To bring out Giyoo Hatano's contributions to the understanding of culture and cognitive development, we note first his special style--thoughtful, inventive, and always focused on central issues and on combining theory with data--and then, for three areas, some of the conceptual advances he proposed. The areas have to do with ties between cognitive…

Examines Vygotsky's notion of two main lines of psychosocial development--the natural and the cultural--in light of contemporary Marxist debates concerning the relationship between the "material" and the "social." Argues that an adequate account of Vygotsky's theory must ground the social construction of cognition in a…

Questions Moll's assumption, in this issue, of a parallel between processes in Vygotsky's natural line and the "material" processes in Marxist theories. Disputes Moll's characterization of the natural line providing a kind of constraining framework within which the cultural line can operate, suggesting that the two enter into a…