Article

Culture & Psychology

18(3) 375390
Culture and social ! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1354067X12446233

A continuing dialogue cap.sagepub.com

in search for
heterogeneity in social
developmental
psychology
Charis Psaltis
University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Abstract
In this commentary on Jahoda (2012) and Moghaddam (2012), I discuss the problem of
the reification of culture from a social representations perspective and argue that social
representations as a notion overcomes many of the shortcomings of the notion of
culture, the main being reification. Whilst building this argument I show, by making
reference to recent developments in the field of social representations and social devel-
opmental psychology, how weaknesses in social representations theory identified by
Jahoda (1988) were addressed and how insights from this approach can be used for
diversity management policies in education.

Keywords
Culture, Habermas, Piaget, reification, social representations

The issue of the relation between culture and social representations was raised
by Jahoda (1988) himself in a critical paper written almost a quarter of a century
ago, on social representations followed by an extended response by Moscovici
(1988). In that paper, Jahoda criticized social representations as somehow resusci-
tating the group mind and for a lack of clarity on the relations between social
representations and social groups. He also claimed that the theory was not tested,

Corresponding author:
Charis Psaltis, Univeristy of Cyprus, Kallipoleos 65, Nicosia, 2064, Cyprus
Email: cpsaltis@ucy.ac.cy
376 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

and that it could not actually be tested since it was so loosely formulated that no
part of it could be readily falsied (Jahoda, 1988, p. 204). Social representations
theory was also criticized by Jahoda for lack of sensitivity to the issues of power
and lack of clarity about the relation between social representations and allied
concepts like ideology and culture. In his nal judgment on the usefulness of the
concept of social representations, Jahoda then took a similar stance to the one he
took for the the notion of culture here (Jahoda, 2012) since he had claried that he
did not wish that social representation be abandoned and that it was hoped that his
critical as well as constructive comments would serve to enhance the approach
Moscovici has pioneered (Jahoda, 1988, p. 207).
Since 1988 when this commentary was published, almost 1800 journal articles
with the keyword social representations in the title were published from all
around the globe with the number of publications following an increasing trend.1
Considering that the theory was rst proposed in the early 1960s, it would seem
that the notion of social representations, just like culture, is capturing something
essential for our social theorizing. It would also seem that the criticisms levelled at
the theory were probably indeed constructive and researchers have indeed claried
aspects of the theory.
For example, the question of the relations between culture and social represen-
tations has been a focus for a number of important contributions (cf. Jodelet, 2002;
Jovchelovitch, 2007; Valsiner, 2003; Valsiner and Van der Veer, 2000) and was
recently taken up by the late Gerard Duveen (2007). The absence of a denition
of culture from the social representations perspective in Jahodas (2012) article was
somewhat unexpected given Jahodas previous engagement with social representa-
tions and his specic comment that . . . it is hard to see how culture can be
separate from social representations, on the contrary the latter would constitute
one of the central aspects of culture(Jahoda, 1988, p. 200).
For Duveen (2007), the crucial dierence between culture and social represen-
tations remains one of scale and scope. He argues that culture and social rep-
resentations appear to refer to dierent levels of analysis, nevertheless whatever it
is that we take to be connoted by the term culture only becomes accessible through
the observation and analysis of specic representations. Duveen (2007) also pro-
vides a denition of culture:

Culture, then, can be taken as referring to a broader network of representations held

together as an organised whole by a community. Social representations, in this sense,
can be seen as particular cultural forms, and the analysis of social representations
will always refer back in some way to the cultural context in which they take
shape. (p. 545)

Given Jahodas recognition of the social representations approach as one of the

approaches that challenge what he terms the orthodoxy of the mainstream (Jahoda,
2007), the absence of Duveens discussion of the relationship between culture and
social representations could be seen as an omission.
Psaltis 377

Duveen (2007), as Jahoda (2012), identies problematic uses of the term culture
implying that an analysis of social representations is essential for the understanding
of culture in a way that avoids the reication of culture. The denition of social
representations given by Moscovici is characteristic of the ways that social repre-
sentations can be described as a process and outcome, satisfying certain functions
of the groups and relating to issues of identity and orientation in time that are
usually absent from denitions of culture:

