Situated Cognition

Social, Semiotic, and Psychological Perspectives

David Kirshner, James A. Whitson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780805820386
• eBook ISBN: 9781000149258
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book is a 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. Chapters 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 not things or people, but 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 not through reflective abstraction on actions, but through an enhanced sense of agency as more responsible roles are adopted in daily life practices;
* the mutual constitution of social and individual knowledge -- familiar terms and concepts normally available through linguistic labels are cultural models, to be distinguished from the variegated and hidden mid-level meanings that reflect their situated uses in social activity;
* the material (neurological) substrate through which cultural models and mid-level meanings emerge; and
* how learning environments can be structured to take advantage of the perceptual underpinnings of cognition.

CHAPTER ONE

Editors’ Introduction to Situated Cognition: Social, Semiotic, and Psychological Perspectives

David Kirshner

Louisiana State University

James A. Whitson

University of Delaware

DOI: 10.4324/9781003064121-1

As James Greeno (1993) noted, the tradition of individual psychology has exerted enormous influence on education:

It is widely believed, I think mistakenly, that the educational impact of research in cognitive psychology has been small. It seems to me that it has been pervasive and profound. Educational practice in the United States is shaped fundamentally by the view of cognition and learning that has dominated American psychological research—a view that focusses on individual knowers and learners who acquire knowledge and cognitive skill by adding small pieces incrementally to what they have learned previously. This view has been developed in great detail in the psychological research literature. It provides basic assumptions that underlie the organization of our school curriculum, our assessments of student achievement, and important aspects of teachers’ classroom practices. … (p. 154)

Even as Greeno noted the importance of educational psychology in maintaining traditional educational practices, his own defection, together with other leading educational psychologists (e.g., Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), to situativity theory, situated cognition theory, or other positions that seek to better reflect the fundamentally social nature of learning and cognition, are providing a dramatic new opportunity to reorient education (see also Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991; Salomon, 1993). This influence is most obvious in mathematics, where the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has taken a proactive role through its three-volume Standards (NCTM, 1989, 1991, 1995) in promoting a vision of mathematics learning that is fundamentally at odds with the incremental, individual accretion to which Greeno alluded. But even for mathematics education, the pervasive influence of individual psychology contributes to an educational setting in which the majority of teachers, administrators, policymakers, and students remain unable to grasp and act on the new reform initiatives (Cohen, McLaughlin, & Talbert, 1993). For instance, 73% of secondary school mathematics teachers responding to a national survey agreed or strongly agreed that “activity-based experiences aren’t worth the time and expense for what students learn” (Weiss, 1995, p. 5). Situated cognition theory needs to become more widely accessible in order to extend its influence in education.

As an entrenched academic position, individual psychology has certain inherent advantages over its newly emerging rivals. First, its individualistic and dualistic orientation accords well with commonsense assumptions about thinking and being that have emerged from centuries of philosophical debate in the Western tradition (Chaiklin, 1993; Lave, 1988). Thus, challenges to individual psychology need to problematize aspects of the relationship between the individual and the collective that generally are taken as unproblematic. Second, the practitioners of individual psychology are organized into a recognized scientific community with established procedures for accepting and disseminating research. Thus, individual psychology is able to claim a unified and coherent vision of its subject matter that its competitors may lack.

In attacking the cultural common sense about knowing and being, situated cognitionists are aided and abetted by currents of postmodernist thought that are percolating through the academy. Postmodern influences serve to intervene in the automatic assumptions of modernism, creating a more receptive intellectual environment for nontraditional theorizing. Indeed, a broad cross section of educational theorists accept that there are basic problems of approach in education, and are eager for new directions.

The more pressing strategic need for situated cognitionists is to develop a cohesive and coherent theoretical approach, an approach for comprehending the complex interrelationships of all aspects of our human cognitive engagement with our worlds. We are engaged not just as individuals, but as socii, and we are engaged in the worlds of each other and of ourselves and of things that surround us in concrete social and material situations: worlds that necessarily include us and are in formation with us as we form ourselves in part through cognitive/transformative engagement with each other, our surroundings, and ourselves.

