Schools, as historical institutions in charge of children and youth education, consist of culturally structured environments characterized by a wide range of tasks and responsibilities. They are in charge of teaching society’s new generations its most important cultural legacy and tools, in terms of substantial knowledge, skills and competences that will allow for students’ personal development and, consequently, the development of society itself. Intellectual development, socialization, and skills’ acquisition are traditionally considered the major goals of schooling in our societies. Throughout historical time and different cultures, academics and educators have extensively described, analyzed and discussed the double yet contradictory actual functions of educational institutions . On the one hand, schools pursue the successful transmission of knowledge and skills considered as relevant to youth to become well-adapted and adjusted members of the society, therefore providing for the reproduction of the cultural system. On the other, schools proclaim to aim, at least ideally, at encouraging curiosity, creativity, autonomy, active citizenship , and the construction of new knowledge and ideas in the search for the advancement of human kind. Many theorists and experts from diverse fields of philosophical and scientific knowledge (cf. Bourdieu, Passeron, Maturana, and a legion of other scholars), though, have thoughtfully identified and criticized educational institutions for their predominant conservative bias. In other words, most schools, all over the world, tend to invest their efforts on its social reproductive function, what creates a serious, problematic impasse.

An important question, emerging from the literature on educational institutions is: Why is it so difficult for schools to fulfill expectations concerning the promotion of creativity, autonomy, and active citizenship ? Why do educators fear the emergence of novelties, and abhor the notion of their alumni speaking out their ideas, divergences , and critical views on different matters, as though students’ voices would necessarily do away with adults’ authority ?

In this chapter, I will bring forth and develop arguments that may help clarifying some aspects of possible answers to the above questions, in total agreement with those who criticize the predominant conservative and retrograde function of schools. My intention is to analyze and discuss why it is so difficult to implement changes within school contexts. In other words, the issue is why changes that could contribute to transform traditional old-fashioned practices usually encounter strong opposition among educators, and why the promotion of creativity, openness, and construction of new roles and dynamics within classrooms seem to scare teachers and those in charge of institutional administration. In the contemporary world, despite the good intentions of some educators, we still witness significant problems afflicting teachers, administrators, students, and their families, and most of these problems found in school settings tend to persist and, sometimes, even get worse. This holds true, particularly, in poor areas of the globe, where violent practices prevail and dominate human relations . Hence, we wonder, what are the most resistant barriers that ultimately block the efforts of well informed and good will professionals, when they face day-by-day activities that typically characterize most school contexts in different cultures?

The major point I want to make in the present chapter is that most of such resistance and difficulties derive from schools’ lack of awareness about core issues concerning human relations. Most educators are not aware of how their own underlying beliefs and values guide their actions and interactions . For instance, if they fear students’ protagonism, autonomy and criticism they will never try, actually, to instigate students’ active participation or creativity. Or else, if teachers think that discipline and strict obedience are essential for controlling wild bodies and minds, or if they believe that learning is, indeed, an individual strive, teachers will not make efforts to promote initiative, creativity, cooperation or discussions within their classrooms, for they fear to lose control of the group and of the whole teaching -learning process. Ideal classes are pictured as quiet, with receptive (uncritical) students totally dedicated to their own business under teacher’s commands. Why would teachers bother? If they think their major mission is knowledge transmission, and other educational goals being, in fact, a matter of family’s responsibility, why bother? As a consequence, school professionals may end up not paying the due attention to a core dimension of human existence, namely, social relations occurring in specific contexts—in the present case, within educational institutions . However, human interactions and relations do play a central role in school contexts, and to know how to deal with alterity is an inescapable necessity to policy makers, practitioners and teachers, an issue they can no longer ignore.

When schools do not address the issue of alterity properly, the consequences can negatively affect all dimensions of their institutional missions, as well as the experiences and well-being of students, teachers, and everyone else involved in the process. As the notion of alterity intrinsically relates to matters as social values and moral development , in this chapter I will elaborate on these topics, and lay emphasis on how educational institutions can benefit from the scientific knowledge already available, and at educators’ disposal.

The School as a Cultural Context: Key Goals and Shortcomings

Educational contexts, viewed as social institutions in service of forming societies’ new generations , need to start asking and reflecting upon what they are and what they are doing, what are their actual practices, and which are their goals and responsibilities. Are their goals, actually, achieved? Are their responsibilities fulfilled? The answers to these questions, unfortunately, generally reveal numerous shortcomings, from the poor quality of students’ performance to the lack of motivation of both students and teachers to failures concerning successful socialization.