. . . a system of values, ideas and practices with a twofold function; rst to establish an
order which will enable individuals to orient themselves in their material and social
world and to master it; and secondly to enable communication to take place among
the members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a
code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and
their individual and group history. (Moscovici, 1973, p. xiii)

But the most problematic aspect of culture is manifested when it is considered as

the discriminating principle through which all members of a community are alike in
sharing some set of beliefs, values and practices, and dierent from other commu-
nities which have their own sets of beliefs, values and practices. Such a view for
Duveen is a hindrance to the extent that, it presents culture as a categorical
phenomenon, which, like all such phenomena, tends to emphasize dierences
between cultures while minimising variations within cultures. Each culture is
viewed as though it were a homogenous entity, free of internal division.
Many of the denitions given by Jahoda (2012) implicitly reify culture as an
unchanging, homogeneous entity closed enough to change to be amenable to trans-
mission from generation to generation, correctly criticised by Jahoda as resembling
Durkheims collective representations. But such a static and reied notion of cul-
ture can not serve the heterogeneity of our times. As Moghaddam (2012) argues
and as Moscovici noted since the 1960s we are witnessing the emergence of very
heterogeneous political, philosophical, religious and artistic practices (1961/1976/
2008, p. 5).
Another point of critic of the notion of culture is that it usually describes a
static structure rather than a process in contrast to social representations that
have a dual meaning, both being a system of values, ideas and practices related to
a specic object and importantly also describing the process of social representing
(cf. Valsiner, 2003). Moscovici is interested in distinguishing the modes of con-
struction and functioning of representations in late modernity and his contribu-
tion is unique in that it introduces a more dynamic and heterogeneous picture for
society than the one allowed by the notion of culture. Representations are seen as
the products of patterns of communication within social groups and across soci-
ety as a whole, and thus, importantly, are also susceptible to change and trans-
formation (Duveen, 2007, p. 545). Such change and transformation however is
inextricably linked with asymmetries of status and power between people and
groups.
378 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

A history of reification and its relation to social

inequalities and power
The notion of reication can be considered the par excellence social-psychological
concept for analysis of the relationship between the individual and society as it was
originally proposed by Lukacs (1923/1971) in his History and Class Consciousness,
drawing on insights from Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel. In its
original manifestation reication signies the fact that a relation between people
has taken on the character of a thing. For reication to take place, according to
Lukacs, the responsible part is the expansion of commodity exchange, which, with
the establishment of capitalist society, had become the prevailing mode of relating
with others (Honneth, 2005). Reication thus described a particular state of rela-
tionships in the subject-object-other triad (see Zittoun, Cornish, Gillespie, & Psaltis,
2007 on the use of the metaphor of triads in social developmental psychology).
Subject and other in commodity exchange are mutually urged to perceive given
objects solely as things that one can potentially make a prot on, to regard each
other solely as objects of protable transactions, and nally to regard their own
abilities as nothing but supplemental resources in the calculation of prot oppor-
tunities (Honneth, 2005).
Reication with time was related with power considerations beyond capitalism.
In the writings of the Frankfurt School we also nd authoritarianism and totali-
tarianism as a form of oppressive authority responsible for reication and a
more general reformulation of the critique of reication as a critique of instrumen-
tal reason, where other is manipulated as object in a self-interested mode of think-
ing. More recently, in the work of Jurgen Habermas (1981/1984), we see the
attempt to grasp the tension between the reifying eects of money and power
on social, political, and cultural life, and the lifeworlds potential for increasing
openness to the communicative formation of norms and values that govern the way
in which people interact, solve problems, and structure life in society (Dahms, 1997,
p. 190).
In the roots of the Habermasian theorizing on the theory of communicative
action and in particular the idea of the colonization of the life world, one can nd
the social developmental psychology of Piagets (1932) Moral Judgment of the child
(see also Kitchener, 2004). That Piaget was such an important inuence on critical
theory should come as no surprise, as Piaget was considered by Lucien Goldmann
as the most authentic dialectician in the West. What Goldmann valued in Piagets
theorizing was his appreciation of the dialectical relation between consciousness
and activity in similar terms to that of Marx despite the fact that as Piaget himself
admits, he did not read Marx or any of the Marxist theorists, until the 40s, when
Goldmann went to work with him. It was indeed argued by Goldmann himself,
who based most of his work on the ideas of Lukacs and his writings on reication
that Piagets genetic research could go a long way in providing a psychology that
would complement historical and dialectical materialism (Maryl, cited in
Goldmann, 1976, p. 10).
Psaltis 379

