ABSTRACT
An important part of the process of socializing young children lies in the transfer of cultural knowledge from caregiver to child. Vygotsky (1962, 1978) has emphasized the social (as opposed to the cognitive) nature of such transfer, together with the notion that, with the interactive help of a caregiver, the child must reconstruct such knowledge for himself at the same time as he internalizes it. Vygotsky's focus on the interpersonal context in which sociocultural knowledge is transferred lends itself to the metaphor of apprenticeship even where very young children are involved: the caregiver can be seen as assuming the role of cultural expert while the child takes the role of cultural novice. Adopting such a viewpoint makes us particularly aware of the context dependent nature of cognitive learning.
