Introduction

Human Development 2001;44:7783

Sociocultural Approaches to
Cognitive Development:
The Constitutions of Culture in Mind
Giyoo Hatano a James V. Wertsch b
a Keio University, Tokyo, Japan; b Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., USA

Until quite recently, most cognitive researchers have concentrated on the study of
symbol manipulation within the individual, ignoring the surrounding sociocultural con-
text. As a result, it has often been overlooked that human cognitive competence in daily
life is heavily dependent on continuous interaction with other people and mediational
means or cultural tools [Wertsch, 1998]. Furthermore, it is only recently that much
attention has been devoted to how this cognitive competence emerges through partici-
pating in communities of practice [Nunes, 1999; Scribner, 1986; Saxe, 1991] and how it
is often scripted in various forms of guided participation [Rogoff, 1990].
The neglect of sociocultural context in cognitive research has resulted in an over-
emphasis on the universal nature of mind and not infrequently to an ethnocentric bias
of taking salient aspects of mind in modern, western society as universal across time and
space. There are some exceptions to this tendency, especially coming from cognitive
anthropology [e.g., DAndrade, 1995], but clearly, we are still struggling to find a way to
coordinate the study of individual cognitive processes with the study of sociocultural
context.
For decades there have been calls to go beyond the isolated individual to attain a
better understanding of the human mind [Luria, 1980], and the role of this approach to
the role of social and cultural context in cognition can be traced back to much earlier
times [Cole, 1996]. However, it is only over the past couple of decades that it has come
to occupy a major place in developmental and cognitive research [e.g., Human Develop-
ment, vol. 39, No. 5, 1996].
The general problem we see in developmental research on cognition is that it has
been largely acultural and ahistorical. Although the second wave of the cognitive revolu-
tion has given rise to a general recognition that development can be greatly influenced
by sociocultural context, the incorporation of cultural variables into mainstream devel-
opmental research has been slow. In volume 2 (Cognition, Perception and Language)

The writing of this article was assisted by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas to
the first author and by support from the Spencer Foundation to the second author.

2001 S. Karger AG, Basel James V. Wertsch, Department of Education

ABC 0018716X/01/04430077$17.50/0 Campus Box 1183, Washington University
Fax + 41 61 306 12 34 One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 (USA)
E-Mail karger@karger.ch Accessible online at: Tel. +1 314 935 9015, Fax +1 314 935 4982
www.karger.com www.karger.com/journals/hde E-Mail jwertsch@artsci.wustl.edu
of the latest (5th) edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology, for example, all chapters
focussing on cognitive development during childhood, with a notable exception of
Rogoffs, pay little or no attention to cultural forces. Of the remaining eight chapters in
this volume, only one (Cases) discusses findings in relation to sociocultural or sociohis-
toric theory (spending a few pages on this issue), and two others refer in a page or two to
sociocultural contexts and/or cross-cultural differences.
Problematic consequences of the individualistic approach to cognitive develop-
ment include an overemphasis on age-dependent patterns of growth, the assumption of
uniformity of a developmental trajectory, and the neglect of changes that occur in the
relationship between an individual and their surrounding environment. For example,
issues such as whether preschool children possess an autonomous cognitive domain of
biology and whether three-year-olds have a desire-belief psychology have been inten-
sively discussed, but little has been said about the kinds of practices that might serve as
the basis for acquiring naive biology or about the types of social interaction that might
promote the shift from desire psychology to desire-belief psychology.
Similarly, little notice has been given to the roles played by phonological and mor-
phological awareness in learning to read in writing systems that vary radically from one
another. When such issues are addressed, they often raise questions such as whether we
can generalize our findings in any straightforward way about learning to read in English
to other languages and orthographies. Moreover, few psychological studies have paid
attention to social aspects of expertise, though, as Lave and Wenger [1991] have clearly
demonstrated, the acquisition of knowledge and skills is typically accompanied by
changes in the position practitioners occupy in a community.
In this special issue, we would like to propose an alternative to traditional individu-
alistic approaches to the development of mind. What we have included is a range of
sociocultural approaches that focus on the institutional, cultural, and historical specific-
ity of mental functioning rather than on universals. These approaches are given differ-
ent labels, such as sociocultural, cultural-psychological, and situative approaches,
and there is in fact considerable variation among them. Like Cole and Engestrm
[1995], however, we believe that approaches within the sociocultural framework are
often complementary parts of a larger whole, and we see a particular emphasis in all of
them on the constitutive role of culture in mind, i.e., on how mind develops by incorpo-
rating the communitys shared artifacts accumulated over generations.

