Jerome Bruner

Profile

Jerome Bruner has had a long distinguished career as a psychologist, working in the areas of perception, cognition and education. Largely influenced by the work of Piaget and Vygotsky, Bruner was a social constructivist who emphasised the social nature of learning. He used the term ‘scaffolding’ to describe how adults can support children’s learning.

Key dates

1915 – Born in New York City, USA

1947 – Awarded PhD from Harvard

1952 – Joined the Department of Psychology at Harvard University

1963 – Received the Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association

1972 – Appointed Watts Professor of Psychology at Oxford University, England

1991 – Appointed Meyer Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law

Links

• How Children Learn 4

Bloom

Gardner

Piaget

Vygotsky

His life

Jerome Bruner was born in New York City in 1915. Though blind at birth, he gained his sight by the age of two following operations to remove cataracts. Bruner’s father died of cancer when he was twelve. He gained his first degree from Duke University in 1937 and then studied at Harvard University, gaining a PhD in 1947. During the Second World War, Bruner worked as a social psychologist for United States (US) Army’s intelligence services researching propaganda, public opinion and social attitudes. Bruner joined the faculty at Harvard after the war, where he worked as an academic psychologist with Leo Postman on ways in which needs, motivations, and expectations influence perception. Their approach was known as the ‘New Look’. Bruner also worked on theories of cognition with George Miller, with whom he founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard in 1960.

Bruner became interested in education and was asked to chair an influential conference attended by academics and educators at Cape Cod in 1959, which was convened in response to concerns about science education in the US in the wake of Russia’s launch of Sputnik One in 1957. Bruner contributed to educational reform during the early 1960s and was involved in the development of educational programmes, including Head Start, which aimed to support children living in poverty. His landmark book, The Process of Education, which was based on his work on educational reform, was published in 1960.

Bruner left Harvard in 1972 to take up a post as Watts Professor of psychology at Oxford University, where he continued to research children’s early development and pre-school education before returning to the US in 1981 to work at the New School for Social Research. In the 1990s he became more interested in social and cultural aspects of learning and referred to himself as a ‘cultural psychologist’. He is currently professor of psychology and senior research fellow in law at New York University. Bruner was married three times and has two children.

His writing

Bruner was a prolific and influential writer. His work includes:

• Bruner, J. (1960/1977) The Process of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The original edition of the book is reassessed in the preface to the 1977 edition.
• Bruner, J. S. (1966) Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Belkapp Press.
• Bruner, J.S. (1971) The Relevance of Education. New York: WW Norton and Co Inc.
• Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bruner, J. (1990) Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bruner, J. (1996) The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

His theory

Bruner’s interest in children’s cognitive development emerged from his early work in the area of cognitive psychology at Harvard. In his 1960 book The Process of Education Bruner argued that children were active learners who would benefit from first-hand experiences to help them develop their thinking and learning. He proposed a ‘spiral curriculum’, which would enable children to continually revisit ideas and activities, building on their experiences in order to develop more complex understanding. Bruner also referred to factors affecting children’s cognitive development in this book, including:

• Structuring knowledge for the learner so that it could be grasped more easily. Bruner thought that understanding the structure of a subject supported learning, and that categorization was a key process in structuring knowledge.
• Readiness for learning: the process should correspond with the child’s cognitive abilities and relate to their experiences and contexts so they are willing and able to learn. He thought that any subject could be taught to a child at any stage of their development.
• Intuitive and analytical thinking, which should be encouraged and rewarded. He believed that intuitive skills should be valued and thought that basic concepts could be understood more intuitively from an early age.
• Motivation, which he felt stimulated learning. He thought children’s interest in the material to be learned was more effective than setting any external goals.

Bruner was also concerned with how children represent their experiences and understanding; he proposed that this occurred through three different modes of representation. These are:

1. Enactive representation – when cognition is represented through children’s physical actions.
2. Iconic representation – when children represent events and objects through mental images.
3. Symbolic representation – when children’s thinking is represented by symbols, such as language.

Bruner thought that play experiences were an important aspect of young children’s development, providing opportunities for exploration and experimentation. He defined play as the ‘culture of childhood’.

Bruner highlighted the central role of language in children’s cognitive development; he thought that adults should enable children to engage and negotiate meaning in a variety of social contexts. Diverging from Chomsky’s view of language acquisition as an innate process led by a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), Bruner proposed that young children’s language developed through their experiences with familiar people and routines within recurring ‘formats’ of interaction. (1) These ‘language formats’ can be described as routine language repetitions occurring, for example, in action rhymes. Bruner thought they are largely regulated by the adult and support the development of children’s pre-linguistic skills. He referred to these formats as ‘epiphanies of the ordinary’ and argued that they form the basis of ‘Language Acquisition Support Systems’ (LASS).