As Piaget convincingly argued, a capacity for logical thinking emerges from the
lived experience of everyday life (Duveen, 2007). But the everyday experience is not
a homogeneous entity itself. In terms of the social relations that subjects entertain
Piaget (1932) makes a basic distinction between relations of co-operation and rela-
tions of constraint. Thus, despite his distance from Marxs writings, Piaget was not
insensitive to social inequalities and asymmetrical social relations. A relation of
constraint supports a morality of heteronomy and respect for authority and a
relation of co-operation supports a morality of autonomy and is based on mutual
respect and a norm of reciprocity. He argued that the relation of constraint hinders
moral and cognitive development, whilst relation of co-operation on the contrary
promotes both moral and cognitive development as it tends to equilibrium. Despite
the fact that, in each stage of development dierent proportions of both can be
found, it was claimed by Piaget that from around the age of 37 years children are
in the egocentric stage, where the basic characteristic in terms of morality is the
almost divine obedience to the rules, as constraint coming from adults that he
called moral realism which is a form of reied thinking, since the children at this
stage have the illusion of unchanging and xed norms.
The prototype of relations of co-operation for Piaget, was relations between peers
and for relations of constraint those of adult and child and in this respect it could
be argued that it is a universal distinction. However, this view does not imply that
any relation between adult and child will be constraining, and every relation
between peers will be co-operative. For Piaget, when the adult is able to respect
the child as a person with a right to exercise his or her will, one can speak about a
certain psychological equality in the relationship.
The Piagetian distinction of relations of co-operation and relations of constraint
can be clearly seen in Jurgen Habermas discussion of the discourse ethics and the
idea of the colonisation of the lifeworld. Lifeworld agents coordinate their actions
through validity claims. The constraints on their actions that are generated by this
process are self-imposed and internal in as much as they arise from the reciprocal
recognition of validity claims. By contrast, systems of money and power impose
external constraints on actions that are in no way up to the agents. The system thus
takes on the appearance of what Habermas calls a block of quasi- natural reality as
a reied and independent reality with an autonomous internal logic that escapes
human control, and for which human beings cannot and need not take responsi-
bility (Habermas, 1981, 1983).
The discussion of reication in Piagetian and Habermasian theorizing is of
crucial importance for theorizing the impact of power asymmetries on the forma-
tion and change of social representations. Here we nd a crucial link between a
particular asymmetrical form of social relating, manifested in communication with
other people that is constraining the negotiation of de-centred and more advanced
knowledge due to an asymmetry of status or power leading only to the transmis-
sion of beliefs. Such beliefs take up the appearance of reied reality as they are the
result of supercial forms of compliance, imitation or conformity to the truth of
the authority. From this perspective, when we talk about reication of a category
380 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

as a given, or as dealing with a reied representation of that category, it might

always be worth looking for the dominant group with authority which benets
from such a view becoming hegemonic because they probably think that their own
category is at the top of the hierarchical scale of categories and they favour its
eternal reproduction.

Fragmentation within a culture as varying forms

of representation
Such an understanding of reication in its communicative context is also crucial for
comprehending the fragmented nature of globalization in the 21st century and the
problems raised by Moghaddam (2012) because it can be expanded to a critic of
fundamentalism, racism, nationalism, sexism, ageism, imperialism and all category
based forms of discrimination that attempt the legitimization of a certain hierarchy
between categories. All these ideologies attempt to reify the basic categories, values
and practices on which they are correspondingly based through specic communi-
cative/conversation styles, patterns or genres with the nal aim of shaping the
relationships in the subject-object-other triad in a way that aects how subjects
view themselves, how they see others and how they represent the various objects of
the world (Wagner, Holtz, & Kashima, 2009). At the level of theorizing, no theory
can retain a critical edge for the solution of societal problems of oppression and
inequality unless it somehow explores the links between forms of communication,
representations and identity from a genetic perspective thus raising awareness of
the genetic emergence of reication and its dissolution. In this respect social devel-
opmental psychology, as recognized by Moscovici (1990) and Jahoda (1988) sits in
the privileged position of unearthing the processes through which representations
of objects are created and transformed through processes of communication and
can enrich suggestions for policy on managing diversity as the one of omnicultur-
alism proposed by Moghaddam (2012).
In the social developmental work of the late Gerard Duveen, one can recognize
the life project of studying the microgenesis, ontogenesis and socio-genesis of social
representations (Duveen & Lloyd, 1990). The social developmental approach pro-
pounded by Duveen takes the social-psychological subject as the unit of analysis
and provides both theoretical insights on the ontogenesis of social representations
(Duveen, 1993; Lloyd & Duveen, 1986, 1990, 1992) on the relations between social
representations and identities (Duveen, 1997, 2000, 2001) as well as empirical evi-
dence on the microgenesis of social representations and the importance of distinc-
tions between varieties of communication/social interaction and their links with
forms of representation/learning or cognitive development (Duveen & Psaltis,
2008; Leman & Duveen, 1999, Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007; Psaltis, Duveen, &
Perret-Clermont, 2009).
In his discussion of culture and social representations Duveen goes through a
variety of binary distinctions made by Moscovici at dierent periods of his work
that aimed at somehow capturing the heterogeneity of society. First, there is the
Psaltis 381

