Programme in Culture and Cognition

The Programme in Culture and Cognition (PCC) brings together a number of scholars and students at the LSE whose research focuses on the relationship between psychological development and the socio-cultural environments in which humans live.

We assume that learning is everywhere enabled and constrained by the evolved cognitive abilities of our species; but also that it is enabled and constrained by the variable socio-cultural environments in which it is situated.

We approach the study of these phenomena from a number of disciplinary perspectives (including those of cognitive anthropology, social psychology and philosophy). Among other things, we are engaged in programmes of empirical research on the social and cultural contexts of learning.

Launch of the new International Cognition & Culture Institute

The International Cognition & Culture Institute (ICCI) is a new initiative of the LSE Anthropology Department, the LSE Programme in Culture & Cognition (PCC) and the Institut Jean Nicod (ENS, EHESS, CNRS) in Paris. The rationale for this online Institute is twofold: (1) scholars in the emerging cross-disciplinary field of cognition and culture studies are scattered around the world and few (if any) institutions has a sufficient number and variety of them for optimal research and teaching; (2) it is in the very nature of this field to call for international and interdisciplinary collaborations. The website of the International Cognition & Culture Institute has a blog meant to stimulate and a news page meant to inform. In January 2009, a virtual workshop on the use of experimental methods in cross-cultural research will be held online, with a new paper posted every two weeks and left to discussion for a period of one month. This will be the first of many workshops, conferences, and debates that will take place at the Institute. http://www.cognitionandculture.net/