Michael Cole

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor Emeritus at University of California, San Diego

My goal in this essay is to explore the idea of a tertiary artifact. I learned about this concept in the years following the Second Activity Conference in Utrecht in 1983 when I first became acquainted with the work of what I thought of as the 'Nordic School' of cultural-historical psychology. The idea of a tertiary artifact has remained important...

The aim of this randomized clinical trial study was to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention program based on social mediation, cooperative learning and metacognition (Metacognitive Dimension) in preadolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI). Participants were 29 ABI preadolescents: 14 in the experimental group and 15 in the control group (ave...

This study presents the preliminary results of the adaptation of an educational system called the Fifth Dimension (5D), in which social interaction is a means for generalizing information and a basis for the development of skills beyond the constituent tasks. Originally created by Michael Cole - Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition at the Uni...

Vygotsky's ideas about culture are of special interest because he attributed such an essential role to culture in human psychological processes. However, any attempt to provide an adequate account of his ideas about culture and human nature faces formidable obstacles. To begin with, the term “culture” is virtually absent from the indexes of his pub...

L. S. Vygotsky was an early-twentieth-century Russian social theorist whose writing exerts a significant influence on the development of social theory in the early-twenty-first century. His non-deterministic, non-reductionist account of the formation of mind provides current theoretical developments with a broadly drawn yet very powerful sketch of...

"Paula, Dave, Glenn ve Mike bugünlerde pek moda olmayan bir rejimi uygulayan, Marksist eleştiri yiyip içerek yaşayan dört yetişkin. Bu anlamda onları bilinen anlamda akademisyen diye tanımlamak doğru değildir; onlar daha çok işçi sınıfıyla beraber ve onun için çatışma vakti geldiğinde herşeylerini ortaya koyan organik aydınlardır. Ben bu beşli çete...

Building Virtual Communities examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. Contributors to this volume explore this question by drawing on their different theoretical backgrounds, methodologies, and personal experience with virtual communities. Each chapter discusses the different meanings of the terms community, le...

This chapter summarises the book's key arguments on the critique of postmodernism in educational theory from a Marxist perspective. Critical educators need an engagement with postmodernism since that can deepen the conceptual reservoirs of Marxist theories by pointing out the limitations of such thought. If this engagement is successful it must eve...

We hope this book helps to fuel debate within the educational Left internationally regarding the need for useful theoretical work for the movement. We also offer our readers some propositions on this score. First, we hold that Marxist educational theory has a key role in generating ideas that challenge educational orthodoxies and ‘justifications’ f...

Three Marxist educational theorists - Mike Cole, Dave Hill and Glenn Rikowski - interviewed by Peter McLaren

Postmodernism has become the orthodoxy in educational theory, particularly in feminist educational theory. It heralds the end of grand theories like Marxism and liberalism, scorning any notion of a united challenge to patriarchy, of united anti-racist struggle and of united working-class movements against capitalist exploitation and oppression. For...

This paper counters Blake's (1996) claim that educational neo-Marxism ‘died’ in the 1970s through demonstrating that there has been a substantial output of neo-Marxist educational writings since 1980. Blake also promotes postmodernism as a resource for rejuvenating educational theory. The paper demonstrates that postmodernism is inadequate as a bas...

Focuses on the impact of electronic communication on the interactions of American psychologists and psychologists from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Historical forms of interaction and the development of telecommunications in Russia are discussed in light of changing political forces within the FSU. Recently, the most significant telecommunication...

The twenty-first century wili need an education system very different from that of today. In this book the Hillcole Group takes up the challenge of thinking the truly thinkable to describe a vision of an education system based on principles of equality and democratic accountability to take us into the new millennium.

In this paper, we attempt an evaluation of what has been described as ‘postmodernism or resistance’. We conclude that, while there are clear differences in intention and in emphasis between it and what has described as ‘postmodernism of reaction’, the ‘two postmodernisms’ have too much in common to be thought of as separate discourses. It is more a...

These essays by leading theorists and researchers in sociocultural, cognitive, developmental and educational psychology honour the memory of Sylvia Scribner, whose work is recognized by each of the authors as seminal to their own thinking. The themes include the relationship between history and culture, the importance of context to thinking, the pl...

Les AA. reprennent les resultats d'une precedente etude portant sur la representation des minorites ethniques dans l'enseignement en Angleterre (1992) et les comparent avec une etude identique realisee aux Pays-Bas

In the first part of the paper, we begin by attempting to establish the parameters of the eclectic concept of postmodernism. We then evaluate what have been described as two different strands of postmodernism; postmodernism of reaction’ and postmodernism of resistance’ and conclude that, while there are clear differences in intention and in emphasi...

Sociocultural Studies of Mind addresses the primary question: how is mental functioning related to the cultural, historical, and institutional settings in which it exists? Although the contributors speak from different perspectives, there is a clear set of unifying themes that run through the volume: 1. One of the basic ways that sociocultural sett...

In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective...

In this paper, we argue for an acknowledgement of the rise in Euroracism, which we suggest, following Balibar, is a combination of post‐colonial racism, anti‐semitism and fascism. We then proceed to question the notion of ‘Euro‐culture’. Focusing on education, we assess the role, actual and potential, of initial teacher education in combating forms...

This paper opposesthe view of the individual enshirined in. Thacherism the private persorr in the mardet) and its accompayning ideology of nationalism in favour of social critizenship, collective empowerment and internationalism is then focusses on education, with particular reference to teacher education; on the one hand, as it is currently used t...

The determinants of education achievement for a sample of peasants on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico are examined by means of three general factors: (1) family background, (2) personal characteristics, and (3) years of schooling actually available. The final model clarifies the interactions among these factors, and explains a large proportion of t...

An attempt was made to separate the reward and information values associated with trial outcomes in a paired-associate situation. The anticipation procedure was used with a 25-item list. A trial began with a single letter appearing on a screen; then S made 1 of 2 available responses and received 1 of a unique pair of point values associated with th...

An attempt was made to separate the reward and information values associated with trial outcomes in a paired-associate situation. The anticipation procedure was used with a 25-item list. A trial began with a single letter appearing on a screen; then the subject made one of two available responses and received one of a unique pair of point values as...