SOCIO-CULTURAL

DIMENSIONS OF
LEARNING

Objectives
Discover

specific ways by which

the zone of proximal development
can be used effectively to improve
students learning.

Discuss

the social and cultural

influences on learning.

Explain

the theories, concepts, and

elements of situated learning.

Introduction
Learning is influenced by social
interactions, interpersonal relations, and
communication with others. Learning can
be enhanced when the learner has an
opportunity to interact and to collaborate
with others on instructional tasks.
Learning settings that allow social
interactions, and respect for diversity
encourage flexible thinking and social
competence.

Social and Cultural

Influences on Learning
In

interactive and collaborative instructional

contexts, individuals have an opportunity for
perspective taking and reflective thinking
that may lead to higher levels of cognitive,
social and moral development, as well as selfesteem. Quality personal relationships that
provide stability, trust, and caring can
increase the learners sense of belonging,
self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide
a positive climate for learning.

 Family

influences, positive interpersonal

support and instruction in self-motivation
strategies can offset factors that interfere
with optimal learning such as negative
beliefs about competence in a particular
subject, high levels of test anxiety, negative
sex role expectations, and undue pressure
to perform well. Positive learning climates
can also help to establish the context for
healthier levels of thinking, feeling, and
behaving. Such contexts help learners feel
safe to share ideas, actively participate in
the learning process, and create a learning
community.

Culture is a broad and encompassing concept.

Often, we equate culture with race or ethnic

identity but that is not always the case. Culture
refers to characteristics of the individual/society
or of some subgroups with the society(it)
includes values, beliefs, notions about
acceptable and unacceptable behavior and other
socially constructed ideas that members of the
culture are taught are true.(Garcia,1994)

It is also defined as the shared products of a

human group of society. Although culture is
shared, it must be learned by each new
generation, through the process of social
instruction.

The sociology of culture shows that our way of

thinking and categorizing, our hopes and fears,
our likes and dislikes and our beliefs and habits
are social creations, strongly influenced by the
time and place in which we live. Even so,
culture does not dictate thoughts and behaviorit leaves room for action.
Each culture is different because it is adapted to meet
a specific set of conditions both physical and social
factors help shape a particular cultureIn short,
culture governs how we think and feel. It shapes our
beliefs about what it important in life and our
interpretations of what events mean. As our world
continues to change, students interact with others with
quite different backgrounds from their own, especially
in the classroom.

The manner in which they respond to

others who seem different can have an
impact on their success in school, work
and harmonious relationship with
others. If they take time and make the
effort to understand these differences,
they may develop better relationships
and succeed academically.

Social Constructivism

Lev Vygotskys theory focuses on socio-cultural

dimensions of learning and development emphasizing
that individual cognitive processes are continuously
embedded in a social and cultural context. It is referred
to as Social Constructivist Theory

In order to understand and the influence of Lev

Vygotskys work addressing socio cultural dimensions
of learning and development. It is important to
understand the three central concepts in his
theory which have all direct implications for the
classroom. These are the concepts of the Zone of
Proximal Development, Scaffolding and the SocioCultural Context of Learning.

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky believes that learning takes place
when children are working within what he called
their zone of proximal development. This
refers to an area in which a child or adolescent
would have trouble solving a problem alone, but
can succeed with help from someone more
knowledgeable. One way of thinking about the
ZPD is that it is an area of potential significant
advance in a child or adolescents thinking. That
is, within this area, a child or adolescent is
ready to master new concepts or ideas but
simply needs help in doing so.

Scaffolding
An important concept for social constructivists is that of
Scaffolding which is process of guiding the learner
from what is presently known to what is to be known.
For Vygotsky, Scaffolding is the process of providing a
child or adolescent with a good deal of support during
the time they are learning something. This support is
reduced as the learners becomes able to deal with the
task independently resulting in his taking on increasing
responsibility for his learning. Support for a learner can
take the form of cooperative learning environments, or
strategies for helping students organize new material
and relate it to prior knowledge. Vygotsky particularly
emphasized the ways in which adult support and
learning among peers could assist children and
adolescents to master concepts they could not yet learn
alone.

Socio-cultural context of knowledge.

Vygotsky emphasizes the important role of culture in
influencing how individuals learn and think. His thinking
has had a significant impact on research demonstrating
that cognition is situated occurs in a context. We
have learned from Vygotskys work that we need
especially to understand and respond to the cultural
contexts which surround childrens knowledge and
which significantly affect their expectations about their
roles as learners and what Luis Moll refers to as their
funds of knowledge. Vygotsky particularly emphasizes
the role of culture in mediating learning that is in
providing tools (words, conventions, symbols, signs,
etc.) through which knowledge is mediated and
communicated. This means that learning and
knowledge are to a large extent culturally and socially
influenced.

Theories of Situated Learning

Situated learning is a general theory of

knowledge acquisition. It has been applied in
the context of technology-based learning
activities that focus on problem-solving skills.
Lave (1988) argues that learning as it
normally occurs is a function of the activity,
context and culture in which it occurs. This
contrasts with traditional classroom learning
activities which involve knowledge which is
often presented in an abstract form and out
of context.

Social interaction is a critical component of

situated learning learners become involved in a
community of practice which embodies certain beliefs
and behaviors to be acquired. As the beginner or
newcomer moves from the periphery of this community
to its centre, he becomes more active and engaged
within the culture and hence assumes the role of expert
or oldtimer.
In the situated learning approach, knowledge and skills
are learned in the context that reflect how knowledge is
obtained and applied in everyday situations. Situated
cognition theory conceives of learning as a sociocultural phenomenon rather that the action of an
individual acquiring information from a decontextualized
body of knowledge.

