The social character of knowing and learning: implications of cultural psychology for educational technology

Abstract A cultural-psychological view of knowledge and learning is presented. Its concerns are defined by comparative discussion of other theoretical traditions in psychology. The cultural view frames intelligent action as something that is mediated. This renders knowledge as participatory, distributed, and socially guided. It is argued that adoption of this perspective has implications for the support of learning and the design of resources, such as those associated with educational technology. It is suggested that a number of innovations of computer use within education implicitly endorse this cultural view of knowing. However, the cultural-psychological emphasis on social aspects of learning urges more careful protection of some educational practices from unplanned consequences of re-mediations with information and communications technology – particularly as these may arise within networked learning. Four traditional arenas for educational practice are analysed in order to illustrate the subtle nature of such social grounding