Van Oers (2009) summarizes this problem with precision when he refers to the emphasis, by the Report of the EU Educational Council-2001, upon the notion of knowledge-based economies. The author disapproves the stress the report puts on the fundamental role of schools in attaining to that specific political goal—the development of knowledge-based economies in the contemporary world. He criticizes the “canonization of mandatory school contents, standardized goals, [which prioritize] children’s adaptation to and performance at school, especially literacy and numeracy” (p. 214). As he analyzes the conditions of the educational system in the Netherlands and Europe as a whole, he informs and criticizes the main features of the Council’s educational propositions:

The tendency to focus on essential contents, programme-based schooling and accountability by frequent testing had been growing since 1980, but this tendency was still more strengthened by the increased emphasis on the knowledge economy. Gradually, schools were put under pressure to embrace the idea of teaching for the knowledge society . The idea of the knowledge society was embraced by many politicians, policy makers, and practitioners as a valid basis for the innovation of schools. Given the tenets of the knowledge society (and economy) there is a strong predilection to favour schools as places for the transmission of cultural knowledge and skills . The transmission-type schools, which already had a long tradition in our society, were reinforced by the emergence of the knowledge society (p. 214).

Van Oers explains that in the Netherlands a significant number of investigators and practitioners are putting into practice a reconstruction of their schools according to a new paradigm designated as ‘developmental education ’. This paradigm draws on the ideas of Vygotsky (1978) and the cultural-historical approach to human development . It aims at transforming human beings in critical and autonomous participants in sociocultural practices and activities that make sense to them. Meaningful learning, associated to active participation, dialogue, and awareness through critical observation are the main objectives of ‘developmental education’. However, van Oers’ explanation of the tenets of this approach does not refer to some of the relevant psychological higher functions , such as creativity, nor does he highlight the central role of the affective quality of social interactions and relationships within educational contexts . Particularly noticeable in his analysis is the absence of a single mention to the moral dimension of human development. He seems not to seriously take into account the importance of promoting prosocial motivations in the extremely competitive-individualistic contexts of most societies in contemporaneity (Baggio, 2009; Lash, 1982; Morin & Prigogine, 2000; Sennett, 2004, 2012).

The crucial issue of human relations , therefore, remains and entails a couple of disquieting questions: How can educational institutions achieve the goal of promoting the development of active and responsible citizens, if they do not invest in the cultivation of human values and moral development ? How a true commitment to the necessary construction of democratic and inclusive relations , within complex and multicultural societies in the globalized world scenario, can be encouraged and enabled? Is it possible for families, isolated, to be able to produce responsible, moral, active and creative human beings? How families can do that, if not in cooperation with other institutions or social settings like schools, for instance? Without such alliances , not much can be done for sure.

In Brazil, we have developed numerous research projects that unveil teachers’ and administrators’ beliefs concerning their lack of responsibility regarding socio-moral development (Branco, 2009; Branco, Barreto, & Barrios, 2017). As a 6th grade teacher recently put it (Branco & Miranda, this volume), “my role as a teacher is to teach those kids, and not to educate them. Their families are in charge of their education, this is not my role, no way!” Certainly, this teacher is not the only one blaming students’ parents, or attributing the whole burden of the responsibility for students’ education to their own families. Therefore, we should start our search by looking for the obstacles to implement changes in school contexts, so that schools, also, take their responsibilities in encouraging students’ socio-moral development. We need to examine those deep-rooted, affect-laden beliefs that prevent changes and institutional development. This should be the first step because most teachers seem to be convinced that human values, moral development , and social motivation are not issues concerning their work within the classroom. They say, and are usually right, that they did not receive any specific instructions or training regarding how to deal with such subjects within their classrooms.

In social conflict situations involving students or themselves, teachers usually act according to their own socialization experiences and beliefs acquired along their lives. They do this without any further analysis or reflection whether their actions are, or are not, the best way to deal with the problem. In short, they are not prepared to promote pacific conflict resolutions or to foster, in practice, inclusive, prosocial and respectful interactions among the diverse students in the classroom environment. Their best guess, usually, is to verbally admonish the students to stop the conflicts and mind their own business, since teachers are convinced that only quiet and compliant students are able to learn. The notion of cooperation is solely associated with ‘cooperation with the teacher’ (Palmieri, 2003), i.e., students should keep their mouth shut and follow their teacher’s instructions . In sum, teachers—as most school staff members and parents—are genuinely persuaded that they are hired to transmit specific contents, skills and knowledge—Mathematics, Geography—according to the school curriculum. Consequently, their role is to control the students to make sure everyone will listen and do whatever they are told to do.

Realizing the existence of the above-mentioned scenario consists of the first step in removing the obstacles to changes in school contexts. The next step is to acknowledge the absence of theoretical instructions, training and practical experiences concerning social interactions and moral issues during professional undergraduate and graduate courses for teachers and other educators. This absence has, of course, cultural-historical explanations that I will not further explore in this chapter. However, such absence demands an all-encompassing analysis to be carried out at different levels, i.e., at a macro-level (historical-cultural), meso-level (inter-institutional), and micro-level (face-to-face interactions). The last level, which should, especially, be taken into account by psychology and education, refers to the characteristics of ongoing activities, social interactions, and the dynamics of communication processes . Investigations carried out at this level would enable investigators to identify, analyze, and suggest concrete solutions to problematic situations that arise within classrooms.

