ABSTRACT
Education is not simply a technical business of well-managed information processing, not even simply a matter of applying 'learning theories' to the classroom or using the results of subject- centered 'achievement testing'. It is a complex pursuit of fitting a culture to the needs of its members, and its members and their ways of knowing to the needs of the culture. During the half century since the war, Jerome S. Bruner has investigated in turn a series of loosely related topic areas. In his work on the 'new look' in perception, he emphasized the role of expectation and interpretation on our perceptual experiences. In 1970, Bruner moved from Harvard to Oxford University. There he continued his developmental studies of infant agency and began a series of investigations of children's language. It is important to sketch Bruner's contributions as a psychologist because they frame his involvement in educational issues.
