Congress themes

The themes of the 2011 Rome Congress will include, as usual, a variety of social practices, including human socialization activities in families, playgrounds, preschools, schools, work and diverse organizations, institutions and communities; discourse and play in children and adults and gender identities in instructional and professional settings.
Special attention will be focused on schooling and instruction under a variety of conditions (including those involving, for example, members of minority groups; typical and atypical modes of development; planning and use of technological tools related to educational and work practices; teacher training,); teaching contents (pre-primary curricula; literacy, mathematics, sciences, history and second language learning; mediational and intercultural issues, including non-verbal codes).
Another focus of the Congress will be on clinical and social service practices, with reference to special needs persons, both young and adult, and to clinical psychology and psychotherapy (including those with a psychodynamic approach). Also invited are sessions or symposia on the psychology of art and of literature, with a possible dialogue with a Bakhtinian approach.
New generation development to social issues such as social change, socio-economic development, and the challenges faced by people in developing contexts (such as health, HIV/AIDS, poverty, discrimination, migration etc.).
A limited number of panels might be organized on general topics such as “meeting the Editors of ISCAR affiliated journals”, or “an informal drink with a well-known professor” (for young scholars).
Posters will receive significant space in the conference program. Each participant may submit only one paper as first author. However, a participant may also be named as a second author or as a discussant.When submitting your contribution, it is necessary to select one or, at maximum, two of the themes listed here.

1. Historical, philosophical, methodological and theoretical issues
1.1 Relationships with historical materialistic roots. Vygotskian (including colleagues and followers) versus Bakhtinian studies. Political and social differences
1.2 Knowledge, action, and change: the evolution of activity theory and of sociocultural theories
1.3 Discussion of epistemological issues around theoretical and empirical studies
1.4 Methodological choices: technological tools for observational social representations; developments in ethnomethodology; discursive psychology and D.A. approach; participants’ and researchers’ reflexivity; narrative approaches. The role of statistical and quantitative methods in sociocultural research
1.5 Interventionist research methodologies
1.6 Media studies, semiotic perspectives, linguistics: ethnography of communication, diverse sign systems, including multimodal systems
1.7 Activity-Theoretical Information Technology Design
1.8 Cultural-historical approaches to children‘s development, by studying children's lives and their development
1.9 Dialectical Psychology, theoretical problems of cultural-historical and activity approaches, Cultural Functional Neuropsychology
1.10 Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

2. Socialization and culture
2.1 Families
2.2 Playgrounds
2.3 Play, learning and development
2.4 Transitions
2.5 Communities
2.6 Genres of talk in education
2.7 Integrative education

3. Schooling and instruction
3.1 Multicultural and Intercultural perspectives in dealing with minority and migrant children
3.2 Typical and alternative development trajectories, developmental differences: when difference becomes a problem
3.3 Planning and use of technological tools also as social objects
3.4 Teacher training
3.5 Teaching contents: Preschools
3.6 Teaching contents: Pre-primary curricula
3.7 Teaching contents: Narrative and literacy
3.8 Teaching contents: Mathematics
3.9 Teaching contents: Natural sciences
3.10 Teaching contents: History and social studies
3.11 Teaching contents: Second language learning: mediational issues, including non-verbal codes
3.12 Evaluating processes and products
3.13 School and work, the role of apprenticeship, identity, mind and work

4. Clinical and Social Services
4.1 Persons with special needs (young and adult)
4.2 Applications of cultural-historical theory to clinical psychology and psychotherapy

5. Psychology of Arts and Literature

6. New generational development linked to social and intercultural issues
6.1 Socio-economic developments and peculiar challenges
6.2 Collective memories and historical events,
6.3 Gender and generation identities
6.4 Health, including HIV/AIDS
6.5 Poverty
6.6 Racial discrimination and violence

7. Workplaces
7.1 Organizational practices and discourses
7.2 Forms of training as supporting organizational development
7.3 Institutional dynamics
7.4 Evaluating skills and competences
7.5 Technology as tools and as social objects
7.6 Networked learning
7.7 Creativity in work
7.8 Transformations in activity systems and organizations

8. Other