A Bio-Cultural-Historical Approach To The Study Of Development
Cole & Packer, 1A Bio-Cultural-Historical Approach To The Study Of DevelopmentMichael ColeCommunication Department, Psychology Department,and Laboratory of Comparative Human CognitionUniversity of California, San DiegoLa Jolla, California, 92093-0092mcole@ucsd.eduMartin PackerDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of the Andes, BogotáColombiampacker@uniandes.edu.coDRAFT. For Advances in Culture and Psychology, Vol 6. Forthcoming 2016.
Cole & Packer, 2AbstractIn this chapter we identify an emerging consensus among cultural-developmentalscientists concerning the relationship between culture and human ontogeny. We then build uponthe areas of this consensus to present our own approach, cultural-historical activity theory(CHAT) inspired by L.S. Vygotsky. In the body of the chapter we review a series of examplesthat illustrate a variety of ontogenetic phenomena pertinent to the formulation of a meta-theorythat can further organize cultural developmental science. We conclude by considering thechallenges that lie ahead if such a meta-theory is to be achieved, and offer a preliminarysuggestion concerning possible new lines of convergence.Key Words: Activity, artifact, CHAT, child development co-construction, coevolution, cognitive style, cultural practice, cultural pathways, eco-cultural, metatheory, niche construction, ontogenesis, phylogenesis. stage, triple helix.
Cole & Packer, 3A Bio-Cultural-Historical Approach to Cultural Developmental ScienceI. IntroductionOur goal in this chapter is to build upon several emerging consensuses among culturaldevelopmental scientists concerning the relationship between culture and human ontogeny.Along with the growth of these emerging agreements have come increasing calls to seek a metatheoretical framework that might better unite recent efforts in a paradigmatically coherentunderstanding of human development across what still remain disparate fields.After examining what we claim to be the areas of consensus, we sketch our own, culturalhistorical, activity centered, approach and its affinities to the various lines of research and theoryreview here. We focus on three topics central to our own views which we believe requirefurther elaboration before we begin a chronological series of snapshots of development, each anelaboration of the conception of culture that is of central importance to this line of theorizing.After presenting the examples, we review the evidence and return to consider the challenges thatlie ahead if cultural-developmental scientists hope to achieve a new level of commonunderstanding.II. Areas of Consensus within Cultural Developmental Science TodaySurveying the chapters in Bornstein’s Handbook of Cultural Developmental Science(2010) and a wide array of other contemporary sources, including the essays that have appearedin the series of books of which the current volume is the most recent contribution, it seems clearthat cultural developmental science remains a broad and diffuse program of research. Our effortto contribute to this enterprise can be viewed as a continuation of a discussion concerning a
Cole & Packer, 4unified science of human development that was published under the editorship of Keller,Poortinga, and Schölmerich (2002a). Their volume brought together culturally-orientedpsychologists and anthropologists to rethink the biology-culture divide in the developmentalsciences. The epilogue to this volume by the editors (Keller, Poortinga, & Schölmerich, 2002b)can be seen as one turn in a dialogue among scholars who believe, as do Keller and hercolleagues, that “the three concepts of ontogenetic development, culture and biology are allrelated to one other” (p. 399). In the pages that follow we seek to promote the dialogue byoffering a way of understanding this interrelationship that builds upon the existing consensus ina way that we hope can be used as the springboard for further research and theory.The first area of consensus concerns the acceptance of a broadly conceived ecologicalframework for studying culture-ontogeny relations. Despite wide disparities among theirparticular theoretical views, various participants in the burst of cross-cultural research thatcharacterized the 1960’s “eco-cultural” framework agreed that such a framework is needed toaccount for culture’s role in psychological processes (Berry, 1976; Dasen, 1974; LCHC, 1973;Whiting & Whiting, 1975). Although they differed with respect to the psychological phenomenathey studied and the methods they used, eco-cultural psychologists and anthropologistsconceived of a system in which the physical ecology of the social group shapes its economicactivity and its technologies, which in turn shape social organization (kinship, division of labor),which in turn shapes childrearing practices, which are the proximal environments for particularpatterns of development.From early on it was recognized that this one-way, physical ecology culture individual psychological process notion of cultural influence was too simple (Berry,1976; Frijda & Jahoda, 1966), leading Frijda and Jahoda to lament that culture and behavior, as a