distinction between collective and social representations, then there is the distinc-
tion between the consensual and the reied universes, but these were not Duveens
favourite because they do not address questions about how dierent types of
social representation might dier in their structure and functioning (Duveen,
2007, p. 547; Duveen, 2002). A step forward in this direction for Duveen is
Moscovicis (2000) distinction between a) social representations whose kernel
consists of beliefs which are generally more homogenous, aective, impermeable
to experience or contradiction, and leave little scope for individual variations and
b) social representations founded on knowledge which are more uid, pragmatic,
amenable to the proof of success or failure, and leave a certain latitude to language,
experience, and even to the critical faculties of individuals (Moscovici, 2000,
p. 136). Yet this distinction, too, is also limited, Duveen argues

primarily because it does not yet include any clear discussion of the functional aspects
of these representations, of the modalities through which they circulate or are com-
municated, or the ways in which they serve to structure dierent types of social
groups, or may be structured by dierent types of social relations. (Duveen,
2007, p. 547)

The proposal in which these functional aspects of representations become most

clearly visible is to be found in Moscovicis (1988) response to Jahodas (1988)
critical commentary on the theory of social representations. In responding to the
call for clarity on the relations between social representations and social groups
Moscovici (1988) suggests a tripartite distinction between:

a. Hegemonic representations can become shared by all members of a highly

structured groupa party, a city, a nationwithout their having been pro-
duced by the group.
b. Polemical representations generated in the course of social conict, social con-
troversy and where society as a whole does not share them. They are deter-
mined by the antagonistic relations between its members and intended to be
mutually exclusive.
c. Emancipated representations are the outgrowth of the circulation of knowledge
and ideas belonging to subgroups that are in more or less close contact.

From the perspective of reication, it could be argued that hegemonic represen-

tations are reied representations since they correspond to the representational
forms closest to those described by Durkheim as collective; they are based on
beliefs, since they consist of patterns of values and ideas deeply embedded in the
practices of everyday life and they are extraordinarily stable and resistant to change
since they rarely become the focus of any sustained reection, remaining more or
less closed systems of meaning. In this respect they are undialogical since alterna-
tive representations that have the potential to oppose the dominance of hegemonic
representations on the same object are absent (cf. Gillespie, 2008) or the result of
382 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

