stephanie: I recently read this from Mike Cole's chapter, "Context,
modularity, and the cultural constitution of development" in Winegar and
Valsiner's Children's development within social context, Vol. 2 (1992, Erlbaum):
Of crucial importance to understanding the contribution of culture
in constituting development is the fact that the parents' projection of
their children's future becomes a fundamentally important cultural
constraint organizing the child's life experiences in the present. This
process is called *prolepsis*, from the Greek term meaning the
representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently
existing or accomplished. As copious research has demonstrated, even adults
totally ignorant of the real gender of a newborn will treat it quite
differently depending on it symbolic/cultural gender. Adults literally
create different material forms of interaction based on conceptions of the
world provided by their cultural experience and expectations. For example,
they bounce "boy" infants (those wearing blue diapers) and attribute "manly"
virtues to them whereas they treat "girl" infants (those wearing pink
diapers) in a gentle manner (Rubin, Provezano, & Luria, 1974). (p. 21 in Cole)
if it starts in the cradle......
I'm going to cross-post this to the Vygotsky list, which means it'll get
posted back to xmca--please excuse the redundancy.
Peter Smagorinsky
University of Oklahoma
College of Education
Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum
820 Van Vleet Oval
Norman, OK 73019-0260
(405)325-3533
fax: (405)325-4061
smagor who-is-at aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu
psmagorinsky who-is-at uoknor.edu