From Volkerpsychologie to cultural psychology: the once and future discipline?

Despite the current enthusiasm for cultural psychology, its disciplinary id entity remains problematic. In this essay, the question of the identity of cultural psychology is pressed with respect to the vision promoted in Micha el Cole's Cultural Psychology: The Once and Future Discipline. Cole advocat es a form of psychology that is sensitive to cultural and historical contex t, and which purports to reinstate the program of Wundt's Volkerpsychologie and the historical-cultural psychology of Vygotsky and Luria. Unfortunatel y, Cole's account manifests the same tensions and ambiguities as these orig inal projects, and fails to live up to its revolutionary and integrative pr omise. Like its historical precursors, Cole's vision of cultural psychology fails to take seriously the theoretical possibility of historically and cu lturally local forms of cognitive processing.