Cole & Packer, 5system of interlocking variables, “defies causal analysis by methods at present at our disposal”(p. 114). Despite its methodological problems, however, this approach has continued to produceseveral lines of research that place a strong emphasis on ethological and ethnographic researchmethods as the basis for methodologically more sophisticated ways to deal with those“interlocking variables” (Keller, Poortinga, & Schölmerich, 2002a). Based on his researchexperience with families from such different locales as rural Kenya and Los Angeles, California,anthropologist Thomas Weisner neatly captured the central idea shared across the variety ofecocultural approaches extant today: “The core shared belief was that there were multipledeterminants of children’s behavior and parenting and that all of these determinants had to beunderstood with respect to the surrounding cultural context” (Weisner, 2010, p. 501).A second area of consensus concerns the relevance of evolutionary history (phylogeny) tothe study of ontogeny. When reviewing the topic of culture and cognitive development in theearly 1980’s, the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition could write a comprehensivereview of major ongoing research programs while totally ignoring the issue of how culture andbiology are related (LCHC, 1983). It was as if the field as a whole had implicitly accepted theview that change in human life has ceased to depend upon biological evolutionary processesbecause their differential influence had been replaced by cultural-historical processes.First, it is broadly agreed that phylogenetic and cultural processes have co-evolved atleast since the evolutionary branching that resulted in pithecanthropus several million years ago.According to this view, biological changes in hominid evolution are both cause and effect of thecreation and increasing sophistication of homo sapiens’ cultural tool kit, centrally language, and
Cole & Packer, 6including such inventions as the control of fire, cooking, and, much later, inscription andagriculture (Schaller, Norenzyan, Heine, Yamaguchi, & Kameda, 2010).Second, an important contemporary approach to the study of human evolution referred toas “Niche Construction Theory has attracted the attention of a number of cultural developmentalscientists (Gauvain, 1995; Keller et al. (2002a; LCHC, 2013). The core idea is summarized byFlynn and her colleagues who define niche construction as “the modification of both living andnon-living components in environments through the metabolic, physiological and behaviouralactivities of organisms” (Flynn, Leland, Leland, & Kendall, 2013, p. 296). Niche construction,thus, can be viewed a process in which organisms, from the lowly earthworm to the mostcomplex animal species, extend into the environment (Turner, 2009; Yamagichi, 2010).One significant implication of a “niche construction” view is that evolution is understoodas more than a matter of adaptation to an existing environment; it is also the modification of thatenvironment (Kendal et al, 2011; Odling-Smee, Laland, & Feldman. 2003; Rendell et al., 2011).This viewpoint asserts at the evolutionary level a widely accepted principle in developmentalscience that at the level of ontogeny; that human action not only acts on its circumstances, but sofar as it is within its power, transforms those circumstances to attain its goals (Bornstein, 2010;Greenfield, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978).Third, and relatedly, it is now widely accepted that cultural history and phylogeny areinterwoven constituents of ontogenetic development, not merely influences. In Greenfield’swords, “culture and biology mutually define themselves in human development” (Greenfield,2002, p. 57). The relationships between culture and biology, in so far as they can be separated,run in both directions. This is seen with particular clarity in contemporary neuro-scientificstudies of development where there demonstrating that that the brain’s potential is not simply a
Cole & Packer, 7matter of preprogrammed specialized modules, but depends crucially on culturally organizedexperience (Ambady & Bharucha, 2009). People are capable of participating in cultural practicesthat are far too new in evolutionary terms for neurobiological adaptation to have occurred; forexample, reading and writing. The human brain did not adapt for literacy; however, there is nowample evidence that engaging in the process of reading produces morphological changes in thebrain (Daheane et al., 2010). Such studies make it clear that the development of the brain andbody in consequential ways is an aspect of participation in distinctive cultural practices (see Han,Northoff, Vogeley, Wexler, Kitayama, & Varnum, 2013 for one recent summary).Fourth, there is now consensus that it is important to look beyond current