1. Introduction to the 'Mind, Culture, Activity' Michael Cole, Yrjo Engestrom and Olga Vasquez; 2. When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence Frederick Erickson and Jeffrey Schultz; 3. Plying frames can be dangerous: some reflections on methodology in cognitive anthropology Charles O. Frake; Part I. Experiments as Contexts: 4. Concepts of ecological validity: their differing implications for comparative cognitive research Michael Cole, Lois Hood and Raymond P. McDermott; 5. What's special about experiments as contexts for thinking? Jean Lave; 6. Sociolinguistic structure of word lists and ethnic-group differences in categorized recall Anderson F. Franklin; 7. Looking for Big Bird: studies of memory in very young children Judy S. DeLoache and Ann L. Brown; 8. 'Body Analogy' and the cognition of rotated figures Yutaka Sayeki; 9. Paradigms and prejudice Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition; 10. The early history of the Vygotskian school: the relationship between mind and activity Norris Minick; 11. One developmental line in European activity theories Eric Axel; 12. Activity, consciousness and communication David Bakhurst; 13. The sound of the violin Ernest E. Boesch; 14. Non-Cartesian artefacts in dwelling activities: steps towards a semiotic ecology Alfred Lang; Part II. Historical Analysis: 15. The invention of writing and the development of numerical concepts in Sumeria: some implications for developmental psychology Ageliki Nicoloupoulou; 16. Collective memory: issues from a socio-historical perspective James Wertsch; 17. Students' interactional competence in the classroom Hugh Mehan; 18. The competence/incompetence paradox in the education of minority culture children R. Gallimore and K. Hu-Pei-Au; 19. The organization of bilingual lessons: implications for schooling Luis C. Moll, Elette Estrada, Esteban Diaz and Lawrence Lopes; 20. Kanji help readers of Japanese infer the meaning of unfamiliar words G. Hatano, K. Kuhara and M. Akiyama; 21. Functional environments for microcomputers in education Denis Newman; 22. 'But it's important data!': making the demands of a cognitive experiment meet the educational imperatives of the classroom M. G. Quinsaat; 23. Performance before competence: assistance to child discourse in the zone of proximal development Courtney Cazden; Part III. Cognition in the Wild: 24. Low-income children's pre-school literary experiences: some naturalistic observations Alonzo B. Anderson, William H. Teale and Elette Estrada; 25. Selling candy: a study of cognition in context Geoffrey B. Saxe; 26. Mediation and automatization Edwin Hutchins; 27. Mind in action: a functional approach to thinking Sylvia Scribner; 28. Coordination, cooperation and communicatoin in the Courts: expansive transitions in legal work Yrjo Engestrom, Katherine Brown, L. Carol Christopher and Judith Gregory; Part IV. Power and Discourse: 29. The politics of representation Michael Holquist; 30. Wisdom from the periphery: talk, thought and politics in the ethnographic theater of John Milington Synge R. P. McDermott; 31. Learning to be deaf: conflicts between hearing and deaf cultures Carol Padden and Harry Markowicz; 32. Why must might be right?: observations on sexual herrschaft Esther Goody; 33. Just say no: responsibility and resistance Bonnie E. Litowitz.