Contexts, Collaboration, and Cultural Tools: A Sociocultural Perspective on Researching Children's Thinking

Abstract

Sociocultural theorists recognise that cognition is not an individual construction, but is distributed across people as they participate in culturally relevant activities. Thus, rather than being a universal skill, thinking is very much contextually specific, guided by others, and mediated by particular cultural tools and artefacts. Yet there is a tendency in research focusing on cognition in young children to examine thinking and understanding as though they occur in a vacuum, separate from the kinds of activities, experiences, artefacts, and people in and with which they participate. This article, drawing on the work of Vygotsky, Rogoff, Wertsch, Göncü, John-Steiner, and others, will discuss how consideration of the important factors of contexts, collaboration, and cultural tools can present a far more dynamic and rich view of young children's thinking than some more traditional methods of research.

Learning to play games or playing games to learn? A health education case study with Soweto teenagers

“…The prime unit of analysis is the Object that also gives the system its coherence (Engeström, 2001). In addition, socially created Tools are inseparable from the associated activity (Robbins, 2005). However, confusion often surrounds the use of the word "object" in the English language.…”

Modelling the Sociocultural Contexts of Science Education: The Teachers’ Perspective

“…Thus, 33 rather than being a universal skill, developing or changing a belief is very much contextually specific, guided by others, and mediated by particular cultural tools and artefacts (Robbins, 2005). The study shows that science teachers are part of a complex dynamic; their beliefs, knowledge, values and actions shape and are shaped by the structural and cultural features of society and school cultures.…”

“…Research indicates that educational beliefs and practices are not context-free or separated from the wider sociocultural contexts that teachers are embedded in (Briscoe, 1991;Rogoff, 2003;Ash, 2004;Robbins, 2005). These studies also argue that teachers' beliefs and practices cannot be examined outside of the sociocultural context, but are always situated in a physical setting in which constraints, opportunities or external influences may derive from sources at various levels, such as the individual classroom, the school, the principal, the community, or the curriculum.…”

Construction of a Precursor Model for the Concept of Rolling Friction in the Thought of Preschool Age Children: A Socio-cognitive Teaching Intervention

“…Some recent studies on children aged 5-6, showed exactly the same results as relevant studies which used older children as their subjects. On the one hand, these studies showed that alternative representations in the thought of preschoolers are marked by characteristics that are fairly distanced from the characteristics of science models, while on the other hand they demonstrated the possibility to transform them through properly designed teaching interventions (Kampeza 2006;Koliopoulos et al 2004;Zogza and Papamicael 2000;Ravanis 2005;Robbins 2005).…”

“…These approaches are either socio-cognitive or as sociocultural (Fleer 1991;Ravanis and Bagakis 1998;Robbins 2005) and stress the following two points: on the one hand the child's initial cognitive state and its change, and on the other, making use of all communication and interaction possibilities, as well as the effects of the greater cultural environment, so as to lead a young child to the construction of its individual cognitive tools.…”