Another point worth mentioning in relation to fostering prosocial and cooperative interactions within classrooms is well developed and demonstrated by education theorists who experimentally study the effects of differently-structured activities, such as competitive, individualistic or cooperatively organized pedagogical practices (Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Slavin, 2009). Their research results consistently show that, compared to competitive or individualistic activities, cooperatively structured and oriented practices promote superior school performance in diverse disciplines. Besides better academic achievements, they found significant results concerning the improvement of students’ motivation, inclusion, and narratives about a general feeling of wellness associated to working within cooperative, instead of competitive or individualistic, contexts . Students said that if they could choose, they would choose cooperative teaching-learning activities.

McDermott (1977), whose ideas I will further explore in this chapter, also supports the construction and practice of good quality socio-affective interactions and relationships within classrooms. According to the author, teachers and students spend a long time fighting relational battles in the classrooms, only because teachers are unaware of the excellent results of investing time to develop, with students, what he designates as ‘trust relations’. Instead of wasting time and energy trying to control students’ behaviors and minimize their social interactions, teachers should try to coconstruct with students a receptive, dialogical climate based on trust, which would ensure a pleasant atmosphere within which attention and learning contribute to better grades and general development. To be prepared to dialogue and create a free expression, conversational climate within the classroom, also entails an ability to deal with criticism and conflicts . Hence, the need to work with teachers to help them develop the required emotional balance, democratic values, self-confidence , high positive expectations, and social skills that are mandatory to create an open and free new basis for their interactions with students.

We cannot overestimate the role of values and beliefs in determining which methodologies and activities teachers select and develop in their classrooms (Branco, 2009, 2012; Branco & Valsiner, 2012). Values and beliefs lead their goals, plans and actual classes. Values and beliefs powerfully guide the dynamics of teacher-students and student-student interactions taking place inside classrooms and other school contexts. Redundant social messages and specific experiences lead to the coconstruction of values of violence versus peace, egoism versus justice and competition versus cooperation via cultural canalization processes (Valsiner, 2007, 2014). Cultural canalization refers to the existence of particular goals and constraints , present in specific contexts, that lead or direct (canalize) actions, interactions and meanings’ interpretation in certain directions. Within classrooms, cultural canalization occurs throughout teachers’ and students’ participation in specific activities and interpersonal communication. Values and beliefs usually translate into actual interactions; however, very often teachers choose activities and act in ways that are divergent, or contradictory, to what they think they are promoting. For instance, suppose they say they do not want to encourage competition, but never miss an opportunity to compare students’ performances or to present a student as a model to be followed by peers . In other words, frequently teachers are unaware of their choices and actions, which ultimately will promote cultural canalizations. Another problem arises when double bind messages (Bateson, 1972) prevail, creating uncertainties that may only contribute to relational battles, nonconstructive divergences or persistent defiant attitudes.

Students continuously learn and internalize what is right or wrong in a certain culture (Shweder, 1991), yet they are not passive in this process. Each individual, due to her/his singular characteristics and previous experiences, actively internalize social messages. However, when messages are redundant and/or impregnated with affectivity, the developing person ends up creating and reinforcing motives, tendencies, preferences, goals, values and beliefs in closer accordance to the original cultural message . This is why, in violent cultures, aggressive actions are more likely to occur, and in cooperative cultures , we find cooperative practices and people (Mead, 1934). Some questions, therefore, become very relevant: Why and how values of individualism and competition—in some cases, even violence —prevail in most of our schools? How the presence of the social other —as a fundamental component of alterity —affects the lives of teachers and students? Why do we observe a lot of unnecessary tension in teacher-students relationships? Why is it so problematic and challenging for people to deal with individuals considered as different from themselves, individuals with different characteristics or coming from a diverse culture or ethnic background? Why label people as freaks or losers only because they do not fit—for whatever reason—the pre-established pattern of social desirability? In other words, we need to investigate and find ways to overcome the segregation between ‘us’ (ingroup ) versus ‘others’ (outgroup ), to identify and act upon the factors that instigate and sustain all sorts of prejudices in our culture.

Alterity, Inclusion and Prejudice: How We Perceive and Interact with the Other

In this section, I focus on alterity and its function in originating our key differential characteristic as a biological species. Human communication, the sophisticated communicative interaction (Fogel, 1993) with alterity is the only and exclusive way to develop higher mental functions (Vygotsky, 1978) and, consequently, the special way we perceive, interpret and interact with each other as we coconstruct culture (Bruner, 1990). To highlight the role of the other in human development (Simão & Valsiner, 2007), I revisit the basic concepts and principles of cultural psychology —such as cultural canalization , active internalization and semiosis —and how these operate to give rise to social values and cultural practices along human ontogeny (Rogoff, 2003). The aim is to offer a working model to make sense of how the selective co-creation of meanings along life trajectories may contribute to the emergence of specific social motivations , as individualism , competition, violence , or else, cooperation and solidarity . From a cultural psychology perspective, such social motivations and interactive patterns gradually develop along life trajectories, especially during childhood and adolescence , and they entail the configuration of those social values that ultimately sustain actions and interactions aligned with inclusion and solidarity, or instead, with discrimination and prejudice.

