This article explores the ways in which parents use their own past experiences as a mediational tool for understanding their child's current school learning. Following a sociocultural approach parents' past experiences were examined drawing on the notions of (1) heterochronicity, which looks at the partially overlapping histories of the individual…

The "Research & Action Report," published twice a year, is a window on the activities and initiatives at the Wellesley Centers for Women. The report typically features news about the Centers, interviews with researchers, commentary on recent events or social trends affecting women and girls, announcements of new publications, and much more.…

This study investigates the dialogic processes involved in how teachers talk about their students and what consequences their ways of talking (i.e., "narratives") may have for their guidance. We take a sociocultural perspective on learning as transformation of students' subjectivity. Teaching, as a process of guiding and facilitating learning,…

This article links research into constructions of childhood and child agency to anthropological studies of young people's informal adoption and state involvement in family arrangements. It analyses the life history of a young Peruvian woman who deliberately chose to move into an orphanage. The multiple points at which individual and family plans…

This paper presents a study that used narrative inquiry to explore staff experiences of learning and teaching in immersive worlds. The findings introduced issues relating to identity play, the relationship between pedagogy and play and the ways in which learning, play and fun were managed (or not). At the same time there was a sense of imposed or…

The "Research & Action Report," published twice a year, is a window on the activities and initiatives at the Wellesley Centers for Women. The report typically features news about the Centers, interviews with researchers, commentary on recent events or social trends affecting women and girls, announcements of new publications, and much more.…

The use of hybridity today suggests a less coherent, unified and directed process than that found in the Enlightenment science's cultural imperialism, but regardless of this neither concept exists outside power and inequality. Hence, hybridity raises the question of the terms of the mixture and the conditions of mixing. Cultural hybridity produced…

This special issue is devoted to the cultural-historical school of thought about mental development based on the work of Lev Vygotsky. The research of Vygotsky addressed the sociocultural basis of higher-level cognitive functions, and ascribed an influential role to human speech and other mediational tools in originating changes in cognition and…

This paper examines universalism and particularism in the context of following traffic rules and cross-cultural communication in Taiwanese and U.S. adults. A universalist culture such as the United States emphasizes rules; the particularist culture of Taiwan emphasizes relationships. Universalists follow the rules no matter what; particularists…

This paper examines the state of children's literature by tracing some of the side effects of nineteenth-century English children's literature. During their early histories, the British colonies, including America, were economically unable to produce their own children's books. Reading materials were imported from the home country, and, likewise,…

This study investigated how native Japanese speakers use honorifics in everyday social interaction. Honorifics are affixes, words, and formulaic phrases that follow linguistic and sociolinguistic rules and are believed to mark a speaker's politeness toward an addressee or another referenced person. The honorific system is incorporated into most…

A study examined the attitudes of 107 preservice teachers at the University of Iowa regarding which social institution (home, church, or school) should be responsible for teaching values to young people. The literature was reviewed to find an adequate survey instrument to measure the variables of interest from a similar study, and a survey…

A study of 15 fathers and their 16 sons in an italophone community in Montreal (Canada) focused on the usage of Italian, French, and English in communication between generations and in a variety of activities. Data were drawn from 45 hours of taped conversation in home and work settings, which included 4,848 instances of language contact. Of the…

After a review of the theoretical context to current research on literacy, consideration is given to aspects of the literacy practices of the Moroccan community in the Ladbroke Grover area of West London. Findings from a study of literacy in its social context in Morocco are cited in the discussion of the West London practices. Emphasis is on the…

To identify patterns of first names over three generations, two samples of 100 Jewish families representing over 1,400 individuals from the former Soviet Union were interviewed. Sample 1 came mainly from Ukraine and European Russia; Sample 2 came from Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan. Individuals in the samples were born between 1886 and 1992. Both…