Macro Cultural Psychology: A Political Philosophy of Mind

This book articulates a bold, new, systematic theory of psychology, culture, and their interrelation. It explains how macro cultural factors -- social institutions, cultural artifacts, and cultural concepts -- are the cornerstones of society and how they form the origins and characteristics of
psychological phenomena. This theory is used to explain the diversity of psychological phenomena such as emotions, self, intelligence, sexuality, memory, reasoning, perception, developmental processes, and mental illness. Ratner draws upon Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural psychology, Bronfenbrenner's
ecological psychology, as well as work in sociology, anthropology, history, and geography, to explore the political implications and assumptions of psychological theories regarding social policy and reform.

The theory outlined here addresses current theoretical and political issues such as agency, realism, objectivity, subjectivism, structuralism, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. In this sense, the book articulates a systematic political philosophy of mind to examine numerous approaches to
psychology, including indigenous psychology, cross-cultural psychology, activity theory, discourse analysis, mainstream psychology, and evolutionary psychology.


Author: Carl Ratner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 09/05/2011
Pages: 544
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.85lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780195373547

About the Author

Carl Ratner is the Director of The Institute for Cultural Research and Education in Northern California. He has written widely on cultural psychology and qualitative methodology. He has been a professor of social psychology and has also spent extensive periods abroad, including time in Saudi Arabia, five months at Nehru University in India, and two years in China, where he was among the few instructors to teach social psychology after a decades-long ban. He was a visiting scholar in the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, Stanford University School of Education, and Penn State Center for Language Acquisition. He has also been the recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships and has given numerous workshops on cultural psychology and qualitative methodology in Spain, Taiwan, Germany, England, and other countries. Ratner was on the founding editorial board of the journal Culture & Psychology. He has been active in the American cooperative movement.

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