Context and the dynamic construal of meaning in early childhood

Although for many developmental psychologists, it has become a truism that the

study of human development is inseparable from the study of sociocultural

context, one of the greatest challenges has been to specify how cultural meanings

become internalized or come to be meaningful to specific individuals over time.

While theorists and researchers have increasingly stressed the importance of

communication for understanding how cultural meanings form the fabric of

individual experience, what is less clear is what methods can be employed

to fruitfully study this relation. A central figure providing a rich account of the

dynamic construal of meaning during early childhood was Ina Uzˇgiris (Uzˇgiris

1989, 1996, 1999). In her own research, Ina Uzˇgiris struggled to clarify the

relationship connecting personal meaning, sociocultural context and human

development, especially during infancy.