A Practice Approach to Cognitive Development

All socioculturalists agree that (a) interaction with other people and artifacts plays
an important role in learning and in the development of mind, and (b) what occurs in
the microenvironment in which individual learning is observed is affected by larger
contexts, both at community and global levels [Slj, 1991]. Of particular importance to
the understanding of settings or occasions is the practices they involve [Goodnow, Mill-
er & Kessel, 1995]. Practices are organized by the culture in which a developing person
lives and produce some significant outcome (e.g., something to sell). Although participa-
tion in all the practices that constitute a sociocultural context is not compulsory, such
contexts make a fair number of practices accessible to younger people, and most of them
participate in some of them. Repeated participation enhances the cognitive skills
needed to perform well in these practices, even when participants do not engage in them

78 Human Development 2001;44:7783 Hatano/Wertsch

for that reason. Moreover, practices may provide a database from which people abstract
general principles and construct models of the world, and as a result those abilities that
are valued in a culture tend to be enhanced over the long run. In short, participation in
practice is the key concept linking social and cultural setting with individual cognitive
development.
Scribner and Cole [1981] were some of the first authors to map out this line of
reasoning in recent decades. Although they did so in connection with literacy, we view
such a practice account or sociogenetic explanation for cognitive development to be a
key to understanding many other domains of human social and cognitive functioning as
well. We would emphasize that from this perspective, participation in practice does not
merely facilitate or inhibit some kind of fixed course of cognitive development that
would occur otherwise. Instead, it gives rise to cognitive development and defines what
cognition is by providing participants with materials with which they can reconstruct
the knowledge and skills available in the community.
At the same time, however, participation in a given practice is not assumed to
induce uniform cognitive effects. In this sense, the practice account does not involve
some form of simple, mechanistic transmission. Instead, it allows for the active role of
unique agents carrying out unique actions. However, these unique agents and actions
are always shaped by shared cultural tools such as language, hence providing a common-
ality among members of a group, even in cases where they do not immediately recognize
this. From this perspective culture means the special medium of human life consisting
of a set of interrelated artifacts [Cole, 1996], shared to some extent among members of
the community and often inherited over generations. These artifacts include physical
tools, common sense knowledge and beliefs, social organizations, and conventional pat-
terns of behavior associated with the physical, symbolic, and social tools.
Because what is acquired through participation in a specific practice is that set of
skills needed for performing well in it, the cognitive consequences of practice must be
seen to vary as the practice themselves do. It is obvious that practices in different
domains produce different developmental outcomes. For example, participation in
practice in complex knowledge domains like physics and mathematics tends to produce
experts who generate an appropriate representation of each specific problem, using their
rich and well-organized body of knowledge. In contrast, in domains of rapid routine
problem solving commonly observed in everyday cognition (e.g., using an abacus),
experts probably acquire a system of representation readily applicable to the whole set
of problems they expect to come across [Hatano & Inagaki, 1986]. This knowledge or
system of representation can be regarded as a form of culture in mind, something consti-
tuted through participation in a practice.
More interestingly, even when practices deal with problems in the same domain,
their products may be different depending upon how they are organized and in what
modes people participate in them. For example, whether or not a practice induces high-
ly productive learning depends on whether participants are expected to encounter novel
problems continuously, how much social interaction is permitted, whether their behav-
ior is controlled externally, and so on [Hatano & Inagaki, 1992].
Because practices usually occur in a particular domain, their cognitive conse-
quences tend to be domain-specific. However, at least some domain-general develop-
ment can also be explained on the basis of experience with different practices. First,
some activities occur across so many different settings that they may have cognitive
consequences well beyond particular. Narratives, orthography, and measurement are

Sociocultural Approaches to Cognitive Development Human Development 2001;44:7783 79

