Unresolved Tensions in Sociocultural Theory: Analogies with Contemporary Sociological Debates

Socioculturalists are divided on two of the foundational theoretical claims of the paradigm: a process ontology of the social world; and the inseparability of the individual and the group. A process ontology holds that only processes are real; entities, structures or patterns are ephemeral and do not really exist. Inseparability is the claim that the individual and the social cannot be methodologically or ontologically distinguished. To clarify the different stances toward these claims held by socioculturalists, I draw on the contemporary sociological debate between Anthony Giddens and Margaret Archer. Giddens’ structuration theory holds to a process ontology and to inseparability, while Archer’s emergentist theory rejects both. I borrow the terms of this debate to clarify the tensions among several prominent socioculturalists, including Cole, Lave and Wenger, Rogoff, Shweder, Valsiner, and Wertsch. I argue that a strong form of inseparability is theoretically problematic and empirically untenable, and I conclude that socioculturalists can resolve these tensions by adopting an ‘analytic dualism’ that retains key sociocultural commitments.