Current initiatives of situated cognition theory blend traditions of anthropology and critical theory (e.g., Lave, 1988, 1991) with Vygotskian sociocultural theory (e.g., Forman, Minick, & Stone, 1993; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Rogoff, 1990). As happens in this kind of rapid progress, developments may lead to new and sometimes conflicting possibilities, creating the need to link to more broadly related initiatives that can help to orient the new theory. For instance, Chaiklin and Lave (1993) “brought together psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists with backgrounds in activity theory, critical psychology, Barker’s ecological psychology, cognitive anthropology, and ethnomethodology” (p. 4) to grapple with the “problem of context” (p. 4) that involves relations between persons acting, the social world, and activity. These disciplines are especially helpful in providing conceptual and methodological resources for investigating the fundamental processes of cognition as social and situated activity, processes that have been neglected in a traditional cognitive science that presumes cognition to be a matter of individuals acquiring “knowledge” viewed as something more abstract and situation-independent.

The turn to critical anthropology and other critical social disciplines has been necessary for recognition of the essentially social and situated nature of human cognition, but exclusive reliance on those disciplines alone would run the risk of neglecting other aspects that are needed for a comprehensive view of cognition. Instead of offering a comprehensive alternative to the traditional approach, this would serve only to provide another partial approach to cognition: a socially oriented supplement to the individually oriented approach that is destined to remain influential unless and until a true alternative appears—an alternative that, for example, explicates the nature and participation of individuals within the social processes of cognitive activity. Accordingly, the current volume continues the quest for a more adequate approach to cognition by drawing from a broader range of disciplines—including psychoanalysis, neurology, and semiotics. This reflects our belief that the nature of the phenomena themselves requires a reconceptualization so fundamental as to demand a repositioning within the broader supporting disciplines.

The book grows out of a symposium at the 1992 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that explored these foundational issues. Preparation for the symposium was accompanied by much crossfertilization of ideas, as the speakers (many of whom are chapter authors) read drafts of each other’s papers, incorporating their responses into subsequent drafts of their own papers. This core of papers was shared with each new author subsequently invited to contribute to the book. In most cases, the new chapters are explicitly responsive to the originals. Thus, there is a distinctive intertextuality to the volume that distinguishes it from the (relatively) disconnected contributions of many edited volumes. This intertextuality is intended as a strength of the book, facilitating the integration of the diverse theoretical perspectives presented. This introduction further eases access by providing a selective overview of situated cognition theory (see Rogoff & Chavajay, 1995, for a more comprehensive discussion), followed by a preview of the general problems that the authors address herein.

AN OVERVIEW OF SITUATED COGNITION THEORY

The first point to make about situated cognition theory is that, although they celebrate its accomplishments, its principal proponents fully understand it as a work in progress. The problematics of contesting the central understandings of one’s culture are relentlessly challenging. Every response, every new insight must be subjected to intense scrutiny against the bulwark of existing theory. There is never reliance on the comforting familiarity of common sense, never an easy victory. The exacting vocabulary and syntax of much situated cognition literature, which novice readers often mistake for affectation or obscurantism, are necessary cautions against appropriation to traditional ways of thinking. As Wertsch, Tulviste, and Hagstrom (1993) noted (following Joravsky, 1989), situated cognitionists do not have the luxury of mainstream psychologists to “gloss over many issues… that were once at the center of inquiries into human nature [though never adequately resolved]” (p. 336).

The central philosophical assumption against which situated cognition theories struggle is the functionalist belief in mind-body dualism (Lave, 1988). Viewing the world of a person’s ideas, beliefs, and (intellectual) knowledge as autonomous—essentially disconnected from their bodily (i.e., lived) experience, and hence from their sociocultural context—provides broadly for a devaluing of lived experience in favor of “higher” (abstracted) contemplative activity. Because this dualist hierarchy denies the means to abstraction (through experience), it is highly corrosive to educational enterprises (St. Julien, 1994, chapter 10, this volume). Despite the pragmatic realization that knowledge entails lived practices and not just accumulated information, putting into operation educational plans that seriously consider students’ experience remains a mysterious assignment for many educators. Indeed, ideas, socially reified, are enormously effective determinants of activity.