culturalarrangements to understand the history of those arrangements. The societies in which childrenare born and develop were formed over many thousands of years in specific, often changing,ecological circumstances. Those societies grew through adaptation to, and exploitation of, theavailable resources, in ways which have marked consequences for ontogenesis. There is a doubledynamic of developmental change, emphasized by Rogoff (2003) who describes development aschanging modes of participation in cultural practices that are themselves changing.Fifth, as suggested by Rogoff’s formulation, there is growing agreement thatdevelopmental researchers must pay close attention to people’s everyday practices in order tounderstand ontogenetic development (Cole, 1996; Greenfield and Keller, 2004; LCHC, 1983;Rogoff, 2003; Weisner, 2002).Finally, there is a convergence of interest among developmentalists on the possibility ofcreating a “meta-theory” that can unify the insights to be gained from attempts to reconcileoutstanding areas of disagreement.(Fiske & Shweder, 1986; Keller, 2013; Overton, 2007;Witherington, 2007). It is widely appreciated that working out such a meta-theory is well
Cole & Packer, 8beyond the competence of single individuals working within existing disciplines and may infact not be achievable (Keller et al., 2002b). At a minimum it is agreed that the study of cultureand psychological processes cannot be properly conducted solely by psychologists. Nor arecoalitions between psychologists and anthropologists—traditional partners in this enterprise—likely to be sufficient. New fields such as “cultural biology,” “cultural neuroscience,”“anthropogeny,” “evolutionary developmental psychology,” and “social neuroscience” havearisen as interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary enterprises, alongside the more traditionalconcern with culture on the part of sociologists and linguists (Chiao & Ambady, 2007; Han,Northoff, Vogeley, Wexler, Kitayama, & Varnum, 2013; Kim & Sasaki, 2014; Rule, Freemnan,& Ambady, 2013).As welcome as the increased reach and complexity of developmental science may be, theresulting breadth of the field, coupled with uncertainty about basic methods and local theories,poses a particularly difficult challenge to those who would create a meta-theory that proposes asubstantial role for culture in human development. Yet the goal appears worth the effort (Kelleret al., 2002b).III. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as a Possible Meta-TheoryAs attested to by prior chapters in this series as well as by a wide variety of articles inimportant journals and books (many of which we discuss here), a number of investigatorsappear to be converging on a meta-theory that adheres to the consensuses we have noted above,although the particular names they provide differ somewhat. Li (2007), for example, refers to“bio-cultural co-constructivism.” Greenfield and Keller (Keller & Greenfield, 2000; Greenfield& Keller, 2004) propose a framework based on the idea of different cultural pathways throughuniversal developmental tasks. All such proposals appear to fall within the even broader
Cole & Packer, 9approach known as developmental systems theory (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Oyama, Griffiths, &Gray, 2001).Our own effort to elucidate a meta-theoretical framework has been through the lens of“cultural-historical activity theory” (CHAT) (Cole, 1996; Cole & Hatano, 2007; Engeström,2014; Gauvain, 1995; Holodynski & Seeger, 2013a; LCHC, 2010). CHAT is a theoreticalapproach that combines research inspired by Lev Vygotsky, his colleagues, and his students inthe Russian tradition, with Anglo-American ideas associated with such figures as Dewey,Peirce, Bartlett, Wittgenstein, as well as several European social theorists including Marx,Durkheim, and Simmel. The CHAT designation brings with it a set of core assumptions as wellas a distinctive understanding about the key concept, culture. We first summarize the keyassumptions of our approach and then address in more detailed fashion issues we think ofspecial importance when dealing with the vexed academic discourse on culture.A. CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF CHATFirst, it is assumed that human psychological processes are mediated through artifacts.The initial premise of the cultural-historical school (Vygotsky, 1978) was that humanpsychological processes operate in behavior in which material objects (e.g., hammers, pictures,gestures, and vocal sounds) are deployed, interpreted, assembled, and modified over generationsas a means of regulating human interaction. When artifacts are incorporated into human actionthis both changes a person’s conditions of existence and transforms their psychologicalprocesses. Consequently, artifacts are both material and symbolic mediators. Vygotsky referredto mediated action as the ‘cultural habit’ of behavior, and argued that it has enabled humanbeings to regulate themselves from the outside, as it were.
