ABSTRACT
Different ways of conceptualising the human mind, the development of learning and how learning and behaviour are interrelated lead to different approaches for dealing with issues that schools have in relation to behaviour experienced as challenging or otherwise difficult. As Bruner (1996) notes, there are two ‘strikingly different’ ways of thinking about how the mind works. One of these is to conceptualise the mind in cognitive terms, as operating like a computer in processing the information it receives. Here, however, we are concerned with the second conceptualisation, what Bruner terms ‘culturalism’, which has rather different implications for addressing behavioural issues. ‘Culturalism’ assumes that the development of the human mind depends on its evolution
within a society in which the ‘reality’ of individual experience is represented through a shared symbolism, for example verbal or written language, where the community’s way of life is organised and understood. The cultural context in which a child is reared shapes his or her thinking and provides tools, a ‘cultural toolkit’ (Bruner 1996), for organising meaning in ways that can be communicated to others. In Bruner’s view, meaning-making is situated in a cultural context as well as in the prior conceptions that learners bring with them into new situations from other contexts. New learning is a product of the ‘interplay’ between them.