One source of inspiration for situated cognitionists is the robust expertise that ordinary folks regularly display in ordinary situations. Against the backdrop of an educational enterprise that too often fails to engage students and develop their competencies are the multifaceted ways in which people succeed and learn in all sorts of out-of-school settings. Anthropologists have contributed importantly to situated cognition theory by observing such productive settings in minute detail, providing an empirical base for theorizing about situated cognition. Thus, Nunes, Schliemann, and Carraher (1993) studied street mathematics, Lave (1988) studied grocery shopping, and so forth. These studies provide a reminder of the immense human capacity for effective learning and a rich data source for theoretical reconceptualizations of learning.

The most obvious type of activity in the everyday world to look to for insights into possibilities for schooling is apprenticeship. Apprenticeship, too, is concerned overtly with the development of expert practices, but in a setting that may reflect the more successful modes of learning in everyday situations. As Lave (1991) noted, effectively structured apprenticeships do not result in the inert knowledge, negative self-images, and high failure rates that are characteristic of schooling. Indeed, apprenticeship has come to figure importantly in theories of situated learning and into alternative models for schooling practices (Bailey, 1993; Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989; Kvale, 1995; Lave, Smith, & Butler, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Perelman, 1992).

Since the early 1980s, analyses of situated learning and thinking have drawn heavily on the Soviet sociohistorical (or sociocultural) theories of Lev Vygotsky and his collaborators and students. The sociohistorical school takes, as its central problem, the processes whereby cultures reproduce themselves across generational boundaries. This program provides a useful contrast to the behaviorist focus on low-level behavioral responses on the one hand (Vygotsky’s interests were toward higher cognitive capabilities, like scientific thinking), and to Piagetian individualism on the other (see Valsiner, 1988, to understand Vygotsky in the context of contemporaneous theories).

Vygotsky’s collaborator, Leont’ev, has directed concern in sociocultural theory to the appropriation of cultural tools, like language and material artifacts, into the productive sphere of the novice’s activity. Appropriation in sociocultural theory is an important alternative to the intrapsychological notion of internalization in cognitive science (where something external is taken into the novice’s sphere). Rather, it is an aspect of interpsychological relations in which tools, linguistic or material, in the social environment are used by the novice adaptively in experimental imitation of the larger culture’s usage. Paradoxically, it is the misconstrual by a responsive social milieu of the novice’s incorrect usage that provides a crucial opportunity for the novice to reconfigure his or her understanding; alternatively, the culture may acquire new meanings and methods from the individual’s variations. In responsive teaching/learning, mutual appropriation is of central importance (Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Rogoff, 1990). (See Arievitch & van der Veer, 1995, for a discussion of differences between Soviet theorists on the questions of internalization and appropriation.)

THE UNIT OF ANALYSIS

The critical strategic requirement for situated cognition theory is to shift the focus from the individual as the unit of analysis toward the sociocultural setting in which activities are embedded. Traditional cognitive psychology conceives of cognition intrapsychically. To the extent that social context is considered in such analyses, it must be decomposed into discrete facts or rules that can be entered into the individual’s cognitive system. The increasing sophistication with which this is being done (Minsky, 1975; Rumelhart, 1980; Schank & Abelson, 1977) should not be mistak...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Preface Page
• 1 Editors’ Introduction to Situated Cognition: Social, Semiotic, and Psychological Perspectives
• 2 The Culture of Acquisition and the Practice of Understanding
• 3 Cognition, Context, and Learning: A Social Semiotic Perspective
• 4 Redefining the Subject in Situated Cognition Theory
• 5 Living Math: Lave and Walkerdine on the Meaning of Everyday Arithmetic
• 6 The Situated Development of Logic in Infancy: A Case Study
• 7 Cognition as a Semiosic Process: From Situated Mediation to Critical Reflective Transcendence
• 8 Mathematizing and Symbolizing: The Emergence of Chains of Signification in One First-Grade Classroom
• 9 Thinking, Learning, and Reading: The Situated Sociocultural Mind
• 10 Explaining Learning: The Research Trajectory of Situated Cognition and the Implications of Connectionism
• 11 Situated Cognition and How to Overcome It
• 12 Situated Cognition in Search of an Agenda
• Author Index
• Subject Index