From Structuralism To Culturalism

The transition of Bruner's thought is a hot issue in the circle of education as well as psychology. During the first Cognitive revolution, Bruner put forward his Structural development theory, directly challenged the mainstream theories of that time, behaviorism and stimulate-response learning theory. The process of Education, published in 1960, representing Bruner's thought on structuralism, became the classic of developmental psychology. However, after thirty years of admiration, he transferred thoroughly to the other theoretical classic, that is Vygotsky's socio-historical psychology, or named culturalism. In fact, the Second Cognitive Revolution refers to the development of culture in human science. After 80s , there was a culture transformation in psychology , as a result, education was studied under the structure of culture research. Rom Harre, a famous scholar of discursive psychology, once put forward: it is ironic but also pleasant that Bruner is not only the architecture participated in the first Cognitive revolution, also one of the most active and original speakers of the second one."This essay begins with a brief introduction of Bruner's sixty years, researching life, mainly on his two Cognitive revolutions, the transition from structuralism to culturalism.Divided into six parts, the main topics of the essay are as follows: preface; the introduction on Bruner ; Bruner' thought on structuralism; Vgotsky's influence on Bruner; Bruner' thought on culturalism; the comparison and analysis of his theoretical transition.In the preface, it introduces the context of Bruner's theoretical transition, and discusses the meaning and the major methods used in the essay as well as the current conditions about this field. The second part of the essay mainly explores the social and theoretical context when Bruner put forward his educational theory of structuralism , with the Piaget's theory mainly accounting for the theoretical context, which exerting an important influence on Bruner's thought of structuralism; and also discusses the major thought of The process of Education; Part three states the main viewpoint of Vygotsky's socio-historical theory ,and its influence on Bruner. Part four states Bruner's viewpoint of culturalism; In chapter five ,it compares the differences between the two Cognitive revolution, and then states the reflection of mine.