How People Learn II Learners, Contexts, and Cultures (2018) / Chapter Skim
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2 Context and Culture
2 Context and Culture
Pages 21-34
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From page 21... ...
Since the 1970s, many scholars have explored ideas about culture and context and have also asked questions about the act of investigating such things. Understandings of race and ethnicity, cultural values, historical perspectives, modes of communication, and the importance attached to different kinds of knowledge and skill are just a few of the topics that have been examined and reexamined as researchers have sought to understand the complex dynamics between culture, context, and learning.
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From page 22... ...
Learning does not happen in the same way for all people because cultural influences pervade development from the beginning of life. We focus on the rich cultural, contextual, historical, and developmental diversity of learning itself and how understanding of this diversity offers ways to improve learning and create optimal learning environments.
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From page 23... ...
Culture is also reflected in the historical time period and society in which someone lives. The dynamic nature of culture is evident in the fact that people who make up a cultural community maintain cultural practices acquired from previous generations, while also adapting practices over time to fit changing circumstances or even transforming them altogether (Cole and Packer, 2005; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Super and Harkness, 1986; Tomasello, 2016)
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From page 24... ...
Arnold Gesell -- considered a pioneer for systemati cally mapping motor development using large samples of children -- inspired many researchers to explore what children were able to physically do, in what order, and at what age, across a wide variety of cultural contexts (Gesell, 1934)
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From page 25... ...
Work on these kinds of cross-cultural differences demonstrates that the environment in which a person lives matters and that people construct their perceptions by drawing on their prior learning experiences, including cultural ones. More recent work has explored cultural differences in attention and other cognitive processes (e.g., Chua et al., 2005)
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From page 26... ...
Researchers who adopt the sociocultural-historical perspective in examining learning do so within the cultural context of everyday life. This body of research illustrates through rich and detailed examples how everyday cultural practices structure and shape the way children think, remember, and solve problems (see Gauvain and Monroe, 2012; Greenfield, 2004; Rogoff, 2003; Saxe, 2012a, 2012b)
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From page 27... ...
It examines how culturally defined expectations and the ways caregivers in a community engage with their children interact with school learning: the context and the content of what one learns in the structured setting of a school. Some of this work was described in HPL I; it addresses issues of congruence or match between expectations and practices children learn at home or in their cultural communities and the expectations embedded in the culture of school.
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From page 28... ...
Study of the role of cultural adaptation in learning, pioneered by Giyoo Hatano, has shown how cultural influences may both promote and hamper learning. For example, a cultural context may promote particular types of learning such as observation versus explanation (Gutiérrez and Rogoff, 2003)
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From page 29... ...
. Studies of institutionally raised Romanian children provide a tragic demonstration of the effects of social deprivation on brain and cognitive function (e.g., Nelson et al., 2014)
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From page 30... ...
Because of the protracted course of brain development, nutrition is especially important through the years of adolescence. Deficiencies in protein, calories, and other essential nutrients have been linked to negative effects on cognitive functioning (e.g., inhibitory control and executive function)
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From page 31... ...
. The amount of sleep considered biologically normal or optimal varies across the life span: the National Sleep Foundation recommends 14 to 17 hours for newborns and 7 to 8 hours for older adults (Blunden and Galland, 2014; Hirshkowitz et al., 2015)
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From page 32... ...
. Beneficial relationships between physical exercise and cognition have been shown in the domains of perceptual skills, verbal tests, math tests, academic readiness and achievement (among children ages 4-18, Sibley and Etinier, 2003)
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From page 33... ...
We examine specific implications of this principle in the chapters that follow, and we return to its implications for education in Chapter 7. But an implication necessary to note from the start is that what were once called "cultural differences" may be better characterized as variation in learners' involvement in common practices of particular cultural communities (Gutiérrez and Rogoff, 2003)
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