The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology

An international overview of the state of our contemporary knowledge in sociocultural psychology - as a discipline located at the crossroads between the natural and social sciences and the humanities. Since the 1980s, the field of psychology has encountered the growth of a new discipline - cultural psychology - that has built new connections between psychology, sociology, anthropology, history and semiotics. The handbook integrates contributions of sociocultural specialists from fifteen countries, all tied together by the unifying focus on the role of sign systems in human relations with the environment. It emphasizes theoretical and methodological discussions on the cultural nature of human psychological phenomena, moving on to show how meaning is a natural feature of action and how it eventually produces conventional symbols for communication. Such symbols shape individual experiences and create the conditions for consciousness and the self to emerge; turn social norms into ethics; and set history into motion.

• Includes an editorial introduction and editors’ conclusions, which offer suggestions for future developments • The different sections of the book are self-contained, offering contributions which provide a thorough review of the subject matter • Provides methodological tools for expanding the empirical knowledge within the field in new areas, avoiding eclecticism

Part I. Theoretical and Methodological Issues; Part II. From Nature to Culture; Part III. From Orientation to Meaning; Part IV. Symbolic Resources for the Constitution of Experience; Part V. From Society to the Person through Culture; Part VI. From Social Culture to Personal Culture; Part VII. Making Sense of the Past for the Future.