David R. Olson

New perspective on the relation between writing and the processes of thought.

The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and Reading

The World on Paper

Philip David Zelazo

Janet W. Astington

In this book, leading scholars address difficult but fascinating questions concerning intentionality as it is manifested in a wide variety of contexts, including imitation in infancy, early understanding of mental states, reasoning in nonhuman primates, executive function, language acquisition, and narrative understanding. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate that intentionality is a key issue in the cognitive and social sciences. Moreover, in a way that was anticipated more than a century ago by the seminal work of J. Mark Baldwin, they are beginning to reveal how the control of action is related in development to children's emerging self-consciousness and their increasingly sophisticated appreciation of other people's perspectives.

Social Understanding and Self-control

Developing Theories of Intention

For well over a century educational reformers have looked for a breakthrough in the sciences of psychology and pedagogy that would dramatically improve the effectiveness of schooling. This book shows why such an ambition is an illusion. Schools are institutions which attempt to balance the needs of a bureaucratic society that funds them with the personal goals, interests, hopes and ambitions of the students who enroll in them. Reform efforts attempt to realign that balance without any clear conception of how the two are related. This book offers a theoretical account of the relation between the minds of learners and the institutional structure of the school that would account both for the ways that schooling remakes minds and societies and why such institutions are resistant to change.

How School Remakes Mind and Society

Psychological Theory and Educational Reform

Min Wang

Jens Brockmeier

An important contribution to the multi-disciplinary study of literacy, narrative and culture, this work argues that literacy is perhaps best described as an ensemble of socially and historically embedded activities of cultural practices. It suggests viewing written language, producing and distributing, deciphering and interpreting signs, are closely related to other cultural practices such as narrative and painting. The papers of the first and second parts illustrate this view in contexts that range from the pre-historical beginnings of tracking signs' in hunter-gatherer cultures, and the emergence of modern literate traditions in Europe in the 17th to 19th century, to the future of electronically mediated writing in times of the post-Gutenberg galaxy. The chapters of the third present results of recent research in developmental and educational psychology. Contributions by leading experts in the field make the point that there is no theory and history of writing that does not presuppose a theory of culture and social development. At the same time, it demonstrates that every theory and history of culture must unavoidably entail a theory and history of writing and written culture. This book brings together perspectives on literacy from psychology, linguistics, history and sociology of literature, philosophy, anthropology, and history of art. It addresses these issues in plain language – not coded in specialized jargon – and addresses a multi-disciplinary forum of scholars and students of literacy, narrative and culture.

Literacy, Narrative and Culture

Deborah Tannen

Jack Goody

Professor of Linguistics Deborah Tannen, PhD

Wallace L. Chafe

Shirley Brice Heath

Sandra A. Thompson

Georgia M. Green

Angela Hildyard

Charles N Li

Patricia M. Clancy

Estudio sobre la estructura del discurso y el crecimiento de la comunicación a través de los modos hablados y escritos.

Exploring Orality and Literacy

Spoken and Written Language

Nancy Torrance

A detailed examination of the relationship between orality and literacy includes the traditions upon which they are based and the functions which they serve as well as the psychological and linguistic processes that influence them.

Literacy and Orality

This volume demonstrates how literacy is more than learning to read and write. Literacy creates communities, organizes personal and social lives, makes possible civil society and the rule of law, and underwrites the commitment of both modern and developing societies to universal education and ever higher levels of literate competence. Everything that is involved in being and becoming literate is the concern of this interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars.

The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy

Cambridge University Press

Literacy is an important concern of contemporary societies. This book offers a comprehensive survey of recent efforts to understand the nature of written language and its role in cognition and in social and intellectual life. The authors represent a wide range of disciplines - cognitive psychology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, education, history and philosophy - and address a wide range of questions. Is literacy a decisive factor in historical and cultural change? Does it alter the mental and social lives of individuals? If so how and via what mechanisms? Does learning to read and write change children's speech, thought or orientation to language? What are children and adults learning when they acquire literate skills? Are there differences - linguistic, psychological and functional - between speaking and writing? And are there differences between oral and written languages?

Literacy, Language and Learning:The Nature and Consequences of Reading and Writing

Thirteen leading scholars examine the issues of universality and diversity in human thought.

David R. Olson

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