My goal in this chapter is to show how a focus on everyday practices, including discourse, allows us to understand the interpenetration of individual and social in the course of human development. A practice-based approach does not seek to explain development by reference only to individual factors, without simultaneous consideration of the social context within which the individual is acting, or to social factors, without examining the ways in which the social world is experienced differently by the different individuals inhabiting it. Such an approach is in keeping with the ideas of Vygotsky and Piaget, both of whom (albeit in different ways) eschewed the dichotomy of individual and social (Smith, 1996; Tudge & Scrimsher, 2003; Tudge & Winterhoff, 1993). The difficulties inherent in this more systemic approach, however, stem from the fact that most scholars interested in development have not been trained to think systemically but rather in terms of causal models inspired by the positivist tradition (Guba & Lincoln, 1994).

I would like initially to illustrate the issue by referring to Roger Säljö's recent article (2000), based on his presentation at the 1997 Johann Jacobs Foundation conference on social interaction. The session in which Säljö's talk took place appeared under the heading “How Knowledge Is Transmitted… .” In his article, Säljö rejected the use of this implicitly unidirectional formulation that has knowledge being transmitted from one (presumably more competent) individual or group to a (presumably less competent) receiver.