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Resumen Este artículo proporciona una introducción y una visión general de la psicología cultural. Comienza con la introducción de las tres figuras principales del Círculo Vygotskiano en los años veinte y treinta: Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria y Alekséi Leontiev, ya que la colaboración entre ellos es importante porque demuestra que el estudio de la cultura y de la neurobiología no son líneas de investigación opuestas, sino complementarias. Seguido a esto, se bosqueja brevemente la historia de la psicología cultural en el mundo de habla inglesa y se presentan algunas de sus principales figuras. Después, se hace énfasis en el proyecto de Vygotsky, explicando su diagnóstico de la crisis en la psicología y su solución para evitar el dualismo. Luego, se hace foco en las características clave del relato de Vygotsky sobre el desarrollo de los niños, describiendo su reconstrucción de las etapas y transiciones de la ontogénesis y ofreciendo una interpretación del proceso de internalización. Concluye con una discusión de la metodología de la investigación en psicología cultural, explicando en qué se diferencia de los diseños cuasi experimentales típicos de la psicología transcultural. Abstract The article provides an introduction to and overview of cultural psychology. It begins by introducing the three major figures of the Vygotsky Circle in the 1920s and 30s: Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria, and Aleksei Leontiev. Their collaboration is important not least because it demonstrates that study of culture and of neurobiology are not opposed lines of investigation but complementary. It also provides context to the founding of the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research (ISCAR) in 2002 through merger of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory (ISCRAT) and the Conference for Sociocultural Research. The article then briefly sketches the history of cultural psychology in the English-speaking world and introduces some of the major figures. It turns to consider Vygotsky's project in more detail, explaining his diagnosis of the crisis in the psychology of his time and his solution for avoiding dualism. It then focuses on the key features of Vygotsky's account of children's development, outlining his reconstruction of the stages and transitions of ontogenesis and offering an interpretation of the process of internalization. It concludes with a discussion of research methodology in cultural psychology, explaining how it differs from the quasi-experimental designs that are typical in cross-cultural psychology. Resumo O artigo proporciona uma introdução e uma visão geral da psicologia cultural. Começa com a introdução das três figuras principais do "Círculo Vygotskiano" nos anos 20 e 30: Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria e Alekséi Leontiev. A colaboração entre eles é importante, não só porque demostra que o estudo da cultura e da neurobiologia não são linhas de pesquisa opostas, mas complementárias. O artigo logo esboça brevemente a história da psicologia cultural no mundo de língua inglesa e apresenta algumas de suas principais figuras. Depois passa a considerar o projeto de Vygotskycom mais detalhe, explicando seu diagnóstico da crise na psicologia e sua solução para evitar o dualismo. Após, enfoca-se nas características chave do relate de Vygotsky sobre o desenvolvimento das crianças, descrevendo sua reconstrução das etapas e transições da ontogênese e oferecendo uma interpretação do processo de internalização. Conclui com uma discussão da metodologia da pesquisa em psicologia cultural, explicando em que se diferencia dos desenhos quase experimentais típicos da psicologia transcultural.

There is growing appreciation of the role of culture in children’s psychological development (also called human ontogenesis). However, there are several distinct approaches to research on this matter. Cross-cultural psychology explores the causal influence of culture on differences in children’s development, treated as dependent variables. Researchers interested in the role of cultural learning in human evolution view culture as beliefs and values that are transferred from the mind of one individual to that of another. By contrast, “cultural psychology” views culture not as a cause, but a constituent of human psychological functioning. It invites us to pay attention to the fact that humans live in societies filled with material artifacts, tools, and signs that mediate human activity; that is to say, they provide the means with which people interact with the world around them and with one another. From this perspective, culture provides constituents that are essential to human development: it has a constitutive role in development. Although there continues to be much debate over how to define culture, it is generally agreed that different human social groups have distinct cultures, and it is common to assume that cultural differences lead to differences in the trajectories of children’s development. This is true, but it is also the case that culture is a universal requirement for development. Every child is born into a family and community with a language, customs, and conventions, and in which people occupy institutional roles with rights and responsibilities. These facts define universal requisites of human psychological development and include the acquisition of language, the development of a social identity, the understanding of community obligations, and the ability to contribute to the reproduction of the community. The interdependence of human communities—which probably had its origins in collaborative foraging and cooperative childrearing—seems to have placed species-specific demands on children’s development, selecting for the capacity to acquire a sensitivity not only to people’s goals and intentions but also to rights and responsibilities.

Analysis of classroom discourse shows that the classroom must be seen as a site of cultural production; children are transformed as they are introduced to a new subject position-that of "student." Children are not passive objects of this work; they actively adopt this new position and on occasion they, equally actively, breach the classroom order. We argue that a splitting is produced- a division between child as member-of-family and child as student-in-classroom. As the year goes by, breaches of the order become less frequent, as new cultural mediators (reading, writing, arithmetic) crystallize this division in the person of each child.

