that a systematic analysis of either cultural change or cognitive development requires that they be understood relative to one another in a single integrative treatment.(Other authors who make similar arguments include Cole, 1997;Luria, 1976;Scribner, 1985;Wertsch, 1991; and Patricia Greenfield in Chapter Three of this volume.)A core thesis is that a wide range of cognitive developments take form in and depend on cultural practices and that new developments in culture (cultural change) involve the cognitive constructions of individuals. Some PreliminariesThe approach I outline is cultural in that it identifies collective practices as integral to understanding the interrelationships between cultural change and cognitive change.Practices are conceptualized broadly as recurrent, socially organized activities that permeate daily life (Scribner and Cole, 1981).Practices may be as diverse as playlng games, working in particular professions, or participating in any of a diverse set of social institutions (school, religion, or NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLC~CENT DEVELOPMENT, no.83.