Adolescence is a period of marked change in the person's cognitive, physical, psychological, and social development and in the individual's relations with the people and institutions of the social world. These changes place adaptational demands on adolescents, ones involving relations between their actions upon the context and the action of the…

This paper builds on Hatano and Inagaki's pioneering work on the role of experience and cultural models in children's biological reasoning. We use a category-based induction task to consider how experience and cultural models shape rural and urban children's patterns of biological reasoning. We discuss the implications of these findings for…

Argues that the status of the concept of equilibration is classified by considering Piagetian theory as a research program in the sense elaborated in 1974 by Lakatos. A pilot study was made to examine the precision and testability of equilibration in Piaget's 1977 model.(Author/RH)

Outlines a life-span model which extends Piaget's theory of cognitive development to adulthood. (SS)

It is argued that the dialectical model of memory development seems more promising than behavoristic, information processing and contextual models. (MS)

Argues that the reduction of competence models to performance models is countered both by epistemological arguments and by examining the weakness of supposed refutations of Piaget's logical competence model. Points out flaws in Piaget's position. (Author/RH)

The distinction between competence and performance models in psycholinguistics is used to analyze current theory and research strategies in the study of cognitive development. The analysis is used to argue for the construction of performance models of cognitive skills which do not reify the elements of competence models. (Author/SS)

Models of development and models of memory reflect either a mechanistic or organismic world view. A merger of the information-processing models of memory and qualitative models of development is suggested, and has valuable implications about the possible nature of "locus" of memory development (ST)

A pretheoretical model of cognitive development is proposed which is based on the empirical establishment of Gagne's cumulative learning sequences. (Author)

Discusses the development of thinking from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on how Super and Harkness' (1986) concept of "developmental niche" may be used as a framework for organizing cognitive developmental research in relation to culture. Argues for the utility of this approach in furthering understanding of the precise linkages between…

Chronicles Piaget's and Vygotsky's criticism of each other's ideas on childhood egocentrism. Notes that genuine, critical dialog failed to develop because Piaget did not reply to Vygotsky's criticism at first. Five reasons for his reticence are considered: (1) a language barrier; (2) lack of knowledge; (3) quality of the criticism; (4) ideology;…

Comments on Moshman's discussion, in this issue, of reasoning as self-constrained thinking, arguing that differences in type of reasoning constraint probably reflect different knowledge bases but do not necessarily imply different processes. The fact that different tasks require different kinds of knowledge does not mean that different processes…

Because developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura are far more complex than much of the empirical work based on them, researchers have concentrated on relatively narrow aspects of each man's ideas, in the process magnifying the differences between them. Nevertheless, basic differences do exist in each theorist's conceptualization of…

Agrees with proposition of Tudge and Winterhoff in the previous article that the differences between the developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have been exaggerated over the last 30 years. Perceived differences that distinguished these theories in the early 1960s have diminished dramatically, due in part to the later work of the…

Examines current conceptualizations of the mechanisms used to explain cognitive and social development and possible common mechanisms linking the two areas. Considers these mechanisms for both a mechanisric and the two areas. Considers these mechanisms from both a mechanistic and an organismic perspective. Presents a developmental model which…