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29 - Learning as a Cultural Process

Achieving Equity through Diversity

from Part VI - Moving Learning Sciences Research into the Classroom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

By
Na’ilah Suad Nasir ,
Ann S. Rosebery ,
Beth Warren  and
Carol D. Lee
Edited by
R. Keith Sawyer
R. Keith Sawyer
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Summary

Learning and teaching are fundamentally cultural processes. Culture is the constellations of practices that communities have historically developed and dynamically shaped in order to accomplish the purposes they value, including the tools they use, the social networks with which they are connected, the ways they organize joint activity, and their ways of conceptualizing and engaging with the world. This chapter reviews research on the cultural nature of learning, including studies of (1) learning in and out of schools; (2) relationships between everyday and academic knowledge and discourse; (3) classroom-based design research that explores linkages between students’ diverse repertoires of practice and those of the academic disciplines being taught. This review addresses multiple dimensions of learning including cognition, discourse, affect, motivation, and identity. The research has implications for several issues in the learning sciences: How does learning interact with community practices? How can we connect these community practices to academic disciplinary practices? How can we use our understanding of community practices to support deeper learning?

Keywords

communityculturerepertoires of practicediversitysocial justicediscriminationpoweridentityraceethnicityand class
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences , pp. 581 - 601
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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