Mind and Social Practice: Selected Writings of Sylvia Scribner

by Ethel Tobach, Rachel Joffe Falmagne, Mary Brown Parlee, Laura M. W. Martin, Aggie Scribner Kapelman

Overview

Sylvia Scribner's contributions to the emergent field of cultural psychology have been monumental. Her studies of reasoning and thinking within contexts of culture and activity added new concepts, methods, and findings to what many now consider a distinctive branch of psychology. Mind and Social Practice brings together published and unpublished work from Sylvia Scribner's wide-ranging and prolific career. The book is arranged chronologically and includes five section introductions by the editors, placing Scribner's work in the context of her life, her commitments, and the political and intellectual events of the times. This authoritative text will appeal to researchers in cognitive, work, and educational psychology, as well as anthropologists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521467674
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/13/1997
Series:	Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.98(d)

Table of Contents

Series foreword; Preface; Foreword Barbara Rogoff; A Daughter's Perspective Aggie Scribner Kapelman; Introduction; Part 1: Pscychology as Social Practice: 1. Issues in the development of a labor mental health program; 2. Advocacy: strategy or slution?; 3. What is community psychology made of?; 4. Social class and mental illness: a critical review; 5. Research as a social process; 6. Psychology and the problems of society: a review; 7. Psychologists, process and performance; Part II. Thinking and Cultural Systems: 8. Societal structures of the mind: a review; 9. Culture and cognition: a review; 10. Situating the experiment in cross-cultural research; 11. Recall of classical syllogisms: a cross-cultural investigation of error on logical problems; 12. Modes of thinking and ways of speaking: culture and logic reconsidered; 13. Intelligence tests: a comparative perspective; Part III. Literacy: Mind and Society: 14. The cognitive consequences of literacy; 15. The practices of literacy: where mind and society meet; 16. Literacy in three metaphors; 17. Observations on literacy education in China; 18. Studying literacy at work: bringing the laboratory to the field; 19. Introduction: The future of literacy in a changing world; Part IV. Cognitive Development: Sociohistorical Perspective: 20. Vygotsky's uses of history; 21. A sociocultural approach to the study of mind; 22. Three developmental paradigms; Part V. Thinking at Work: 23. Mind in action: a functional approach to thinking; 24. Knowledge at work; 25. Thinking in action: some characteristics of practical thought; 26. Studying working intelligence; 27. Mental and manual work: an activity theory orientation; 28. Toward a model of practical thinking at work; 29. Head and hand: an action approach to thinking; Chronology; Bibliography; Name index; Subject index.

Editorial Reviews

"With her cognitive study of work, Sylvia Scribner chartered yet another area for a sociocultural study of human activity. The readers of this volume are invited to continue the exploration using Sylvia Scribner's unfinished 'map'." Contemporary Psychology

"The volume is a wonderful illustration of Scribner's thinking and work over time, and the editors have arranged the volume in such a way as to place Scribner's work in the context of her life, her commitments, and the political and intellectual events of the times. Researchers will find this volume useful, not only because it brings together a number of Scribner's writings but also as a tool for reflecting on their own evolving theorizing and its sociohistorical development. The volume is also valuable for use in graduate courses that examine learning and schooling in cultural and social context and as a coherent example of a researcher interweaving theory and practice and her response to the moral obligations she owned as a researcher." Joanna O. Masingila, Anthropology & Education Quarterly

From the Publisher