First published in 1987, Common Knowledge offers a radical departure from the traditionally individualistic psychologies which have underpinned modern approaches to educational theory and practice. The authors present a study of education as the creation of 'common knowledge' or shared understanding between teacher and pupils. They show the presenting, receiving, sharing, controlling, negotiating, understanding and misunderstanding of knowledge in the classroom to be an intrinsically social communicative process which can be revealed only through close analysis of joint activity and classroom talk. Basing this analysis on a detailed examination of video-recorded school lessons with groups of 8 to 10-year-olds, they show how classroom communications take place against a background of implicit under-standing, some of which is never made explicit to pupils, while there develops during the lessons a context of assumed common knowledge about what has been said, done, or understood. This wide-ranging study makes an important contribution to the current debate about both teaching methods and the structure of education. It is essential reading for educationalists and developmental psychologists and has a clear practical relevance to teachers and teacher trainers.

First published in 1987, Common Knowledge offers a radical departure from the traditionally individualistic psychologies which have underpinned modern approaches to educational theory and practice. The authors present a study of education as the creation of 'common knowledge' or shared understanding between teacher and pupils. They show the presenting, receiving, sharing, controlling, negotiating, understanding and misunderstanding of knowledge in the classroom to be an intrinsically social communicative process which can be revealed only through close analysis of joint activity and classroom talk. Basing this analysis on a detailed examination of video-recorded school lessons with groups of 8 to 10-year-olds, they show how classroom communications take place against a background of implicit under-standing, some of which is never made explicit to pupils, while there develops during the lessons a context of assumed common knowledge about what has been said, done, or understood. This wide-ranging study makes an important contribution to the current debate about both teaching methods and the structure of education. It is essential reading for educationalists and developmental psychologists and has a clear practical relevance to teachers and teacher trainers.

`For those already familiar with discursive work it will be a joy - Edwards writes with enormous clarity and insight. For psychologists whose work involves an understanding of the relations between language and cognition this book will be essential reading.... This is a demanding book that will repay close attention. It can also be dipped into as a resource for the brilliant reworkings of traditional psychological topic areas, such as emotion, language, cognition, categories, AI, narrative, scripts and developmental psychology. If you want a glimpse into the future of psychology, get this book - the end of cognitivism starts here' - History and Philosophy of Psychology The central project of this multidisciplinary volume is a wholesale reappraisal of psychological concepts of human action, mental states, language and social interactions. Derek Edwards reviews a wide range of thought and research to demonstrate how the dominant cognitive approach to psychology has failed. He makes a compelling case for language to be best understood as a kind of activity, as discourse. The argument draws upon ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, linguistic philosophy and social studies of science. These influences underpin a fascinating intellectual survey ranging across cognitivism, discursive psychology, shared knowledge, categories and metaphor, emotion and narrative. The emphasis throughout is on the value of close empirical study of text and talk, through which the topics of mind, world and `who we are' are seen as `ways of talking'.

Profoundly challenging the traditional view of memory as the product and property of individual minds, Collective Remembering investigates remembering and forgetting as socially constituted activities. The authors argue that individuals account for and understand their memories through the concepts, stories, and stereotypes that have been acquired within the parameters of their sociocultural heritage. Collective Remembering explores the ways communities, families, other groups, cultures, and organizations are created, sustained, and transformed. Also examined are the ways in which what is to be remembered--or forgotten--can become rhetorically and ideologically interpreted to account for the past, present, and future of social life. The social character of memory is a focus of growing interest across a range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, communication, history, and anthropology. Collective Remembering makes an important contribution to this emerging debate. "I found each of the chapters in Collective Remembering to offer new phenomena to study and new ways of examining problems that are just now being articulated. This text should be read by anyone interested in the study of memory, since it will challenge any preconceived notions about the nature and uses of memory and remembering." --Semiotica "The authors have brilliantly described a wide range of phenomena that fall under the heading of collective remembering, but perhaps even more importantly, they have challenged many of the theoretical constructs and boundaries of contemporary social science. It is a major accomplishment and will be looked upon for years as being well ahead of its time." --James V. Wertsch, Clark University "Taken together these essays are the freshest and most promising approach I have seen to begin to map the features we are likely to find in this terrain." --Davis Thelan, Editor, The Journal of American History "Includes many interesting examples of how memories for past events are socially negotiated and in some cases politically manipulated." --The Psychologist "A good study by Michael Billig on 'ideology and the British Royal family.' . . . A splendid study by Barry Schwartz on the making, or re-making, of Abraham Lincoln's reputation. . . . Michael Schudson also contributes as engaging piece on American presidential reputations. . . . A third equally valuable and stimulating contribution is David Bakhurst's account of 'social memory in Soviet thought.' . . . The study of memory, as a social and political phenomenon, is one of the most exciting areas of current work. The collection of essays under review makes a useful addition to this literature." --The Sociological Review

Offering a profound yet accessible engagement with language and cognition from a discourse-based viewpoint, Discourse and Cognition is a reappraisal of some of the deepest debates in psychology in light of the most exciting theoretical and empirical developments in recent years. Author Derek Edwards examines a wide range of theory and debate to show how the dominant, cognitive approach to psychology falls, and makes a compelling case for seeing language as best understood as a kind of activity, as discourse. The book is founded in ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, linguistic philosophy, and social science. These influences underpin a fascinating intellectual survey ranging across cognitism, discursive psychology, shared knowledge, categories and metaphor, emotion and narrative. The emphasis throughout is on the value of close empirical study of text and talk, through which the topics of mind, world, and "who we are" seen as "ways of talking." Engagingly written throughout, Discourse and Cognition will be essential reading for students and academics in social, discursive and cognitive psychology and across the social sciences.

This accessible text introduces the key elements of a discursive approach to psychology. This focuses on how discourse - naturally occurring talk and text - can be studied and understood as the accomplishment of social action. Building on discourse analysis, the authors present an integrated discursive action model which leads to a radical reworking of some of psychology's most central concepts - language, cognition, truth, knowledge and reality. The implications of a discursive perspective for such topics are explored alongside a sustained argument against the perceptual-cognitivist emphasis that currently dominates psychology. A particular theme is the reconceptualization of memory and attribution. The authors examine the communicative and interactional work performed when individuals, with interests, describe and explain past events, construct factual reports and attribute mental states. They draw on a wide range of empirical materials to demonstrate the methods and analysis underpinning their approach. Reframing fundamental issues of language and mind as social practices realized in discourse, Discursive Psychology offers a profound challenge to existing orthodoxies while also establishing an exciting new agenda in the social and human sciences.