Humans are meaning-making organisms. As Vygotsky brilliantly explained in his work, the capacity for utilizing semiotic tools —language, imagination —is what differentiate us from other species. This capacity allows us to overcome the here-and-now of our existence (or experience) and enable us to revisit the past as we reconstruct memories of lived-through experiences at a present moment, in which possible anticipated futures also play an important part. Language, imagination and affectivity guide our present actions and psychological functions while reconstructing past experiences and projecting the future in terms of expected events and experiences. The semiotic capacity, emerging early in ontogeny, gives rise to verbal thinking and language (Vygotsky, 1978), but to do so it demands the presence of the social ‘other’ (alterity ) to develop, what can exclusively occur within sociocultural contexts as individuals interact with each other. In other words, we do not exist as humans without the other (Levinas, 1993; Simao & Valsiner, 2007).

Maturana (2002), along the same line, argues for the basic role played by social others in originating the human condition. The author stresses the meaning of ‘conversation’ experiences, and considers such experiences as the kernel of human nature. Maturana asserts, together with most scientists (Fuentes, 2008), that humans do not have any dominant biological predispositions to aggression or violence , on the contrary, a sort of prosociability is somehow ingrained in our condition due to our intrinsic need of the other to survive and become human (Hinde & Groebel, 1991). Consequently, we can affirm that specific patterns of social interaction are not inherited or cemented in our biology, but alternatively, are culturally constructed within the historical context of each society. No wonder Margaret Mead (1934) found social groups governed by different values, practices and rules, a finding that anthropological and social psychological research consistently confirm (see the work of Triandis, 1995, and his analysis of collectivistic versus individualistic societies).

From a historical-cultural perspective (Bruner, 1990; Valsiner, 2014; Vygotsky, 1978), we know that depending on the kind of practices and interactive patterns a particular group promotes, individuals will internalize and develop certain dispositions to interpret and act according to those cultural practices and corresponding meanings. For example, if I believe the social other does no matter much for my own development, nor is relevant for me to achieve my goals and interests, my tendency will be to perceive, make sense, interact and communicate with him/her from an individualistic stance. I will not care much for her/his goals, problems, success or failure, because, for me, this makes no difference. In such cultures, it is not rare to find individualistic dispositions that become associated with competition, in different degrees. As the social other is progressively seen as a competitor, someone that may take my share or succeed in achieving the position I wish for myself, kicking me out of the picture, we are talking about competitiveness , what characterizes many of the activities and contexts of our contemporary cultures . In cultural contexts where cooperation and sharing are encouraged, though, it will be more likely to find people who consider the interests and welfare of social others, people who see the other as a collaborator or partner, showing a willingness to help, and ready do things together. The point, then, is: if cultural canalization processes are so obvious, why do not teachers analyze the kind of activities they develop, or do not engage in monitoring how they actually interact with their students?

In the same way we instigate specific values and beliefs , we may encourage our students to develop prejudices , and to act accordingly (Madureira, 2007, 2012). For instance, in a study about bullying among 5th graders in a public school in Brasilia (Manzini & Branco, 2016), all teachers said that bullying did not occur in their classroom. However, as we observed the class, and according to students’ narratives, that was not true. The research not only demonstrated that teachers did not pay attention to what was going on, but it also revealed that many of the bullying events targeted minority groups (black children , poor children), but were interpreted as candid play. In other words, prejudice in action took place in the open within teachers’ classrooms, but they were unable to see it!

Socialization and Moral Development as Educational Goals

Before further arguments in behalf of social objectives for school education , I want to clarify the very meaning of socialization as a psychological concept. Usually, socialization is understood as a generic process of promoting good manners and social skills among children and adolescents. This understanding, though, is reductionist and therefore fallacious and inappropriate. Socialization, in fact, encompasses a much broader meaning, and necessarily includes the development of moral reasoning and practices, as individuals interact with each other.

Socialization implies caring for others, working together in collaboration , developing interest for others’ well-being. This is true because the meaning of the concept designates to socialize, which should be interpreted as to take the other into account in everyday life. As Simmel (1949) puts it, sociability (socialization) maintains an intrinsic link to the notion of pro-sociability (Glaveanu, Branco, & Neves-Pereira, 2016). Hence, we need to bring back the actual meaning of the concept, and avoid using it in its reduced, incorrect connotation. When we use the concept properly, we include the moral dimension, and bring forth relevant issues concerning other key concepts such as ethics and morality .

Inspired by Kohlberg’s work, many theorists and practitioners have proposed, developed and investigated moral education experiences within schools (Blasi, 2004; Nucci & Narvaez, 2008; Kohlberg, 1981). In Harvard School of Education (USA), this subject still guides many studies, with interesting results. Some educators, though, resist to the idea of moral education for they suspect that ideological, conservative values and beliefs can find a way to contaminate the apparent serious intentions of such projects. This fear is not completely wide of the mark. However, I next elaborate on why I do not agree with a general or uncritical suspicion of educational attempts that seriously address the issue of moral development within educational settings.

