ABSTRACT
To again begin a chapter by stating the obvious, many children around the world participate in cultural practices in formal educational settings. As cultural institutions charged with preparing the young for adult life, schools provide children with opportunities to engage in cultural practices that reflect varied culturally valued modes of behavior. The current conceptual approach leads to considering how cultural independence and interdependence meanings are reflected in educational practices, and how educational practices are structured in terms of inseparable independence and interdependence activity dimensions. Toward these ends, this chapter includes considerations of how independence and interdependence are particularized in American and Japanese educational practices. The section on American school practices begins with a discussion of John Dewey’s early 20th-century vision for American schooling and then moves on to a consideration of some contemporary American school practices. The second half of the chapter includes a discussion of Japanese preschool and elementary school practices. Although in this chapter we encounter some of the same independence and interdependence issues that were discussed in chapter 4, some new issues are raised as well, pointing to how independence and interdependence may be particularized in the context of different cultural practices.
