Cumulative cultures and contexts of knowing: Learning and developing in a designed world

Context, content and situatedness of human cognition have posed problems for dominant paradigms in research on learning and development since the dawn of empirical research. An interesting feature of humans is our capacity for cumulating knowledge over generations. Intergenerational learning is key to the rapid transformation of societies. Insights and experiences are continuously externalized and built into technologies and normatively organized modes of sharing knowledge. Our minds are best theorized as hybrids, and we think in a cognitive ecology replete with tools that we learn to exploit. The article argues that how we learn and develop in contemporary circumstances cannot be understood unless we consider the contingency of our cognitive capacities on the skillful use of resources that are largely external to our mind, and the consequences these resources have for our epistemic practices. How to account for learning and development in such a complex social world is an interesting theoretical challenge.