The first reason to consider moral development as an essential and appropriate educational objective comes from the undeniable evidence that we live in a normative and moral context, no matter the specific culture to which we belong. As Brinkmann claims (2004, 2015), human condition is intrinsically normative, therefore moral, and so are all scientific disciplines that study social and human issues, among them psychology and education. We live our lives within the context of activities characterized by explicit, but mostly implicit , tacit, rules . Even activities labeled as free, such as play, encode specific rules or constraints to human actions and interactions. Consequently, as intentional human beings operating within normative cultural contexts , it is impossible to act or live without assuming particular moral positionings , either in conformity or in transgression to those rules and social expectations ingrained in every activity.

The concept of morality as something impregnated with a religious or ideological orientation needs to be replaced by an understanding that morality does play an unavoidable role in human affairs. Of course we cannot, or should not, deny the cultural-historical or traditional meaning of the term, closely linked to religious and conservative values ; but now it is time to free ourselves of such misleading constraints in order to face our responsibilities as educators of the new generations . As Matusov claims in this book and elsewhere (Matusov & Lemke, 2015), we must not come to the classroom with a set of predetermined values to ‘teach’ to our students. Teachers and students should engage in dialogical practices to explore the meanings and appropriateness of rules, values and beliefs . However, I must add here that, as teachers and individuals, we are never neutral as we navigate inside culturally structured contexts ; therefore, we should approach our students with a general disposition—rooted in some basic values—to be open, democratic , and to dialogue and welcome novelties, creativity, diversity, and divergent thinking . Neutrality, in fact, does not exist. We always take a particular stance, or positioning, which stems from our existential, axiomatic and epistemological beliefs. If we bear on democratic values, we actually should operate according to values and beliefs in tune with principles of justice, respect and ethics in our relations to fellow human beings. In my point of view, when we take a critical and serious standpoint regarding the issue of moral development —unfortunately, often reduced to moral reasoning according to cognitivists and constructivists—we conclude for the need to incorporate social and moral objectives into educational, pedagogical practices.

Faigenbaum (2014) points out that Plato, Aristotle and Rousseau made clear that education is unable to foster morality and values of citizenship among young students by means of theoretical discourse. Instead, students need to experience actual social relations within the contexts of practices and activities, within which Bruner (1990) would assert they could actually experience social interactions of specific kinds (in this case, moral experiences ). Faigenbaum reports an empirical study where he analyzes the characteristics of exchanging and sharing objects in the interactions of children , from kindergarten to the 7th grade. As he analyzes the kinds of exchange and the meanings provided by children to make sense of their interchange of objects, the author elaborates a convincing argument about the origin of values of equity , respect and justice amongst youngsters: those are built, he argues, within children’s early practices and experiences of reciprocity . The principle and practice of reciprocity, indeed, emerge very early in ontogeny , and can importantly contribute to strengthening the sense of justice among children. Moreover, according to Rochat (2011), children between three to five years-old already utilize an ethical stance to judge about individuals’ rights in conflict situations, what indicates that principles of equity and justice have an early appearance in human development .

As we will see in the next section, affectivity is the substance of communication. It impregnates verbalizations in a way that participants inevitably convey to each other, through nonverbal clues and signs, significant indexes about what they evaluate as right or wrong in normative and moral terms. Moral knowledge and values are, hence, necessarily learned and internalized during communication, via explicit and, especially, subtle and nonverbal communicative processes. This leads to the conclusion that most narratives are, thus, moral narratives in a way. Brinkmann (2004) agrees with this conclusion and elaborates on the moral ecology of social practices, arguing that, since all practices are normative, they presume correct/good versus incorrect/bad forms of social participation . Consequently, this entails the presence of a moral dimension inherent to any cultural practice.

Bergmann (1998) goes further, and asserts that more than the use of words, nonverbal communication—such as body postures, facial expressions, and voice intonation—is enough to pass on moral messages. A good example we find in story telling: not just the sentences composing the story itself, but especially the way a person narrates the story, communicate the audience what is, or is not, morally appropriate in a certain context or culture. For instance, a father telling a bedtime story to his child may send moral messages by ways of facial expressions, voice intonation, and many other paralinguistic signs.

A word of caution about educational planning regarding moral issues, though, is actually required for two reasons. First, because there is, indeed, the risk of schools imposing on students certain sectarian doctrines or ideologies by pretending to foster ethics and moral development , what could serve governmental policies, religious fundamentalisms , or local agents’ interests to keep control over people. The second reason lies in the human tendency to hypergeneralize particular or local moral norms and conventions , as though such norms/conventions were universal, and, therefore, applicable to all cultural contexts . In any case, we must keep a permanent awareness and critical assessment of what sort of norms and principles are at stake. We must be aware and critical about the kinds of interactions and relations that are actually encouraged within specific educational settings. As we do so, we will be able to correct the route and, intentionally, propose alternatives to guide our pedagogical work.

