No disagreement with the ecumenical nature of your textbook writing task.
As far as I can judge -- from this distance -- you are doing a great job of
navigation in hostile waters, marking a fairway towards a sociocultural
outlook.
At 14.57 -0700 99-07-08, Mike Cole wrote:
>What uses of "meta" might be unproblematic in the study of
>development, or human behavior more generally?
To me the use of "meta" -- as a term -- is not problematic to me: it
describes well this class of activities or practices. What does get
problematic is the bias of schooled cultures FOR this class of practices,
when taken as individual characteristics. But you can hardly be said to
have ignored THAT problem.
My question on the "metacognitive" quote was if the verb "display" was not
ripe for a tactical change:
"Schoolchildren seem
better able to describe the mental activities and logic that underpin their
cognitive activities. In other words, they display metacognition."
=2E.. although I don't know if it would still be too odd to say "they
practice metacognition" or... well, any verb that does not sound as if they
could haul this THING from their pocket to show at the passport control.
Eva