Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday LifeCambridge University Press, 1988 M07 29 - 214 pages Most previous research on human cognition has focused on problem-solving, and has confined its investigations to the laboratory. As a result, it has been difficult to account for complex mental processes and their place in culture and history. In this startling - indeed, disco in forting - study, Jean Lave moves the analysis of one particular form of cognitive activity, - arithmetic problem-solving - out of the laboratory into the domain of everyday life. In so doing, she shows how mathematics in the 'real world', like all thinking, is shaped by the dynamic encounter between the culturally endowed mind and its total context, a subtle interaction that shapes 1) Both tile human subject and the world within which it acts. The study is focused on mundane daily, activities, such as grocery shopping for 'best buys' in the supermarket, dieting, and so on. Innovative in its method, fascinating in its findings, the research is above all significant in its theoretical contributions. Have offers a cogent critique of conventional cognitive theory, turning for an alternative to recent social theory, and weaving a compelling synthesis from elements of culture theory, theories of practice, and Marxist discourse. The result is a new way of understanding human thought processes, a vision of cognition as the dialectic between persons-acting, and the settings in which their activity is constituted. The book will appeal to anthropologists, for its novel theory of the relation of cognition to culture and context; to cognitive scientists and educational theorists; and to the 'plain folks' who form its subject, and who will recognize themselves in it, a rare accomplishment in the modern social sciences. |
Contents
Introduction psychology and anthropology | 1 |
A dilemma of shared dilemmas | 6 |
Cognition and synthetic social theory | 13 |
THEORY IN PRACTICE | 21 |
Missionaries and cannibals indoors | 23 |
The everyday practice of cognitive research | 27 |
The culture of transfer experiments | 34 |
Context and motivation in the culture of transfer experiments | 39 |
Conclusions | 122 |
Out of tress of knowledge into fields for activity | 124 |
The socially organized meaning of math | 125 |
Measured change | 127 |
Money management in practice | 131 |
Dilemmas and resolutions | 134 |
Money management practice in theory | 139 |
Conclusions | 141 |
Conclusions | 43 |
Life after school | 45 |
The Adult Math Project | 47 |
From transfer of learning to situational specificity | 55 |
Convergent findings | 63 |
Conclusions | 68 |
Adult Math Project arithmetic exercises | 72 |
Psychology and anthropology II | 76 |
the myth of scientific and everyday modes of thought | 77 |
Dual divisions | 83 |
A common epistemology | 87 |
Conclusions | 92 |
PRACTICE IN THEORY | 95 |
Inside the supermarket outdoors and from the veranda | 97 |
Structuring resources | 98 |
divergent views | 102 |
Two articulations of structuring resources | 114 |
Validity and method | 118 |
Through the supermarket | 145 |
A primer for dialectical analysis | 146 |
Arenas and settings | 148 |
The supermarket as arena and setting | 152 |
Arithmetic activity in grocery shopping | 156 |
Dialectical arithmetic processes | 158 |
Conclusions | 168 |
Outdoors a social anthropology of cognition in practice | 170 |
The cultural specificity of rational problem solving | 172 |
Practice theory and constitutive order | 177 |
The personacting | 180 |
Direct experience | 182 |
The sources and limits of continuity in activity | 186 |
Conclusions | 189 |
Notes | 191 |
References | 206 |
Other editions - View all
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life Jean Lave Limited preview - 1988 |
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life Jean Lave Limited preview - 1988 |
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life Jean Lave No preview available - 1988 |
Common terms and phrases
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