Jerome Bruner

Jerome Bruner shows that the basic concepts of science and the humanities can be grasped intuitively at a very early age. Bruner's foundational case for the spiral curriculum has influenced a generation of educators and will continue to be a source of insight into the goals and methods of the educational process.

Drawing on recent work in literary theory, linguistics, and symbolic anthropology, as well as cognitive and developmental psychology Professor Bruner examines the mental acts that enter into the imaginative creation of possible worlds, and he shows how the activity of imaginary world making undergirds human science, literature, and philosophy, as well as everyday thinking, and even our sense of self. - Publisher.

Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution, with its current fixation on mind as “information processor,” has led psychology away from the deeper objective of understanding mind as a creator of meanings. Only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can we grasp the special interaction through which mind both constitutes and is constituted by culture.

What we don't know about learning could fill a book--and it might be a schoolbook. In a masterly commentary on the possibilities of education, the eminent psychologist Jerome Bruner reveals how education can usher children into their culture, though it often fails to do so. Applying the newly emerging "cultural psychology" to education, Bruner proposes that the mind reaches its full potential only through participation in the culture--not just its more formal arts and sciences, but its ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and carrying out discourse. By examining both educational practice and educational theory, Bruner explores new and rich ways of approaching many of the classical problems that perplex educators. Education, Bruner reminds us, cannot be reduced to mere information processing, sorting knowledge into categories. Its objective is to help learners construct meanings, not simply to manage information. Meaning making requires an understanding of the ways of one's culture--whether the subject in question is social studies, literature, or science. The Culture of Education makes a forceful case for the importance of narrative as an instrument of meaning making. An embodiment of culture, narrative permits us to understand the present, the past, and the humanly possible in a uniquely human way. Going well beyond his earlier acclaimed books on education, Bruner looks past the issue of achieving individual competence to the question of how education equips individuals to participate in the culture on which life and livelihood depend. Educators, psychologists, and students of mind and culture will find in this volume an unsettling criticism that challenges our current conventional practices--as well as a wise vision that charts a direction for the future.

Jerome Bruner is one of the grand figures of psychology. From his role as a founder of the cognitive revolution in the 1950s to his recent advocacy of cultural psychology, Bruner′s influence has been dramatic and far-reaching. Such is the breadth of his vision that Bruner′s work has inspired thinkers in many of the major areas of psychology and has had a powerful impact on adjacent disciplines. His writings on language acquisition, culture and education are of profound and enduring importance. Focusing on the dominant themes of language, culture and self, this volume provides a comprehensive exploration of Bruner′s fertile ideas and a considered appraisal of his legacy. With a distinguished list of contributors including Jerome Bruner himself, the result is an outstanding volume of interest to students and scholars in psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, anthropology, linguistics, and education. Among the contributors are Judy Dunn, Howard Gardner, Clifford Geertz, Rom Harré, David Olson, Edward Reed, Talbot Taylor, Michael Tomasello, and John Shotter. The volume is framed by an editorial introduction that considers the distinctively philosophical dimensions of Bruner′s thought, and a final chapter by Bruner himself in which he re-examines prominent themes in his work in light of issues raised by the contributors. The volume will be invaluable to students and researchers in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, education, and the philosophy of mind.

"Education is in a state of crisis. It has failed to respond to changing social needs—lagging behind rather than leading." The crisis that Jerome Bruner identifies in this volume admits of no easy solutions. But the noted American psychologist makes clear that educational reform must begin with the understanding of how a child acquires information and converts knowledge into action. Drawing on his current work on infant development, Bruner underscores the importance of formulating educational strategies that expand rather than constrict the skills of the young learner. Since education takes place under conditions imposed by a technological society, Professor Bruner maintains that it is not enough to attempt reform through minor curriculum revisions. The program that fails to set knowledge within the context of action must be replaced. And to be truly relevant to our social needs, the scope of education must be extended toward overcoming the severe handicaps faced by children from impoverished areas.

This country’s most challenging writer on education presents here a distillation, for the general reader, of half a decade’s research and reflection. His theme is dual: how children learn, and how they can best be helped to learn—how they can be brought to the fullest realization of their capacities. Jerome Bruner, Harper’s reports, has “stirred up more excitement than any educator since John Dewey.” His explorations into the nature of intellectual growth and its relation to theories of learning and methods of teaching have had a catalytic effect upon educational theory. In this new volume the subjects dealt with in The Process of Education are pursued further, probed more deeply, given concrete illustration and a broader context. “One is struck by the absence of a theory of instruction as a guide to pedagogy,” Mr. Bruner observes; “in its place there is principally a body of maxims.” The eight essays in this volume, as varied in topic as they are unified in theme, are contributions toward the construction of such a theory. What is needed in that enterprise is, inter alia, “the daring and freshness of hypotheses that do not take for granted as true what has merely become habitual,” and these are amply evidenced here. At the conceptual core of the book is an illuminating examination of how mental growth proceeds, and of the ways in which teaching can profitably adapt itself to that progression and can also help it along. Closely related to this is Mr. Bruner’s “evolutionary instrumentalism,” his conception of instruction as the means of transmitting the tools and skills of a culture, the acquired characteristics that express and amplify man’s powers—especially the crucial symbolic tools of language, number, and logic. Revealing insights are given into the manner in which language functions as an instrument of thought. The theories presented are anchored in practice, in the empirical research from which they derive and in the practical applications to which they can be put. The latter are exemplified incidentally throughout and extensively in detailed descriptions of two courses Mr. Bruner has helped to construct and to teach—an experimental mathematics course and a multifaceted course in social studies. In both, the students’ encounters with the material to be mastered are structured and sequenced in such a way as to work with, and to reinforce, the developmental process. Written with all the style and élan that readers have come to expect of Mr. Bruner, Toward a Theory of Instruction is charged with the provocative suggestions and inquiries of one of the great innovators in the field of education.

Stories pervade our daily lives, from human interest news items, to a business strategy, to daydreams between chores. Stories are what we use to make sense of the world. But how does this work? This text examines this pervasive human habit and suggests ways to think about how we use stories.