Bruner later developed an interest in the role of narrative as a process for thinking and meaning-making. He thought that narrative supported cognitive development and helped to make sense of the extraordinary; he said that stories ‘provide just the right medium both for rendering the strange familiar and for doing just the reverse’. (2)

Over the course of his lifelong career as a psychologist, his theoretical views were transformed and the focus of his thinking about children’s learning shifted from a focus on ‘cognitive psychology’ to ‘cultural psychology’.

Putting the theory into practice

Bruner’s views on learning have important implications for practitioners working with children with additional needs. His emphasis on the importance of children’s involvement and interest in their learning though play and active exploration are key features of current early years practice. Bruner’s theory of children’s intuitive learning also has implications for practice; for example, young children could intuitively learn the principles of physics, such as friction, through play experiences with toy vehicles. Practitioners can encourage children to think intuitively by modelling the process and by developing respectful relationships with children so they feel secure to suggest solutions and explore ideas.

By applying Bruner’s notion of a ‘spiral curriculum’, practitioners can support children to extend their thinking and understanding by revisiting activities and experiences and making connections in their learning. Practitioners can also apply Bruner’s metaphor of ‘scaffolding’ by considering the complexity of tasks and reflecting on how they ‘scaffold’ support for children, according to their stage of learning and development. By participating in children’s play, they can ‘scaffold’ the play by offering a role to the child or modelling the play so the child understands what is expected of their role. (3)

The concept of ‘sustained shared thinking’, which was advocated by the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) longitudinal study in England (4), draws on Bruner’s view of the significance of adults’ skilled interactions with children to ‘scaffold’ their learning and develop their thinking. The EPPE study found that ‘sustained shared thinking’ was more likely to occur in settings in which children made more developmental progress. (5)

Bruner thought children’s confidence, skills and understanding could be enhanced by encouraging them to represent their thinking as they explore and create meanings in their play. Children who have speech and language difficulties can be encouraged to explore and share meanings and represent their thinking in different ways; for instance, by using electronic equipment or signing systems, such as Makaton, to communicate with others. Practitioners can also support children with additional needs to develop specific skills that enhance their social engagement with their peers and adults. (6) For example, they could model turn-taking and response in conversations with children to support their understanding of these conventions.

His influence

Bruner has been at the forefront of educational thinking and reform throughout his life. His work has been influential on later theorists, such as Howard Gardner, and he influenced educational provision though his contribution to programmes, such as Head Start. He became interested in the pre-schools in Reggio Emilia, which he visited. His views on cognitive development influenced the findings of the Plowden report of 1967. The report encouraged early years and primary school educators to follow a ‘child-centred’ play-based pedagogical approach, which was centred on the individual needs and interests of children. (6)

Comment

Bruner was involved in developing a social studies programme called ‘Man: a course of study’ (MACOS), which used a cross-cultural set of film and written teaching materials. It proved difficult to implement and was later criticised by Bruner himself as too focused on the learner as an individual.

A concern that has been levelled against Bruner’s advocacy of discovery learning is that children may develop misconceptions and practitioners may be unaware of their existence. This could occur, for instance, when children are not able to readily communicate their learning. Therefore, practitioners need to ensure that their observation and assessment procedures effectively support children’s development and progression, that children have opportunities to communicate their understanding and any misconceptions are addressed within a sensitive and supportive environment.

References

1. Anning, A., Edwards, A. (2006) Promoting Children’s Learning from Birth to Five. Maidenhead: OUP.
2. Bruner, J. (2008) Cultivating the Possible: A Tribute to Harry Judge. Oxford Review of Education. 34 (3), pp. 287–290.
3. Casey, T. (2010) Inclusive Play. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
4. Siraj-Blatchford, I., Sylva, K., Muttock, S., et al (2002) Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years, Research Report 356. London: DfES.
5. Westwood, P. (2007) Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Educational Needs. 5th ed. London: Routledge.
6. Department for Education and Science (DES) (1967) Children and their Primary Schools (The Plowden Report). London: HMSO.

Where to find out more

Bruner, J. (2008) Reflections of a Developmental Psychologist. Human Development. 2008, 51, pp. 101–103.

Gardner, H. (2001) Jerome S. Bruner. In: Palmer, J.A ed. Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education. From Piaget to the Present. London: Routledge.

Richards, L. (2011) Bruner: the power of story and identity. In: Waller, T., Whitmarsh, J. Clarke, K. eds. Making sense of Theory and Practice in Early Childhood. Maidenhead: OUP.

www.nas.org.uk

http://www.makaton.org/