Development as Transformation of Participation in Cultural Activities Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on Barbara Rogoff's 'The Cultural Nature of Human Development', focusing on historical and modern theories of individual and cultural development.

Human Development

In Barbara Rogoff's view, a process in which people transform through their ongoing participation in cultural activities, which in turn contribute to changes in their cultural communities across generations.

Jean Piaget's stage theory

A theory from which cross-cultural psychologists in the 1960s and 1970s derived tests of cognitive development to measure thinking abilities independent of background experience.

Michael Cole

A researcher who observed that people who performed poorly on mathematical tests in a research setting showed impressive reasoning and calculation skills in the marketplace and on taxi-buses.

Syllogism

A common test of logical thinking, such as those used by Alexander Luria, where an answer must be derived from stated premises without questioning their truth.

Alexander Luria

A researcher who conducted studies in the 1930s with Central Asian adults to see how literacy and schooling affected their willingness to solve logic problems based on hypothetical premises.

Psycho-cultural model

A model provided by Beatrice and John Whiting (1975) focusing on the relations between individual development and immediate environments, maintenance systems, and history.

Maintenance systems

Features of a group in the Whitings' model including subsistence patterns, means of production, social structure, systems of defense, law, and division of labor.

Ecological system

Urie Bronfenbrenner's model that likens the environment to Russian nesting dolls, where a person is nested inside concentric circles of context.

Microsystems

Bronfenbrenner’s term for an individual’s immediate experiences and settings containing the child and others, such as home and school.

Dyad

A basic unit at the level of microsystems consisting of a pair of people.

Mesosystems

In Bronfenbrenner’s approach, the relations among the microsystems in which an individual is involved, such as the connections between home and school.

Ecological transitions

Shifts in roles or settings, such as entering school, the arrival of a new sibling, or marrying, which Bronfenbrenner emphasized as important for development.

Exosystems

Settings in which children do not directly participate but that influence their development, such as parents’ workplaces or neighborhood safety.

Macrosystems

The ideology and organization of pervasive social institutions of a culture, described by Bronfenbrenner as a "blueprint" for the organization of settings.

Developmental niche

A concept used by Super and Harkness (1997) that includes physical and social settings, culturally regulated customs of child care, and the psychology of caregivers.

Sociocultural-historical theory

A theory proposed by Lev Vygotsky assuming that individual development must be understood in, and cannot be separated from, its social and cultural-historical context.

Zone of proximal development

A Vygotskian concept describing the space where children learn to use cultural tools through interactions with more skilled partners.

Transformation of participation

Rogoff's perspective that human development is a process of people’s changing participation in sociocultural activities of their communities.

Personal focus of analysis

An analytic view that foregrounds the individual child while backgrounding interpersonal and cultural-institutional information.

Interpersonal focus of analysis

An analytic view focusing on the relationships and actions people engage in together, such as playing a game organized by an adult.

Cultural-institutional focus of analysis

An analytic view focusing on community processes, history, and practices, such as the school’s tradition of using parent volunteers.