Communication and Metacommunication

To investigate, make sense and appropriately evaluate the role and characteristics of the socio-affective quality of human interactions and relationships, we need to study the issue of human communication and metacommunication in closer detail (Bateson, 1972; Branco & Valsiner, 2004; Leeds-Horowitz, 1995; Watzlavick, Beavin & Jackson, 1967). In a book I organized with Jaan Valsiner (Communication and metacommunication in human development, Branco & Valsiner, 2004), we put together very interesting contributions by different authors who strived to analyze how communication and metacommunication intertwine to originate and transform meaning making processes, giving rise to specific messages’ coconstructive interpretations.

Communication, conceptualized as the process that conveys coconstruction of meanings, involves the interplay of a complex collection of signs that dynamically change as it proceeds, through a multitude of expressive channels. Through communication, meanings are endlessly created, constructed and re-constructed by the participants of social interactions . We understand that communication, and particularly metacommunication (communication about communication, Bateson, 1972), plays a crucial part in the dynamics of internalization/externalization processes that occur while personal meanings are in continuous elaboration and transformation along human interactions. The most important assumption here, from a cultural psychology perspective, is that meaning constructions take place under the dominant influence of affective semiotic processes and social suggestions existing within culturally organized contexts. Such assumption consists of the very foundation for understanding the processes involved in human development , as it unfolds in multiple, dynamic and integrated forms and dimensions along ontogeny .

Communication and metacommunication (communication about communication) play a fundamental role in human social interactions and relationships. The bi-directional and co-regulated (Fogel, 1993) nature of communication and metacommunication processes needs to be analyzed within the systemic organization of interactive processes in its multiple, dynamic and interdependent levels (Ford & Lerner, 1992). Communication participants coconstruct and negotiate meanings according to the semiosphere (Lotman, 2005) of cultural-historical contexts, and to the quality of the affective-interactive frames that contain, or embody, participants’ communicative exchanges. Goffman (1974, 1992) proposed the notion of frames to designate particular interactive contexts in which participants make sense of each other intentions . In his research of boys’ interactions , he noticed that their use of laughter and joyful vocalizations signaled to each other that tough physical contacts—which otherwise could be considered aggressive—were just play, or just fun. Here I revisit the concept of frame by adding the terms affective-interactive (‘affective-interactive frames’) to designate messages interpretation contexts, due to the amount of empirical evidence and theoretical elaborations (Valsiner, 2014; Zittoun, 2012) on the affective-semiotic nature of sociogenetic processes that promote human development .

During communication, multiple channels are activated, engendering affective-semiotic textures that provide the basis for specific interpretations and internalization processes. Hinde (1976) refers to the historical dimension of ‘interactions’ between individuals as their ‘relationship’, i.e., a history of interactions between people lead to the construction of a specific kind of relationship between them. Therefore, both concepts are relevant to make sense of communicative phenomena. Communication events comprise two intertwined functional levels: (a) a non-relational level, conveying information about specific contents other than the interaction or the relationship between the individuals; and (b) a relational level, focusing on information about the quality of the interaction and the relationship between them (Fogel & Branco, 1997).

The relational level is also known as metacommunication (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1995; Watzlavick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967), and reveals itself mostly by nonverbal cues that participants continuously provide each other during their interaction , but verbal references may also occur (verbal metacommunication ). Verbal metacommunication happens, for instance, when someone says ‘I don’t like the way you are talking to me!’. Metacommunication indicates how one should interpret a certain message. For example, if a teacher says to her student “Why don’t you better explain your point?” the verbal message conveys a need for explanation, but the nonverbal and paralinguistic signs are those that will actually inform the student what the teacher actually means. Depending on her tone of voice, facial expression, and body posture, as well as the quality/history of their previous interactions (relationship), the message can be interpreted as hostile, ironic, friendly or even helpful. That is, metacommunicative signs play a fundamental role in the interpretation of a message by creating an affective-interactive frame, or interpretative ground, for evaluating what the message actually conveys.

However, not always such signs are clear and easy to understand. As Bateson (1972) explains, often people have to deal with ambiguous messages, what he nominated as ‘double bind’. Double binds are contradictory messages, and tend to occur when someone says something but her nonverbal actions or expressions contradict what she is saying. Experiencing troubled double bind messages creates tension and causes insecurity and confusion, what may eventually drive the person to a psychotherapist. Parents and teachers can inadvertently send contradictory messages, and this can become a source of anxiety and disquieting self-doubts.

Metacommunication flows through a continuum of facial expressions, postures, gestures, voice intonation and other paralinguistic signals . When individuals interact with each other, metacommunication is always active as a sort of interactive background for content communication. As said before, at certain moments metacommunication may undertake a verbal format, from single words to complex verbal elaborations over the quality of the interactions. The fact is that absence of communication (non-communication) is impossible whenever there are clear-cut indications of social awareness . Watzlavick et al. (1967) stress this point discussing examples of communication about the unwillingness to communicate. For example, this happens when we enter our residential elevator and do not greet our neighbor. In another example, in a classroom context, a child attempts several times to show his work to the teacher, but she totally ignores his attempts even though the way he tries to call for her attention is impossible to ignore (Tacca, 2000).

