In this chapter, we argue that development is a process of participation in sociocultural activities. We regard individual development as inseparable from interpersonal and community processes; individuals' changmg roles are mutually defined with those of other people and with dynamic cultural processes. We make use of "activity" or "event" as the unit of analysis, with active and dynamic contributions from individuals, their social partners, and historical traditions and materials and their transformations (see Dewey and Bentley, 1949; Leontiev, 1981).Studymg human events or activities contrasts with the more traditional approach of examining the individual in isolation or in interaction with a separate environment. In our approach, individuals' efforts and sociocultural institutions and practices are constituted by and constitute each other and thus cannot be defined independently of each other or studied in isolation. We may focus on the contribution of one or another individual or a cultural tradition, but always in relation to the whole activity rather than extracted from it. When individuals participate in shared endeavors, not only doesWe are grateful to the Spencer Foundation for its support of the research reported here; to the Ministerio de Educaci6n

This paper argues that planning entails distributed, mutual contributions of individuals, their social partners, and their community institutions. We suggest that these mutually involved contributions can be viewed through shifts in focus of analysis, contrasting with analyses of cognitive development that treat individuals as though they exist apart from their social and cultural worlds.We illustrate this argument with a study examining the distributed nature of planning to remember in a complex everyday task. We investigated the personal, interpersonal, and institutional cognitive contributions of 16 Girl Scouts, their mothers and customers and other companions, and institutions (the national organization and the cookie company) in keeping track of deliveries and planning collection of money in Girl Scout cookie sales and deliveries. The article also discusses an analytic methodology (Functional Pattern Analysis) for abstracting findings from the details of rich ethnographic data.Individual scouts, their mothers, customers, and the scouting organization and cookie company all played significant roles in keeping track of progress. In particular, tools and supports provided by the cookie company played a key role in organizing the cognitive tasks, and the scouts collaborated in planning with other people (usually their mothers and customers). Our findings illustrate the importance of examining contributions beyond those of the individual, while still recognizing the active roles of individuals in thinking. We argue that conceiving of individual, interpersonal, and institutional/cultural contributions as mutually constituting aspects of cognitive activities supports this aim beyond the usual focus on separate individual and 'external' factors. Individuals, Partners, Institutions 267This article makes the argument that the distributed, mutual contributions of individuals, their partners, and community institutions to planning can be studied with analyses that focus on one or another of these contributions, keeping key aspects of the others part of the analysis. This contrasts with common approaches that treat these contributions as independent factors or entities that can be understood without regard to each other. We illustrate our argument with a study of planning to remember during cookie sales and delivery by Girl Scouts, their mothers and customers and other companions, and the national scouting organization and the cookie baking company. We also use the observations to illustrate a method of qualitative data analysis that involves successive abstraction from ethnographic details of complex everyday activity to create generalities across specific cases.Sociocultural theory suggests that the study of cognitive activity requires analysis of the mutual contributions of individuals, their partners, and the community/ institutional traditions in which people participate. Usually, however, the development of planning has been studied with individuals doing set problems in laboratories, with little attention to contr...

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This article analyses the long-term performance of collective off-grid photovoltaic (PV) systems in rural áreas. The use of collective PV systems for the electrification of small medium-size villages in developing countries has increased in the recent years. They are basically set up as stand-alone installations (diesel hybrid or puré PV) with no connection with other electrical grids. Their particular conditions (isolated) and usual installation places (far from commercial/industrial centers) require an autonomous and reliable technology. Different but related factors affect their performance and the energy supply; some of them are strictly technical but others depend on external issues like the solar energy resource and users' energy and power consumption. The work presented is based on field operation of twelve collective PV installations supplying the electricity to off-grid villages located in the province of Jujuy, Argentina. Five of them have PV generators as unique power source while other seven include the support of diesel groups. Load demand evolution, energy productivity and fuel consumption are analyzed. Besides, energy generation strategies (PV/diesel) are also discussed.