ABSTRACT
By way of pulling together the key themes and pertinent points in our chapters thus far, this chapter identifies a range of metaphors associated with the learning process that are relevant in both neuroscientific and sociocultural perspectives. In line with our argument in Chapter Five, one can think of these metaphors as reifications—attempts to project meanings on the world—in this case on learning. Given our understanding that the duality of participation and reification is central to learning, we focus here on the metaphors themselves (the reifications) introduced in the previous chapters, which centred on experience and practices (participation). We do realize that as a duality when we talk about participation and reification, like two sides of the same coin, one essentially implies the other. In living they cannot be separated out and to borrow a classification from Barbara Rogoff are ‘mutually constituting’ (Rogoff, 1995: 141). Similar to Rogoff's understanding, we focus on the reifications in this chapter to foreground their nature and explore their meaning but that is all the while understanding that both participation and reification exist as a duality in daily practice.