Cole & Packer, 10Second, as a consequence, culture is central in human life. As we use the term, culturetakes the form of the language, tools, signs, cultural practices, architectural arrangements, socialinstitutions, etc., that mediate human activity. It consists of all the artifacts accumulated over asocial group’s history, whether that history is of long or short duration.Third, that activity is taken to be an essential unit of analysis because it is in joint,mediated, human activity embodied in everyday practices that ontogeny takes place. The earlyRussian CHAT theorists demonstrated that in at least some institutional settings (among whichschool classrooms were a major focus of attention) it is possible to make mediated activity incontext an informative object of study. Contemporary research has enormously broadened therange of activities and settings to which scholars have been able to turn their attention (Sannino,Daniels, & Gutierrez (2009).Fourth, Vygotsky insisted on the importance of ‘genetic’ analysis, using the term in thesense of seeking the origins of current phenomena by studying their history. Hence, the analysisof human psychological functions must be situated in relation not only to current practices, butto history of those forms of human activity. Individual human development (ontogeny), heproposed, is the emergent outcome of processes of phylogenetic, cultural–historical, andmicrogenetic history. History, then, is understood to include both the evolution of homo sapienssapiens as a species as well as the historical accumulation of artifacts which, as an ensemble,constitute culture (Cole, 2002).Finally, Vygotsky and his progeny using a CHAT perspective, assume that the child’srelationship to the world is, from the beginning, fundamentally social. It is only becausealready-enculturated adults arrange for the child to appropriate the cultural heritage of the socialgroup that specifically human, culturally mediated, forms of psychological life become possible.
Cole & Packer, 11Especially when they are young, children are maximally dependent upon the culturallyorganized collaboration of people, not only because of their physical immaturity but becausethey have no knowledge of the cultural tool kit of the social group into which they are born.B. CONCERNING QUESTIONS OF CULTUREA key feature that unites those who are a party to the consensus we summarized in ourintroduction, is the agreement that it is inadequate to understand development as a dialectic ofontogeny and phylogeny (e.g., Fink, 1982). Rather, it is necessary to envision a triple helix of“genetic (i.e., temporal) processes in which ontogenesis is seen not as a consequences of, butrather as a constituent of phylogenesis and cultural history (Lewontin, 2001). (See Figure 1).Phylogeny and cultural history both provide constraints and resources that canalize ontogenesisthrough an epigenetic landscape (Waddington, 1940), a network of pathways or “creodes” thatdefine distinct trajectories which increasingly diverge over time (Tavory, Jablonka, & Ginsburg,2102).Insert Figure 1 About hereDespite agreement at this general, metaphorical, level, differing conceptions of cultureappear to constitute a major hurdle in seeking to specify, in detail, how ontogeny emerges as a‘phenotype’ from its twin and hybrid co-evolved roots of phylogeny and history as part of thetriple helix (Keller, Poortinga, & Schölmerich, 2002b). To deal with the most visible of theseconcerns, we devote the next section to ways in which a CHAT approach understanding cultureas the third thread in the triple helix. The issues we address are:1. How to formulate a non-dualistic conception of culture,2. The proposal that cultural practices be considered a central unit of analysis
Cole & Packer, 123. The proposal that pervasive patterns of behavior across practices produce distinctivecultural styles and cultural pathways through social life, that are associated with distinctivemodes of psychological functioning.1. A non-dualist conception of cultureCentral to our own attempt to build a meta-theory based on the idea of a genetic triplehelix is the manner in which we conceive of culture. The key here, in our view, is to movebeyond dualistic theories that try to place psychology in the head and culture in the world. Weagree with Markus (2011) that:Psychological processes—perception, cognition, emotion, motivation—are inextricablylinked to the social worlds we inhabit. Psychology exists both in the head and in theworld, and is most productively analyzed at this intersection. (Markus, 2011)In its most general sense, the term ‘culture’ has been used by scholars to refer to a formof inheritance passed from one generation to the next through extra-somatic means. It is thesocially inherited body of past accomplishments that serve as resources for the current life of asocial group (D'Andrade, 1996). Unfortunately, in trying to specify more carefully the notion ofculture-as-social inheritance, anthropologists have tended to emphasize culture as either“s
Cole & Packer, 1 . A Bio-Cultural-Historical Approach To The Study Of Development . Michael Cole . Communication Department, Psychology Department, and Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
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