Children’s play clearly demonstrates the social construction that lies at the center of the developmental process. An interpretive analysis of children’s play on the preschool-kindergarten playground

[A]n interpreter can no longer claim to teach the reader the meaning of a text, for without a subjective contribution and a context there is no such thing. Far more instructive will be an analysis of what actually happens when one is reading a text, for that is when the text begins to unfold its potential; it is in the reader that the text comes to life. . . . In reading we are able to experience things that no longer exist and to understand things that are totally unfamiliar to us; and it is this astonishing process that now needs to be investigated. Iser, 1980, p. 19 We have seen that standard practice in qualitative research – semistructured interviews followed by analysis through coding – embodies contradictory ontological commitments and notions of subject and object and of subjectivity and objectivity. On the one hand, each person is assumed to be a separate individual with personal and private experiences, beliefs, thoughts, and desires. On the other hand, scientific knowledge is assumed to be objective and general, impersonal and detached, with all personal elements eliminated. How, then, can scientific knowledge be derived from subjective experience? The qualitative research interview also draws confusingly from two models of language: discourse as a joint construction and language as a conduit. In the conduit model, what someone says is an “expression” of their experience or subjectivity. In the joint practice model, what is said is a product of two people, interviewer and interviewee. The semistructured interview uses the collaborative resources of language asymmetrically to render the interviewer invisible and encourage “disclosure” by the interviewee. The interviewee is encouraged to contemplate and reminisce about a topic outside the here and now, to confess to a patient but skeptical listener. In this respect, the interviewee’s subjectivity is an effect of the semistructured interview, not a preexisting, independent personal experience that is the content expressed in what is said.

While a “hermeneutics of narrative” can show us how people understand their world in complex, socially available, organiled ways, and how as researchers we, too, actively construe as we try to understand other people, a “hermeneutics of action” is needed to overcome our addiction to the belief that knowing the world is our primary kind of engagement with it.

A critical ingredient for understanding the experiences that students undergo in the transition from elementary school to junior high school is the changing perceptions of the students themselves. To this end, students completed a Concerns Questionnaire during the fifth week of seventh grade where they responded to a list of potential transition concerns by indicating the degree of their concern both when they first entered junior high school and at the present time. Results showed that most students did not have great concerns about items listed. Given this low absolute level of concerns, students perceived even lower total concerns levels after five weeks in junior high. Also, students reported relatively more concerns about academic work than the social aspects of junior high school. Comparisons suggested that the independent variables of student sex, participation style, and previous classroom organization were important, but consistent patterns were not found.

The instruction of 11 seventh-grade life science teachers was observed to determine the extent to which they made linkages between science content and its societal, reasoning, historical, or attitudinal implications. Such linkages were hypothesized to facilitate students’ scientific literacy. Data on students’ perceptions of teacher instruction and scientific literacy outcomes were also gathered. Results showed that (a) teachers rarely or never addressed the noncontent components of science in their presentations and academic work assignments; (b) students perceived content as the prominent focus of their teachers’ instruction; and (c) teachers’ references to the noncontent components were unrelated to growth on all but one student outcome, where the association was negative. Altogether, the results indicate a large gap between scientific literacy as a normative goal of science instruction and current teaching practice. Furthermore, natural levels of reference to the noncontent components may be of such low frequency and quality as to preclude empirical tests of their effectiveness.

Interrelations were examined between young adolescents' characteristic social conduct and their social inferencing ability. Factor analysis of 48 teachers' ratings of 119 seventh grade students' characteristic social conduct resulted in the extraction of two factors. The first represented integrative or other-enhancing behavior; the second represented assertive behavior. Social inferencing loaded on the second factor for boys, and on a third orthogonal factor for girls. These results are interpreted in terms of male and female adolescents' differential ways of processing experience.

The types of thinking students engage in and the quality of learning that occurs are largely influenced by the nature of the tasks students complete. This study assessed the level of cognitive demand inherent in and the manner in which students were held accountable for 31 laboratory activities, 45 worksheets, and 31 exams in 11 seventh-grade life science classes during 2 instructional units. In general, tasks presented minimal cognitive demands. All laboratories required students to follow simple, step-by-step procedures and record descriptive data. Most worksheets and exam items required students to reproduce material exactly as it had been presented in the textbook or other instructional resources. The article speculates on the effects of such task experience on students' perceptions and learning of science and concludes with a number of suggestions about how school personnel might analyze and modify curriculum tasks.

Narrative descriptions and the commentaries of teachers, parents, and observers are blended to describe the diverse experiences of four seventh-graders; Ernie, Beth, Tammy, and Wayne. Although each student's experience at Waverley Junior High School was distinct in some ways, their portraits display a common developmental characteristic of increased interest in peers and the opposite sex.

Three taken-for-granted assumptions concerning the nature of communicative interaction between infants and adults are described. Their presence is demonstrated in three differently oriented theories o