just a few examples of such activities. Second, what is acquired in one domain may be
used in others through analogies, abstraction, and the like.
The cognitive consequences of repeated participation in a given practice are due to
many factors, but studies to date have typically focused on one of these in isolation in an
attempt to specify what is primarily responsible for the development of a particular skill
or piece of knowledge. In what follows, we will expand on this by outlining a broader set
of factors. Needless to say, this is not an exhaustive list.
First, special attention has been directed to cultural tools or mediational means.
The point here is that human action is viewed from the perspective of how it inherently
involves cultural tools, and these cultural tools shape practices and what the cognitive
consequences of participating in those practices will be. This is a point that applies to
cultural tools, or mediational means in general, but like Vygotsky [1987], Bakhtin
[1981], and others, Wertsch [1991, 1998] has explored it primarily from the perspective
of language. The power of language (e.g., grammatical organization, literacy, speech
genres, narrative) to shape human discourse and thinking is so great that it is often
quite justified to say that language does part of our thinking or speaking for us. The fact
that forms of language reflect and reproduce specific cultural, institutional, and histori-
cal settings means that human-mediated action and humans in general are always socio-
culturally situated.
A second perspective on ways in which cognition is socioculturally situated can be
found in studies of discourse patterns, cultural models, and the zeitgeist more generally.
As pointed out by Bruner [1986], humans possess a strong predisposition toward narra-
tive organization that allows them to comprehend many aspects of the world. However,
what is a plausible story is culture-specific, because the process of sense making must
rely on peoples prior knowledge, much of which is provided by culture. Culturally pre-
scribed ways of telling stories, often used across a variety of practices, can be incorpo-
rated into the developing mind to form schemata for observing and comprehending the
world as well as for talking about it. Such schemata are typical examples of culture in the
mind.
And third, cognition can be seen to be socioculturally situated by virtue of how it
fits into the picture of the division of labor and distributed expertise. The set of learned
affordances that arises in such settings deserves special attention. Individuals engaging
in collective activity often construct a distributed system of cognition. None of them
possesses all the pieces of knowledge needed for successfully conducting the activity. A
good example of distributed systems of cognition is a team navigating a ship, as outlined
by Hutchins [1991]. In such a system excellence can be achieved, to a considerable
extent, by learning who is to be relied on in various circumstances. Similarly, experts in
a domain may know better than novices what tools and materials are to be used, i.e.,
which ones possess a set of learned affordances. Instead of incorporating culture into
their mind, these experts have learned how to use social and cultural settings to offload
their problem-solving enterprise, especially, planning and monitoring.

Locating the Four Papers That Follow

This special issue of Human Development includes four papers, each of which
offers some theoretical and empirical discussion about the constitution of culture in
mind. All four papers touch on one or another dimension of the notion of practice. In

80 Human Development 2001;44:7783 Hatano/Wertsch

some cases the focus is primarily on the nature of semiotic mediation involved, and in
others it is more on the social and psychological dimensions of practices that incorpo-
rate the use of these cultural tools.
Jaan Valsiners meditation on semiotic mediation in human development falls
under the first heading. Valsiner outlines a set of theoretical points that underlie a great
deal of research in the sociocultural tradition. His analysis of the specific dynamics of
using signs provides an underpinning for claims about cultural practices and their
effects on cognition that stand very much in need of clarification and elaboration.
Valsiner begins his article by noting that general assertions about the semiotic
mediation of human action and cognition have gained widespread acceptance in some
circles and hence further repetition of this general point is no longer needed. What is
needed, however, are further insights into just what this means and its implications for
sociocultural analyses. Valsiners theoretical reflections yield several such insights. For
example, his line of reasoning incorporates the claim that semiotic mediation gives rise
both to flexibility and to inflexibility in human psychological functioning. Many
accounts of mediation rest on the implicit assumption that it invariably leads to greater
power and flexibility and has no obvious downside. Valsiner takes us beyond this by
providing the conceptual hardware for understanding why this is not and indeed can-
not be so. Because of the way signs operate, they always involve a constraining, if not
debilitating dimension as well as a tendency to enable new affordances.
Valsiner also outlines a hierarchy of semiotic regulation associated with opposing
tendencies. On the hand, mediation involves context specificity, and on the other, it
involves abstract generalization. The basic insight that sign usage always involves a
dialectic between these tendencies instead of one or the other side as is all too often
assumed provides a fundamental starting point for considering how semiotic media-
tion occurs. This starting point also allows him to reflect on how inter- and intrapersonal
psychological processes are inherently distinct, yet related.
The article by Schoulz, Slj and Wyndhamn combines an analysis of cultural tools
with an analysis of some concrete communicative and cognitive practices used in chil-
drens discussion of scientific phenomena. The authors begin by questioning the
assumption that childrens discourse about scientific phenomena such as astronomy
should be interpreted solely, or even primarily, as a reflection of their individual cogni-
tion. Instead, the authors assert that such speech reflects a wider and more complex set
of contextual issues having to do with social processes and cultural tools.
By changing a few of the discourse assumptions that structure this social practice
and by introducing into the context a new cultural tool a globe in this case, the authors
found that the level of discourse children could engage in was quite different from that
reported by other investigators who had asked the same questions. This analysis raises
a host of issues about how to elicit and interpret data about scientific understanding. In
particular, it brings into question some of the assumptions made by methodological
individualism [Lukes, 1977] that guide much of the research on the development of
childrens understanding of scientific phenomena.
In her article Gauvain provides another perspective on some of the social and
cognitive practices in which cultural tools may be embedded. Continuing some of the
path-breaking research she and colleagues such as Rogoff have produced over the past
decade (see references of Gauvains article), she focuses on the nature of planning. Spe-
cifically, she provides some further insights into how children develop the ability to
understand and follow plans as they work in collaboration with adults. This is the sort of

