Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline - Hardcover

Cole, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067417951X ISBN 13: 9780674179516

Verlag: Harvard University Press, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Cole Michael

Über diesen Titel

Críticas

Nowhere will a reader find as rich and thorough a historical account of the origins and evolution of an approach that has become increasingly influential in American psychology. -- Deanna Kuhn, Columbia University Teachers College Michael Cole argues that, just as fish do not see water because they swim in it, so humans do not see culture because we swim in it. The first part of the book is a fascinating tour of the early days of psychology. He argues that when psychology tried to become a science, it stopped thinking about the culture in which individuals operate. In a very readable, clear book, Cole uses the domain of cognitive development to show how a cultural framework can help us understand the dynamic interplay between individual, social, cultural, and historical lines of development... It is a convincing argument for why studying culture can open new horizons and frontiers. -- Margarita Azmitia "American Journal of Psychology" This book throws...light on Max Velman's belief that awareness should not be thought of in terms of happenings in the brain alone, but is rather located in 'events as perceived'--in amalgams of the external world with brain activity. After reading Cole, there's not much room for doubt that the cultural and social world of the experiencer, as well as the physical world, enters the amalgam. To reach a full understanding of conscious mind, culture must be given as much weight as neuroscience. -- Chris Nunn "Journal of Consciousness Studies" Michael Cole's recent book is a fascinating combination of history, autobiography and monograph. It is written in just the way that psychology should be written. It is informed by the chequered past of this strange discipline, if indeed it is one. In the autobiographical sections the author takes us through his transformation from naeive paradigm dope to truly creative scientist. As a monograph the book consists of an exposition of 'cultural psychology' as a general theory of human thought and action, richly illustrated with empirical work conducted within that framework. It has the further merit of cross-referencing, so to say, some, though not all, of the other forms that the disciplinary matrix the author calls 'cognitive psychology' has taken in recent decades. Whenever one comes across a book of this depth and a record of this breadth of experiences, one is struck yet again by the amazing way that orthodox, methodological behaviourism and the naeive cognitivist mainstream can continue to be pursued...In this remarkable book we have another volume to accompany the growing shelf-load of subtle and powerful studies that call into question the hegemony of methodological behaviourism, naeive experimentalism, the 'quick fix' for a few papers to support a tenure application, and mentalistic cognitivism with its hidden and quite implausible individual mental mechanisms...Let us hope that this book is widely read, and its message even more widely acted upon. -- Rom Harre "Culture & Psychology" A pathbreaking volume on cultural psychology by one of the moderm masters of that subject. Full of riches. -- Jerome Bruner Culture is back in psychology. Michael Cole, one of the most significant contributors to this movement, gives a thoughtful synthesis of his three decades of theoretical and empirical research in this book. Though mild-mannered in his writing, Cole's proposal amounts to nothing less than a radical restructuring of the entire discipline of psychology as a scientific enterprise. Whether one agrees with him or not, anyone interested in the culture--mind relation should read it cover to cover. In fact, any psychologist, basic or applied, will be richly rewarded by a close reading of it...Cole's cultural psychology is an impressive achievement with a promising future. -- Yoshihisa Kashima "Contemporary Psychology" Michael Cole's latest book represents an impressive synthesis of the many disciplinary strands of cultural psychology, as well as an inspiration for this discipline...Cole's tale is made even more compelling by the account of how he was able to address the concrete theoretical, methodological, and practical problems he and his colleagues encountered while trying to take culture into consideration in their research...Cole's book should be of interest to a broad audience concerned with the systematic examination of culture and mind...All educators concerned with creating, evaluating, and sustaining productive environments for learning are likely to find both examples and analytic tools that may help them in their ventures. Cole's subtitle calls cultural psychology a 'once and future discipline.' With this work, he offers a significant boost to the discipline's future. -- Joseph L. Polman and James V. Wertsch "American Journal of Education" Does experimental psychology face a cross-cultural crisis? Michael Cole believes so, and in his engaging and lucid book...he offers the beginning of a solution. "Cultural Psychology" covers a wide range of topics, sometimes retrospectively, other times with an eye towards the future, and consistently woven with the threads of his own experience--from early work in Liberia, to ongoing research in the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at the University of California San Diego. Discussion varies from the theoretical to the practical to the historical, all the while painting an engaging picture of a potentially reborn discipline...The result is an excellent integration of a widely diverse set of influences, arguing for the shortcomings of general psychology while providing a positive alternative, and demonstrating the practical application of this 'second psychology.'... It is not only an interesting and excellent piece of synthesis and scholarship, but also potentially important across the multiple disciplines of philosophy, education, cognitive science, and psychology. The book should therefore appeal to a wide audience, and rightly so...Overall, "Cultural Psychology" is an inspiring and prescient work. -- William W. Schonbein "Philosophical Psychology"

Reseña del editor

Why do psychologists find it so difficult to keep culture in mind? Why, if we agree that culture is central to mental life, can't we make a central place for it in the study of mental life? This work takes up the odd dilemma of cultural psychology. The psychologist Michael Cole, known for his pioneering work in literacy, cognition and human development, offers a multifaceted account of what the field of cultural psychology is, what is has been, and what it can be. Cole first takes us back to a time when culture "was" accorded a place of honour in psychology. He describes what happened when the discipline was subsumed by natural science at the turn of the century and culture became a causal variable with mind as its effect - an approach that distorts both the culture-mind relation and the methods needed to study it. The alternative Cole puts forward treats culture instead as the special medium of human life, a medium saturated with artifacts, the residue of the experience of prior generations. Mediation through culture is the special characteristic of human thought, he contends, and he shows how this perspective fits with contemporary ideas in cognitive science, developmental psychology and anthropology. Cole also demonstrates the usefulness of this view by applying it to a variety of theoretical, methodological and practical issues in the study of human development. These include the relationship between nature and nurture, the process by which culture both enables and constrains development, the role of literacy and education in cognitive development, and the procedures for designing new forms of activity to promote children's development.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Harvard University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• ISBN 10: 067417951X
• ISBN 13: 9780674179516
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 406