The Cultural Patterning of Cognitive Development

Allen and Lalonde [this issue] provide a case study of education programming which richly demonstrates the utility of culturally based teaching for all students. The cultural heart of First Nations and indigenous cultures throughout the world is oral storytelling, yet this traditional way of teaching is rarely considered a viable form of instruction in Westernized educational settings. In commenting on this work, the implications for understanding cognitive development as a historically grounded process of cultural patterning from the interpsychological to the intrapsychological is discussed and the possibility of using culturally based narrative instruction to preserve indigenous ways of knowing is explored.