Martin J. Packer

As a developmental psychologist I am interested in how people learn and change. In the big picture, this is the question of how a newborn baby becomes an adult. But it also involves smaller pictures, questions about the ways people are transformed moment-to-moment in their everyday interactions. The theoretical framework of cultural psychology emphasizes that our existence in the world together with other people is always mediated by cultural artifacts--signs, texts, and tools--and that human relationships and interactions are always located within social contexts, whose change over time is what we call history. So my research focuses on the development of children and young adults, and the links between this and the construction, reproduction and transformation of society. I typically study interactions among children, and between children and adults, in real-world settings, often using video- or audio-taping to permit a microanalysis of the exchanges. Every scientific paradigm brings with it presumptions about the appropriate research methods to use, and the broader logic wherein inquiry is conducted. Interpretive research involves a logic of inquiry that emphasizes the interpretation of texts and text-analogs, including human conduct. It calls for the study of people's interaction in context, and a critical sensitivity to power and ideology. Technically, it is a hermeneutic phenomenology. It provides what I call an ontological analysis. I have a broad interest in the philosophical underpinnings of social scientific research. I believe it is crucial that we examine not only the epistemological assumptions (concerning the character and origins of knowledge) but also the ontological assumptions (concerning the kinds of entities presumed to exist) that underly every interpretation of what counts as 'science,' and consider the historical character of these assumptions. My research operates at the creative intersection of these three areas of interest. My teaching is also guided by them. In brief, my view is this. Cultural psychology provides a theoretical framework within which we can begin to explore the ontological aspects of human development and learning, not just their epistemological aspects. To do this requires an appropriate method of inquiry and analysis: interpretive research offers a way to study the ontological work that occurs in human interaction, within cultural practices and social institutions. The ontological analysis that interpretive inquiry makes possible can help us better understand how, for example, schools change the kind of person a child is. Such analysis must include an element of critique, in the twin senses of uncovering the conditions for the possibility of change, and exposing inequity and coercion.