ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author sets forth some principal motifs of the cultural approach and explores how these relate to education. Culture, though itself man-made, both forms and makes possible the workings of a distinctively human mind. On this view, learning and thinking are always situated in a cultural setting and always dependent upon the utilization of cultural resources. Even individual variation in the nature and use of mind can be attributed to the varied opportunities that different cultural settings provide, though these are not the only source of variation in mental functioning. To begin with, if a theory of mind is to be interesting educationally, it should contain some specifications for how its functioning can be improved or altered in some significant way. More specifically, educationally interesting theories of mind contain specifications of some kind about the "resources" required for a mind to operate effectively.
