Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:47:25 -0700
I am a professor of Communication and Psychology at U.C. San Diego
and director of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
(LCHC). My central interest is in the role of culture in human
development; increasing in recent years I have tried to develop
a cultural-historical activity approach to human cognition which
combines ideas derived from several national traditions of
cultural-historical theorizing. Along with my LCHC colleagues I
became interested in computer mediated discussion groups in the
early 1980's as a means of continuing to interact with students
and colleagues who spent time at LCHC, but moved away in pursuit
of their careers. Over the years, I have found this form of
interaction especially valuable in supporting fruitful discussions
about culture and development social categories that so often
impede cooperation including gender, status, discipline,
ethnicity, and national origin.
My current research is focused on the design and implementation of
activity systems in community settings that combine play,
education, and peer interaction. Participants in these systems
include elementary-age school children and undergraduates. I study
these systems as microcultures and attempt to use them to
implement the cultural-historical principle that development
always involves the simultaneous operation of several genetic
domains simultaneously.
Information concerning these efforts can be found it a recent
article, "Socio-cultural-historical psychology: some general
remarks and a proposal for a new kind of cultural-genetic
methodology" in J.Wertsch, P. Del Rio, & A. Alverez,
*Sociocultural studies of mind*, Cambridge University Press.1995