BOOK: Why?

Explanation is multifacted and pervasive. The reasons we offer every day are dictated by, and help constitute, social relationships... more»

REPORT: Online tagging behavior (Pew)

28% of Internet users have tagged or categorized content online; on any given day, 7% of internet users say they tag or categorize online content... more»

BOOK: The Philosophy of Expertise

Experts: Which ones should you trust? Some open issues: To what extent is local expertise embodied in the individual mind as opposed to distributed in a network of tools and practices? What does expert practice look like across a variety of domains? Also, how does expertise develop through apprenticeships? more»

BOOK: The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Experts are made, not born. Here's what psychology knows about the topic... more»

STUDY: Daydreaming is natural

When not tasked with something to do, the mind wanders simply because it can... more»

STUDY: MMO Gaming as participation in complex discourse

You might quickly dismiss "afk g2g too ef ot regen no poms," but massively multiplayer online games exhibit complex discourse forms when considered as situated 'everyday talk'... more»

BOOK: Learning in places: The informal education reader

Although school-based accounts suck up most of the oxygen, teaching and learning processes take many different forms under a broad variety of informal settings and circumstances... more»

STUDY: The social context of children's participation in discretionary activities

Several family characteristics -- relating to fathers, gender, parental education, and ethnicity -- have been linked to children's access to discretionary, non-school activities, in the aggregate. Although the study focused on travel outcomes, there are strong implications here for family influences on the social organization of children's informal learning... more» paper» paper»

STUDY: Implicit academic stereotypes win the day over explicit ones

Women with strong implicit, gendered stereotypes about math ability and who self-identified as feminine performed worse and were less inclined to pursue math than women without those views -- even though many stated there wasn't a gender difference... more»

STUDY: Interracial cultural experience protects against racial stereotyping

Ecological validity aside, there is some evidence here that personal experience with interracial romance aids in the "letting go" of fear-based (or at least "shock fear"-based) racial stereotypes that have been learned... more»

STUDY: The neural predictors of shopping

Specific patterns of brain activation predict subsequent purchases... more»

CONFERENCE: "Culture and Cognition" Theme at Association for Psychological Science (APS) 2007

Cognitive processes are not universal throughout cultures... more»

BOOK: Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life

Everyday talk is strongly shaped by the broader and social and cultural processes of society... more»

REPORT: From Cradle to Career - Quality Counts 2007 (EdWeek)

Progress indicators of state efforts to create seamless education systems from early childhood to the world of work. Where a child lives matters for his or her life prospects. Children from low-income families perform significantly worse when they enter kidergarten. Poor 12th graders read on par with affluent 8th graders... more»

REPORT: A Child's Day - 2003 (Census)

"Children whose families live below poverty and with lower levels of family income are less likely to participate in extracurricular activities and to be academically on-track than children living in families above poverty and with higher levels of family income." Select indicators of child well being and daily activities... more»

STUDY: Youth health behaviors somewhat linked to parents

Only 2% of youth met all four health criteria in this study. Some evidence of cultural mechanism linking health behaviors between parents and children... more»

REPORT: The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (Pew)

87% of Americans have conducted research on a scientific topic online. The Internet is the primary news and information source about science for 40 million Americans... more»

STUDY: Vernacular science knowledge: its role in everyday life communication

Pragmatic criteria associated with social efficiency and local meaning govern how derivatives of scientific knowledge get embedded into everyday thinking and communication... more»
When we say that someone has common sense, that is not only supposed to mean that they use their eyes and ears, but that they keep them open, as it were, and use them meaningfully, intelligently, and in a way conducive to forming opinion and reflection, or at least attempt it, and that they are in a position to deal with everyday problems in an everyday manner with a degree of efficiency. (Geertz, 1983: 264)

BOOK: Leaks in the Pipeline to Math, Science & Technology Careers

Students drop out of the math, science, and technlogy pipeline all along the way. This is especially true for women and ethnic minority youth... more»

The purpose of this blog . . .

I have a simple objective for this blog: to create a useful information feed about research on how people learn. After looking around quite a bit, I just wasn't finding anything of the sort I have in mind. The information will focus primarily on cognitive, sociocultural, developmental, and neurobiological research -- since those are the fishbowls I spend the most time in these days. The plan is to regularly post pointers about new research findings, news accounts, relevant academic books, classic pieces, and other resources. It will be a healthy mix of information about a variety of topics. If you have any content suggestions, please let me know.