In the context of the sociocultural approach, the authors studied the problem of the development of the students' conceptual mental structures in the process of geometry teaching. An educational activity for the development of a generalized ability to solve geometry construction problems in electronic educational environment served as a…

Examined children's ability to settle causal relations and their capacity to make conclusions based on certain experiences and representations. Found that preschool children have a solid explanatory basis for their everyday life, within which facts are not generally accepted but are interpreted through a certain "logic," and the motives…

A cognitive or internal representation refers to an organized system of information which reflects certain, but not all, of the information about reality being represented. This paper considers various opinions, controversies, and debates about what representation is, how it comes about, and what forms of representation can be distinguished. The…

Presents a developmental framework for the study of culture and cognition in which cultural practice is a key organizing construct. Argues that systematic analysis of either cultural change or cognitive development requires that they be understood relative to one another in a single integrative treatment. (Author/SD)

Examines two different types of human motivation, pragmatic and nonpragmatic. Experimental studies in preschool-age children in both the former Soviet Union and Western cultures are presented. Suggests that the two contrasting conceptions of human motivation lead to totally different practical strategies for transforming human motivation in…

Summarizes interviews with British West Indies children concerning the production of art and the role of the artist. Demonstrates that children's perceptions undergo a shift from naive realism (pretty things make pretty pictures) to a more interpretive stance (the artist's efforts define the final product). (MJP)