Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday LifeMost previous research on human cognition has focused on problem-solving, and has confined its investigations to the laboratory. As a result, it has been difficult to account for complex mental processes and their place in culture and history. In this startling - indeed, disco in forting - study, Jean Lave moves the analysis of one particular form of cognitive activity, - arithmetic problem-solving - out of the laboratory into the domain of everyday life. In so doing, she shows how mathematics in the 'real world', like all thinking, is shaped by the dynamic encounter between the culturally endowed mind and its total context, a subtle interaction that shapes 1) Both tile human subject and the world within which it acts. The study is focused on mundane daily, activities, such as grocery shopping for 'best buys' in the supermarket, dieting, and so on. Innovative in its method, fascinating in its findings, the research is above all significant in its theoretical contributions. Have offers a cogent critique of conventional cognitive theory, turning for an alternative to recent social theory, and weaving a compelling synthesis from elements of culture theory, theories of practice, and Marxist discourse. The result is a new way of understanding human thought processes, a vision of cognition as the dialectic between persons-acting, and the settings in which their activity is constituted. The book will appeal to anthropologists, for its novel theory of the relation of cognition to culture and context; to cognitive scientists and educational theorists; and to the 'plain folks' who form its subject, and who will recognize themselves in it, a rare accomplishment in the modern social sciences. |
Contents
10 | |
THEORY IN PRACTICE | |
Life after school | |
Psychology and anthropology II | |
Inside the supermarket outdoors and from the veranda | |
Out of trees of knowledge into fields for activity | |
Through the supermarket | |
a social anthropology of cognition in practice | |
Notes | |
Other editions - View all
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life Jean Lave Limited preview - 1988 |
Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life Jean Lave No preview available - 1988 |
Common terms and phrases
algorithms American Beauty analogies analysis analytic anthropology arena argued arithmetic practice articulation assumptions barbecue sauce best-buy problems calculations Capon and Kuhn chapter character choice cognitive anthropology cognitive psychology cognitive theory cognitivist concept constitutive order constructed context culture and cognition dieters dilemmas discussion ecological validity enchiladas epistemology everyday activity everyday practice experimental fields for action formal functionalist gap-closing Gentner Gick and Holyoak grocery shopping individual jpfs knowledge domain laboratory learning transfer lived-in world mad money math practices mathematical meaning measurement money management multiple noodles object observation ongoing activity ounces package participants person persons-acting problem solving procedures psychology quantitative relations quantity question rationality reflect routine settings shoppers simulation experiment situationally specific situations social world solution solver stashes strategies structuring resources subjects supermarket tasks theoretical theory of practice thought tower of Hanoi transformation unit price Weight Watchers