Development as Transformation of Participation in Sociocultural Activity

From WikEd

In this section, Rogoff outlines her own contribution to Sociocultural Theory, looking specifically at cultural communities and their development (note- for Rogoff, individuals necessarily participate in more than one cultural community). She writes,

"Rather than individual development being influenced by (and influencing) culture, from my perspective, people develop as they participate in and contribute to cultural activities that themselves develop with the involvement of people in successive generations. People of each generation, as they engage in sociocultural endeavors with other people, make use of and extend cultural tools and practices inherited from previous generations. As people develop through their shared use of cultural tools and practices, they simultaneously contribute to the transformation of cultural tools, practices, and institutions (Rogoff, 2003)."

For Rogoff, personal, interpersonal, and cultural aspects of human activity are all interpreted as different analytical views of ongoing and mutually constituted processes. In turn, she calls attention to the frames of analysis through which research necessarily constrains and backgrounds what is studied. Observerers choose what to study and this choice-making feeds into outcomes of theories and research.

Question

1. Can there be any measure of objectivity in research if the observer necessarily creates the frame for study?