People in interaction constantly create unique affective-interactive frames , and the original history of interactions between certain individuals consists of the basis for the configuration of affective-interactive frames. However, frames are dynamic and continuously change as individuals co-create them along their communicative flow. Conflicts may turn into friendly interactions, and a fight may engender negotiation processes that turn previous antagonism into effective collaboration . In fact, conflicts are relevant for human development (Valsiner & Cairns, 1992), for they may end up mobilizing constructive efforts to novelties generation through negotiation processes. Negotiation processes, then, may ultimately lead interaction participants to reach diverse forms of mutual understanding —sometimes even including the popular saying ‘we agree to disagree’. Hence, the best option to promote cooperation and prosociability is to encourage people to negotiate.

Participants continuously negotiate the affective tone (Valsiner, 2007) or the quality of affective-interactive frames of their interactions , as each person interprets and gives specific meanings to each other’s words and actions. Such negotiation processes, however, do not necessarily entail a permanent awareness on the part of the individuals in interaction. This means that interpretations, very often, are influenced by non-acknowledged emotional and motivational states actually experienced by the participants, emotions and motivations that are not within the individuals’ field of awareness. Moreover, ‘friendly’, ‘hostile’ or ‘competitive’ frames entail completely different message interpretations and the way each participant makes sense of the interaction do not necessarily coincide. This leads to numerous misunderstandings, ambiguities and ambivalences, which may lead to either negotiation, or to a joint (or a personal) refusal to continue the interaction.

Specific message interpretations depend on the quality of the frame—friendship, antagonism, care, provocation etc.—within which the communication participants are, but interpretations also depend on the specific sociocultural context where interactions occur. Examples of how cultural, contextual and relationship characteristics create the ground for message interpretation abound. In some cultures, you should never praise an infant for this would attract bad spirits: such compliment would be considered as aggressive. In another examples, a friend can tell you things you would consider offensive from anyone else, and a simple greeting by a foe may trigger a hostile exchange of insults. Beyond the quality of the relationship we establish with each other, other aspects of the context and history we have together are essential to interpret a simple message. For instance, if you tell me something like “I know your mother loves chocolate a lot!”, are you referring to her full figure? Are you suggesting I should buy her some chocolates? Are you criticizing me for buying her apples? Or are you criticizing her for not teaching her children the value of a healthy diet? The only way to know the right answer is inferring from the whole set of cultural, historical, relational and contextual information available about everyone involved in the picture.

In short, as individuals proceed in their interactions, they permanently negotiate affective-interactive frames at both verbal and nonverbal levels. Negotiation processes, therefore, constitute the key concept to understand the emergence of new meanings, ceaselessly engendered along social interactions . Some meanings, if internalized, may gain further support along ontogeny , and develop into deep-rooted values and beliefs, while other meanings may disappear, all in consequence of subjective experiences impregnated with various kinds and degrees of affectivity.

Cultural Practices, Social Motivation and Values Development in the Classroom

In this section, I want to provide the reader with some practical and research examples to illustrate how cultural practices and meaning constructions (semiosis) mutually coconstruct each other.

In his analysis of conflict, Kruger (1993) emphasizes the danger of classifying social interdependence patterns into exclusively defined categories. Despite his controversial suggestion of a clear-cut distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’ orientations, the author argues for a complex integration of convergent and divergent social interactions. This means conflict (divergence ), help and cooperation (convergence) can combine and coordinate with each other in interesting and diverse ways. In the analysis of his data concerning joint problem solving by 48 pairs of 8-year-old girls, Kruger thoughtfully reminds us that

It would be misleading to characterize the dyadic discussion presented here as simply conflictual or simply cooperative … Collaboration is organized by the consideration of multiple perspectives, and consequently it is conflictual as well as cooperative. By being in conflict with each other’s ideas, but not necessarily with each other, they discover together a more coordinated view of the dilemma … conflict [is] linked with cooperation, and both [are] linked with development (1993, pp. 177–179).

However, the complexities found in communication flow do not prevent the existence of a dominant, general affective interactive framework within which communication flows. As Deutsch (1949, 1982) proposed in his seminal work, activities can be differentiated according to a general structure, active in each specific context, which specifies the rules for social interactions within that context. The organization of activities—structural and functional—hence, may promote cooperation, competition or individualism among the participants, depending on such rules. When the rules allow for just one winner, meaning, if only one person or group can achieve the goal while the others are necessarily excluded, competition prevails. When the goals can only be achieved if participants work together, we refer to cooperation, and when the achievement of the goal is independent of others’ participation, the activity certainly encourages individualism. Here I revisit the results of two different research projects where we demonstrated the power of the structural/functional organization of activities over the kind of interactive pattern fostered in different contexts.