Culture

Developme
nt
Social
Interacti
on

Languag
e

Figure 5. The interrelationship among social

interaction, language and culture.

As an instructional strategy, situated cognition

has been seen as a means for relating subject
matter to the needs and concerns of learners.
Learning is essentially a matter of creating
meaning from the real activities of daily living. By
embedding subject matter in the on-going
experiences of the learners and by creating
opportunities for learners to live subject matter in
the context of real-world challenges, knowledge
is acquired and learning transfers from the
classroom to the realm of practice. To situate
learning means to place thought and action in a
specific place and time. To situate means to
involve other learners, the environment, and the
activities to create meaning.

A situated learning experience has four major

premises
activities:

guiding

the

development

of

classroom

1.

Learning is grounded in the actions of

everyday situations or in how learning occurs
everyday;

2.

Knowledge is acquired situationally and

transfers only to similar situations;

3.

Learning is the result of social process

encompassing ways of thinking, perceiving,
problem solving, and interacting in addition to
declarative and procedural knowledge; and

4.

Learning is not separated from the world of

action but exist in robust, complex, social

These four premises differentiate situated

from other experiential forms of acquiring
knowledge. In situated learning, students
learn content through activities rather than
acquiring information in discrete packages
organized by instructors. Content is inherent
in the doing of the task and not separated
from the noise, confusion, and the group
interactions
prevalent
in
real
work
environments. Learning is dilemma-driven
rather than content driven. Situations are
presented that challenge the intellectual and
psychomotor skills learner will apply at home,
in the community, or the workplace (Lankard,
1995).

Situated learning uses cooperative and participative

teaching methods as the means of acquiring
knowledge. Knowledge is created or negotiated through
the interactions of the learner with others environment.
Subject matter emerges from the cues provided by the
environment and from the dialogue among the learning
community. The structure of the learning is implicit in
the experience rather than in the subject matter
structured by the instructor. Knowledge is obtained by
the process described (Lave, 1997) as way in and
practice. Way in is a period of observation in which a
learner watches a master and makes a first attempt at
solving a problem. Practice is refining and perfecting
the use of acquired knowledge. Applied to the
classroom, situated learning is not only reflecting upon
and drawing implications from previous experiences,
but immersion in and with the experience.

Elements of Situated
Situated
learning places the learner in the center of an
Learning

instructional process consisting of content the facts

and processes of the task; context the situations,
values, beliefs and environmental cues by which the
learner gains and master content; community the
group with which the learner will create and negotiate
meaning of the situation; and participation the process
by which learners working together and with experts in
as social organizations solve problems related to
everyday life circumstances (Brown, Collins, and Daguid
1989; Lave 1988; Shor 1987) Learning becomes a social
process dependent upon transactions with other placed
within a context that resembles as closely as possible
the practice environment. Situated learning in the
classroom integrates content, context, community, and
participation.

 Content. Situated learning emphasizes higherorder thinking processes rather than the acquisition of
facts independent of the real lives of the participants
(Choi and Hannafin, 1995). Content situated in
learners daily experiences becomes the means to
engage in reflective thinking (Shor, 1996). Retention of
content is not the goal of learning. By placing content
with the daily transactions of life, the instructor, in
dialogue with learners, negotiates the meaning of
content, frames it in terms of the issues and concerns
within the learners, provides opportunities for learners
to cooperate in investigating problem situations, and
makes content applicable to the ways in which learners
will approach the environment. Application rather than
retention becomes the mark of a sound instructional
encounter.

 Context. Learning in context refers to building an

instructional environment sensitive to the tasks
learners complete to be successful in practice. Context
embraces notions of power relationships, politics,
competing priorities, the learners interaction with the
values, norms, culture of community, organization or
family (Courtney, Speck, and Holtorf, 1996). Boud
(1994) describes context as drawing out and using
experiences as a means of engaging with and
intervening in the social, psychological, and material
environment in which the learner is situated. Context is
not just bringing life events to the classroom but reexperiencing events from multiple perspectives.
Learners are in the experience rather than being
external to the event (Wilson, 1993). Context provides
the setting for examining experience; community
provides the shaping of the learning.

 Community of Practice. Through community,

learners interpret, reflect, and form meaning.
Community provides the setting for the social
interaction needed to engage in dialogue with others
to see various and diverse perspectives on any issue
(Brown, 1994). Community is the joining of practice
with analysis and reflection to share the tacit
understandings and to create share knowledge from
among the participants in learning opportunity.
Community also refers to the body of knowledge
created by an individual entering an area of inquiry.
Jacobson (1996) identifies practitioner knowledge and
cultural knowledge as communities in which a new
member must learn to perceive, interpret, and
communicate experience through interaction with
other members of that community. Community
provides the opportunity for the interaction;
participation provides the learner with the meaning of

 Participation. Participation describes the

interchange of ideas, attempts at problem solving, and
active engagement of learners with each other and with
the materials of instruction. It is the process of
interaction with others that produces and establishes
meaning systems among learners. From a situated
cognition perspective, learning occurs in a social setting
through dialogue with others community. Learning
becomes a process of reflecting, interpreting, and
negotiating meaning among the participants of a
community. Learning is the sharing of narratives
produced by a group of learners. Orner (1996) shares
her story illustrating how narratives arising from the live
experiences of students become the data for dialogue
and situate the meaning of content for the class.
Learning comes about through reflecting on experience,
engaging in dialogue with others, and exploring the
meaning of events in a particular space and time; ie.,the