Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

CHAPTER 47
Implications of Cultural Psychology for
Guiding Educational Practice: Teaching
and Learning as Cultural Practices
INTRODUCTION
PATRICK M. JENLINK AND KAREN E. JENLINK
Psychology, in particular educational psychology, has struggled with a crisis of identity in recent
years, beset by questions of allegiances, values, and sense of place within education and society
(O’Donnel and Levin, 2001). Historically, educational psychology has focused on prioritizing
precision and theoretical parsimony over understanding the phenomena of learning as situated in
educational contexts such as schools; contexts that do not lend to precision and parsimony (Turner
and Meyer, 2000). Emergent in the ongoing debate and direction in educational psychology as
an evolving field is the place of cultural psychology—cultural historical activity theory—as an
important consideration in reconstructing the identity of educational psychology in relation to
educational practice, and more importantly, in reconstructing our understanding of cognition and
learning within the situated nature of human activity in educational settings.
Cultural-historical, sociocultural, sociohistorical, and cognitive theorists have advanced differing
perspectives of learning in the past two decades, which have been instructive in helping to develop
new understandings of how both students and teachers learn (Brown et al., 1989; Engeström
et al., 1999; Fosnot, 1996; Lave, 1988; Rogoff and Lave, 1984; Vygotsky, 1978). Premised on
the situatedness of learning, historically, socially, and culturally, a cultural psychology—culturalhistorical
activity theory—perspective (Cole, 1996) understands that learning occurs while individuals
(students and teachers alike) participate in the sociocultural activities within and across
the various communities of practice in which membership is held and practiced. The situated nature
of learning is transformative, reflexively shaping and being shaped by the learner’s cognitive
and cultural processes and practices, and view of reality as the learners participate within and
across communities of diversity and difference (Cole, 1998).
In this chapter, the authors will examine the use of cultural psychology for guiding educational
practice, in particular educational practice in relation to learning and teaching in cultural–historical
contexts where children come from many different home cultures, ethnicities, languages, and social
classes. The authors undertake to: (1) examine the relationship between culture and activity;
(2) explicate, using activity theory as a guiding framework, patterned ways of conduct of educational
practice as activities or cultural practices, examining the import of mediational tools and