Branco and Valsiner (Branco, 1998; Branco & Valsiner, 1994) carried out an experiment in Brasilia that well illustrates the interplay between cultural canalization processes and the dynamics of social interactions . The experiment goal was to investigate the microgenetic flux of social interactions among 3 years-old children in structurally different situations. We invited two triads (two boys and one girl) to participate of six experimental sessions (each about 25 min), followed by a test situation session. The baseline observations of children’s free-play and all experimental sessions were videotaped.

The observation sessions with children’s triads aimed at creating an arrangement sufficiently non-complex for the purposes of analysis of their social conduct, as well as rich opportunities for interpersonal coalitions or confrontations in the task-oriented contexts. The selected children showed neither excessive social inhibition nor dominance during baseline observations. An additional selection criterion was the absence of a history of close interaction between members of the triad. The toys and objects used during the sessions were selected to keep up children’s motivation to participate, providing possibilities for the emergence of different kinds of action’s coordination . For instance, we used wooden blocks, a family-doll set, puzzles, bowling game, and other play materials that proved to be interesting to the children.

One triad participated of cooperative activities, and the other, of individualistic/competitive activities. In the ‘cooperation’ context, we asked children to interact with each other in order to build a unique structure from small pieces of a same material, or asked them to play together within a fantasy-play context. In the ‘individualistic/competitive’ context , we asked children to play alone, saying that later their tasks’ productions would be registered and exposed for everyone’s appreciation. For instance, the adult took photographs of their constructions in order people could later choose which was the best one, or alternatively, we would register their individual scores during competitive games on a cardboard.

During the test situation, we instructed both triads to perform the very same pretend-play task: to carry around a big doll, supposedly ill, to be undressed, “bathed”, “dried”, dressed again, carried to the “hospital”, “examined” and “”medicated”, and, after that, to bring her back “home”. For sure, we expected different results for the two triads, but what we observed actually amazed us: the triad submitted to the six cooperative sessions showed a cooperative interactional pattern during 81% of the test session, while in the other triad (individualist/competitive sessions) only 8% of the time was spent in cooperation between any of the participants (Branco, 1998). This result clearly demonstrates the power of cultural canalization processes.

Another study, by Palmieri and Branco (2015), found results along the same line. The researcher asked two preschool teachers, from different institutions in Brazil, to select, organize and develop an activity meant to promote cooperation among their students. One teacher, despite asked to promote cooperation, clearly promoted competition as she invited children to participate of a competition game among groups. For the whole time of the activity, she cheered those who performed well towards beating the others! The second teacher did not promote competition, but promoted a mostly individualistic activity, because she oriented children to, individually, perform their tasks, one after the other, to compose a big poster to be exposed later on a preschool wall. The study, which encompassed other procedures, provided evidence that the teachers did not know the differences between cooperation, competition, and individualism . Needless to say, this finding was extremely worrisome and problematic.

In sum, we can conclude that specific activities are structured to create frames that favor particular types of social interactions. However, teachers are not aware of that. They are not aware that their values and beliefs , concerning the importance and appropriateness of individualism and competition, end up prevailing in the activities they plan, organize and develop with their students within the school context. Consequently, if we expect to change the direction of socialization processes within educational contexts , teachers need to become aware of their activities’ selection and their own way of interacting and relating to each other and to their students, deconstructing the old historical-cultural taken-for-granted conviction (value) that competition and individualism are the best way to promote learning and human development . Because they are not (Branco, 2009, 2015; Dumont, 1993; Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 1989; Kohn, 1992; Lash, 1982; Slavin, 2009; Sennett, 2004, 2012).

Conclusion

In this chapter, my point was to stress the major role played by the quality of socio-affective interactions that take place within classrooms and other school contexts. I especially emphasize the role of trust relations (McDermott, 1977), and teachers’ high expectations concerning their students as human beings (self-fulfillment prophecy, Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Consequently, we need to invest in working with issues related to human communication, values and beliefs regarding human development and education in the contexts of educational institutions , particularly with teachers.

Teachers must understand the importance of their daily interactions with students, and with each other, in order to foster trust relations, cooperation, autonomy, creativity, and self-development . By assuming constructive values and beliefs concerning the value of human communication and relationships, they can promote activities that will facilitate dialogue, collaboration and reflexivity , all contributing to a deep sense of social responsibility and democratic negotiations . Such well-intended, critical and democratic negotiations will favor the constructive transformation of educational institutions. Cultural psychology , thus, can help providing the tools and strategies to change practices and meanings in order to promote societies characterized by democratic and ethical principles , translated into everyday activities. This is the only way to transform and create a better world and a life worth living. In conclusion, schools should plan their activities beyond granting their students the mere acquisition of useful knowledge, skills and abilities to later engage, successfully, in professional activities . They should also, and very importantly, pursue the fulfillment of their mission of fostering the development of ethical, critical, autonomous, morally responsible and cooperative human beings.