Discourse and Learning in the Classroom: A Sociocultural Approach

The claim that learning and development are inherently social is very much in the limelight these days. Instead of restricting our focus to the isolated individual when studying cognition and other forms of mental processes, we have come to realize that key aspects of mental functioning can be understood only by considering the social contexts in which they are embedded. To many practitioners in education, this is hardly news. Yet a great deal of educational and psychological theory still is illequipped to deal with this issue in any serious way.