Overview

This volume is the result of a symposium at a recent annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that explored foundational issues relative to situated cognition theory. Its chapters contribute to discourse about repositioning situated cognition theory within the broader supporting disciplines and to resolving the problematics addressed within the book. There is a cumulative vision to the book - its theme is that the notion of the individual in situated cognition theory needs to be fundamentally reformulated. No theoretical reconfiguration of the social world or of social practices can overcome an individual cast in the dualist tradition. This reformulation probes the physiological, psychoanalytic and semiotic constitution of persons. Chapter authors cover a wide range of topics including: transfer of training - arguing that traditional cognitive psychology has found precious little evidence of people's ability to apply knowledge gained in one context to the problems encountered in another; ecosocial systems - a new object of inquiry for situated cognition theory in which the primary units of analysis are processes and practices; how linkages between discursive practices are manifested as semiotic chaining of signifiers for individuals engaged in everyday activities at home or at school; how the ability to function in ways that are consistent with logic emerges through an enhanced sense of agency; and how learning environments can be structured to take advantage of the perceptual underpinnings of cognition.

Full Product Details

9780805820379

Table of Contents

Reviews

...this book describes a theoretical shift in cognition away from individualistic psychology historically based on the dualist distinction, toward a broader view of cognition base on the social and cultural context of thinking. -CHOICE ...a truly unique edited book...I am delighted to see a major landmark collection such as this include the semiotic among the perspectives offered. -Educational Researcher

Author Information

David Kirshner (Edited by) ,  James A. Whitson (Edited by)

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