Human Development and the Creative Potential of Culture (Roundtable of the methodological seminar supervised by V.V. Rubtsov and B.D. Elkonin)

On May 25, 2018 the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education hosted a methodological seminar “Human Development and the Creative Potential of Culture” (supervised by V.V. Rubtsov and B.D. Elkonin) that was dedicated to the 80th birthday of the renowned American psychologist professor Michael Cole, the disciple of A.R. Luria and the successor of the cultural-historical and activity approaches in psychology. Michael Cole has and continues to put a lot of effort into the internationalization and development of these acknowledged Russian approaches all over the world. The seminar was organized by the Cultural-Historical Psychology journal and the International UNESCO Chair of Cultural-Historical Psychology of Childhood (MSUPE). The issues discussed in the seminar included: 1. Understanding culture: from the environment to the origins of human development; 2. Cultural-historical psychology: the language of mutual understanding and the creative tool in science and education; 3. The diversity of cultural mediation of human activity in the modern world; 4. Cultural-activity approach as an interdisciplinary project; 5. Psychology and sociocultural practices of human development; 6. From joint activity towards co-creation of culture; 7. Imagination: the ‘third’ eye of culture. Among the participants of the seminar were Russian researchers V.V. Rubtsov, A.A. Margolis, A.G. Asmolov, V.T. Kudryavtsev, N.N. Nechaev, V.A. Lektorsky, T.V. Akhutina, Zh.M. Glozman, M.V. Falikman, B.D. Elkonin, V.A. Guruzhapov as well as M. Cole himself and his friend and colleague J.Wertsch (both participating online). The paper presents the full text of the discussion.