Sociocultural Approaches to Cognitive Development Human Development 2001;44:7783 81

classic intermental functioning that Vygotsky [1987] outlined as giving rise to intra-
mental functioning through participation in the zone of proximal development.
In contrast to Schoulz et al., whose basic strategy for empirical analysis is to substi-
tute one form of mediation and social practice for another, thereby demonstrating the
limitations of a prior interpretation of data, Gauvain examines some of the details of
how facility with a cultural tool is developed through participation in social practice. In
accordance with the general sociocultural perspective we have outlined, the point of her
analysis is not limited to documenting how this development occurs and how it might be
facilitated. Instead, it also provides insight into mediated action carried out by an indi-
vidual on the intramental plane a form of action that Vygotsky [1981] argued retains a
quasi-social nature [p. 164].
Finally, Oura and Hatano report on a form of human activity seldom examined in
sociocultural studies artistic performance. Specifically, they outline some of the stages
involved in developing expertise in piano playing. Building on some of the ideas of
cultural learning, they introduce an element of social process into this analysis that is
seldom included in studies of the development of expertise. They do this by examining
the nature of mental models that piano performers have of their audiences and how
these mental models influence performance at different levels of expertise. Among other
things, this analysis makes it clear that even the seemingly very individualistic activity
of performing a musical composition involves a social dimension, i.e., retains a quasi-
social nature.
The analysis outlined by Oura and Hatano illustrates and extends other points
from sociocultural theory as well. For example, their empirical analysis focuses on the
use of musical compositions as cultural tools. However, they go well beyond noting the
inherent role of this cultural tool in this form of mediated action and demonstrate how
differently it can be used. Furthermore, the differences involved are not simply random
but are correlated with the level of expertise of the performer. Novices focus almost
exclusively on the correct use of the cultural tool itself, whereas more expert players
display more flexibility as they incorporate mental models of their audience into the
cognitive equation they employ. This provides a new chapter in the analysis of the
complex dynamics between agent and cultural tool in sociocultural analysis. Converse-
ly, the study by Oura and Hatano could be taken as an example of how theories about
the development of expertise can be enriched and extended by introducing sociocultural
analysis into the picture.
In sum, all four articles in this special issue are motivated by ideas from sociocultu-
ral theory, but they take up different points and develop them in different ways. The fact
that sociocultural analysis has spawned such different theoretical and empirical studies
should perhaps be taken as an indication that a theory in the strong sense is not involved
here at all. Instead, sociocultural analysis might be better construed as a loosely con-
nected set of postulates and commitments. We have no real problem with such an
assessment and indeed see the generativity of these postulates and commitments to be
the main contribution that sociocultural analyses are likely to make for some time to
come in the future.

82 Human Development 2001;44:7783 Hatano/Wertsch

 References

1 Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Austin: University of Texas
Press. (edited by M. Holquist; translated by C. Emerson and M. Holquist).
2 Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge; Harvard University Press.
3 Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
4 Cole, M., & Engestrm, Y. (1995). Commentary. Human Development, 38, 1924.
5 DAndrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6 Goodnow, J.J., Miller, P.J., & Kessel, F. (Eds.). (1995). Cultural practices as contexts for development. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
7 Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.),
Child development and education in Japan (pp. 262272). San Francisco: Freeman.
8 Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1992). Desituating cognition through the construction of conceptual knowledge. In
P. Light, & G. Butterworth (Eds.), Context and cognition (pp. 115133). Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheat-
sheaf.
9 Hutchins, E. (1991). The social organization of distributed cognition. In L.B. Resnick, J.M. Levine, & S.D.
Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 283307). Washington: American Psychological
Association.
10 Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
11 Lukes, S. (1997). Methodological individualism reconsidered. In S. Lukes (Ed.), Essays in social theory (pp.
177186). New York: Columbia University Press.
12 Luria, A.R. (1981). Language and cognition, ed. J.V. Wertsch. New York: Wiley Intersciences.
13 Nunes, T. (1999). Mathematics learning as the socialization of the mind. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 6(1), pp.
3352.
14 Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
15 Slj, R. (1991). Introduction: Culture and learning. Learning and Instruction, 1, 179185.
16 Saxe, G.B. (1991). Culture and cognitive development: Studies in mathematical understanding. Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
17 Scribner, S. (1986). Thinking in action: Some characteristics of practical thought. In R.J. Sternberg, & R.K.
Wagner (Eds.), Practical intelligence (pp. 1330). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18 Scribner, S., & Cole M. (1981). The psychological consequences of literacy. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
19 Vygotsky, L.S. (1981). The genesis of higher mental functions. In J.V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in
Soviet psychology (pp. 144188). Armonk, M.E. Sharpe.
20 Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1. Problems of general psychology. Including the
Volume Thinking and speech. New York: Plenum. (edited and translated by N. Minick).
21 Wertsch, J.V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
22 Wertsch, J.V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sociocultural Approaches to Cognitive Development Human Development 2001;44:7783 83