BOOK: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

A heart-wrenching account of the kind of culture clash that can take place between the Western medical establishment and those who live according to fundamentally different indigenous knowledge... more»

CLASSIC: Bruner & Goodman - Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception (1947)

This study (among others) was instrumental in highlighting the prominence of "cultural" aspects of mind right from within the fold of experimental psychology... more»

From 2005: "When it came to research...we all went strictly kosher, or at least we kept our yamulkes well pinned on! If I wanted to explore anything that sounded 'cultural,' I made it a point to use the most psychophysically exquisite cover I could find -- as with the so-called New Look in perception where, with the most meticulous controls going, I showed that kids overestimated the sizes of coins proportionately to their value, the more so for poor kids than better-off ones... The word 'culture' does not appear in the papers reporting those results, nor does the term 'meaning.' We'd already learned by then how to avoid quarrels with psychology journal referees!" (Bruner in Clifford Geertz by His Colleagues, 2005, p. 21)

BOOK: The Cultural Production of the Educated Person

We seem to have a real difficult time understanding the cultural work associated with schooling. Not a new perspective, but still one that doesn't get enough consideration... more»

We argue that the concept of "cultural production" allows us to better understand the resources for, and constraints upon, social action -- the interplay of agency and structure -- in a variety of educational institutions. We also argue that a culturally specific and relative conception of the "educated person" allows us to appreciate the historical and cultural particularities of the "products" of education, and thus provides a framework for understanding conflicts around different kinds of schooling. (1996, p. 3)

CONFERENCE: 2007 Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meetings

Upcoming conference (March 8-11, 2007) associated with a broad, multidisciplinary organization of individuals interested in cultural, psychological, and social interrelations at all levels... conference» program» society»

BOOK: Handbook of Cultural Psychology

An examination of how topics fundamental to psychology -- identity and social relations, the self, cognition, emotion and motivation, and development -- are influenced by cultural meanings and practices... more»

BOOK: Radical-Local Teaching and Learning: A Cultural-Historical Approach

To realize both general societal interests and worthwhile personal development, the content of educational programmes for children must be grounded in the local conditions within which the children live... more»

STUDY: The Cultural Work of Learning Disabilities

"Culturally and educationally, the United States specializes in the production of kinds of persons described first by ethnic, racial, and linguistic lines and second by supposed mental abilities. Overlaps between the two systems of classification are frequent, systematically haphazard, and often deleterious..." more»

STUDY: Culture as Disability

Human abilities and disabilities are variable social constructions that derive from a culture's sense of development... more» more»

Common sense allows that persons unable to handle a difficult problem can be labeled "disabled." Social analysis shows that being labeled often invites a public response that multiplies the difficulties facing the seemingly unable. Cultural analysis shows that disability refers most precisely to inadequate performances only on tasks that are arbitrarily circumscribed from daily life. Disabilities are less the property of persons than they are moments in a cultural focus. Everyone in any culture is subject to being labeled and disabled. (McDermott & Varenne, 1995)

The world's definitions are one thing and the life one actually lives is quite another. One cannot allow oneself, nor can one's family, friends, or lovers--to say nothing of one's children--to live according to the world's definitions: one must find a way, perpetually, to be stronger and better than that. (James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, 1985)

BOOK: Clifford Geertz by His Colleagues

These edited speeches cover a broad range of topics, including Geertz's views on morality, cultural critique, interpretivism, time and change, Islam, violence, and cognition... more»

BOOK: Why Do Men Barbecue? Recipes for Cultural Psychology

Cultural differences in mental life lie at the heart of any understanding of the human condition. The knowable world is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular... more»

ESSAY: MMOGs as 'Genuine Reality'

William James' thinking applied to the reality of World of Warcraft. What counts as ‘reality’ is the stuff which people care about. What counts as the real here is not the physical but the meaningful -- that is to say, the cultural... more»

ORGANIZATION: Center for Culture, Brain, and Development (CBD) at UCLA

Center explores how culture and social relations inform brain development, how the brain organizes cultural and social development, and how development gives rise to a cultural brain... more»

BOOK: Culture in Mind

Culture must be considered an intrinsic component of the human mind to a degree that most psychologists and even many anthropologists have not recognized... more»

How a people believe the mind works will, we now know, have a profound effect on how in it is compelled to work if anybody is to get on in a culture. And that fact, ironically, may indeed turn out to be a robust cultural universal." — Bruner (p. xvii)

Despite the recognized importance of cultural diversity in understanding the modern world, the emerging science of cognitive psychology has relied far more on experimental psychology, neurobiology, and computer science than on cultural anthropology for its models of how we think.

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

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