The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology

Sociocultural psychology is a discipline located at the crossroads between the natural and social sciences and the humanities. This international overview of the field provides an antireductionist and comprehensive account of how experience and behaviour arise from human action with cultural materials in social practices. The outcome is a vision of the dynamics of sociocultural and personal life in which time and developmental constructive transformations are crucial. This second edition provides expanded coverage of how particular cultural artefacts and social practices shape experience and behaviour in the realms of art and aesthetics, economics, history, religion and politics. Special attention is also paid to the development of identity, the self and personhood throughout the lifespan, while retaining the emphasis on experience and development as key features of sociocultural psychology.

About the Author

Alberto Rosa is Professor of Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he lectures on history of psychology and cultural psychology. He has carried out research and edited books on the developmental psychology of the physically challenged, notably Psicología de la Ceguera (1993) and El Niño con Parálisis Cerebral (1993), as well as on the history of psychology, such as his Metodología de la Historia de la Psicología (1996) and Historical and Theoretical Discourse (1994, co-authored with Jaan Valsiner). His most recent publication, Hacer(se) Ciudadan@s: Una Psicología para la Democracia (2015), is about the influence of culture and history in shaping identity and citizenship.

Jaan Valsiner is the Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He was the founding editor of the journal Culture and Psychology, and he has published and edited around 40 books, including The Guided Mind (1998), Culture in Minds and Societies (2007) and Invitation to Cultural Psychology (2014). He was awarded the 1995 Alexander von Humboldt Prize and the 2017 Hans Kilian Prize for his interdisciplinary work on human development, as well as the Senior Fulbright Lecturing Award in Brazil 1995–1997. He has been a visiting professor in Brazil, Japan, Australia, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.