Developmental Science Meets Culture: Cultural Developmental Psychology in the Making

Both the polyvalent notions of culture and development have been central for building psychological theories. In the present paper, both notions are discussed within the framework of general developmental science and thus from a necessarily systemic perspective. Development is surely culturally informed, yet the process of cultivation is largely unknown until today. One reason for this is the fact that a vast amount of empirical work is conducted quite independently from the construction of adequate theoretical models. The present paper aims at working out the basis of a theoretical model of culture-inclusive development. Cultivation takes mainly place in the semiotic sphere of personal sign construction and reconstruction under cultural guidance. Sign construction is dynamically organized and canalized on different related levels of organization: micro-, meso- and ontogenesis. The radical methodological implications for investigating cultural developmental phenomena on the basis of this model are outlined.