relations of constraint in Piagetian sense (Psaltis, Duveen, & Perret-Clermont,

2009).
On the contrary, both emancipated and polemical social representations take a
reective stance on social representations albeit of varying forms of reection on
alternative representations (Gillespie, 2008). Duveen (2007, 2008) argued that in
this sense they tend towards being constituted as representations based on know-
ledge even if what is taken as constituting knowledge may also be as varied as the
dierent patterns of legitimation through which it can be secured.
Still, it might be unfair to grant polemical social representations any relation
with knowledge if we take into consideration the past-present-future orientation of
the group (Psaltis, 2011-c). The polemical representations are based on a form of
communication that Moscovici described as propaganda (Moscovici, 1961/1976/
2008), and as such it could be argued that they are striving to become, in the future,
hegemonic. Before they achieve this, however, they necessarily have to be engaged
in some form of pseudo-dialogue with a pale reection of alternative social repre-
sentations (Gillespie, 2008) in an attempt for imposition of their representation of
the object in question. From a nationalist perspective for example, there is a clear
view of the strategy followed to achieve hegemony as they draw on essentialized
forms of history that aim to the reication of the nation as a diachronic entity
with continuity that attempts to perpetually reproduce its national self in terms of
purity and homogenization (Bar-Tal, Halperin, & Oren, 2010; Makriyianni &
Psaltis, 2007; Papadakis, 2003). But in this contest for hegemony they nd
themselves in a polemical relationship with approaches that advocate diversity,
internationalism, rapprochement and contact with members of the other groups
(Psaltis, 2011-c) so that in nationalist representations one can recognize the
shadow of an alternative representation, as a straw man, easily challenged or
delegitimized in the communicative arena through varying forms of semantic bar-
riers (Gillespie, 2008).
The case for representations based on knowledge can be more easily made in the
case of emancipated social representations for a series of reasons. From a Piagetian
perspective, true knowledge is only achieved through relations of co-operation
based on mutual respect and a norm of reciprocity (Piaget, 1932). These represen-
tations are the outgrowth of the circulation of knowledge and ideas belonging to
subgroups that are in more or less close contact and open to inuence by the other
group. Here upholding the process of free dialogue as a way to synthesize diver-
gence of perspectives takes precedence over any particular content. The avoidance
of reication and critical deconstruction of any view is a value in itself. Doubt
(cf. Duveen, 2002) is seen as an opportunity for advancement of knowledge as it
punctures the closed system of beliefs and provides an opportunity of a shift from
representations based on belief to representations based on knowledge, or in
Moscovician terms (Moscovici, 1976) it oers an opportunity for conversion
(Psaltis, 2005b).
In one of his last papers, Duveen (2008) expanded on this thinking revisiting the
second part of the original work of Moscovici (1961/1976/2008) on psychoanalysis
Psaltis 383

making a call for heterogeneity in social psychology. He argued that we need to

recognize that there is an intimate relation between the values and attitudes of a
group and the characteristic patterns of communication which sustain it (Duveen,
2008). In particular, he likened Diusion as a form of communication with a spe-
cic form of aliative bonds linking the members of this group of people who are
engaged in skeptical exchange of ideas as a form of sympathy where the outgroup
become the dogmatics. Propagation, that is based on belief, sets limits to the intel-
lectual curiosity of individuals since it is established by a central authority. The
aliative bonds linking the members of this group of people here is communion and
the out group(s) are characterized either by their lack of belief or by their adherence
to alternative beliefs. Finally, propaganda draws together people who share a spe-
cic political commitment, and envisage an appropriate form of political organiza-
tion where the centre dominates by dening realities and they form aliative bonds
of solidarity. The out-group(s) are dened either by their lack of commitment to
this ideology, or by their commitment to a dierent ideology.

Social representations and identities

For Duveen identity is both about identication and being identied (Duveen,
2001), and thus the stability of particular forms of identity is linked to the stability
of the network of social inuences which sustain a particular representation since
as the balance of inuence processes (Duveen, 2007, 2008) changes so does the
predominant representation, and consequently the patterns of identity which are
a function of that representation. In that way identity can be considered as an
asymmetry in a relationship which constrains what can be communicated through
itboth in the sense of what it becomes possible to communicate and in the sense
of what becomes incommunicable and potentially a point of resistance, or com-
municable only on condition of a reworking of that identity (Cornish & Gillespie,
2010; Duveen, 2001).
The work of Duveen, in the last decade of his life, on social interaction of
children and their moral and cognitive development (Duveen & Psaltis, 2007;
Leman & Duveen, 1999; Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007) was for him an exciting
and important research eld in that it oered the contours of a model of transition
from pre-operational to operational thought in children through varying forms of
communication that could be extended to a more general model of the role of social
relations and communication forms in the transition from representations of belief
to representations of knowledge (Duveen, 2002; cf. Castorina, 2010; Leman, 2010).
His rather opaque formulation that as the balance of inuence processes changes so
too does the predominant representation (Duveen, 2007, 2008) can be claried
when reading the social developmental work on the third generation of research
on peer interaction and cognitive development (for reviews and commentaries of
this work see Castorina, 2010; Ferrari, 2007; Martin, 2007; Maynard, 2009;
Nicolopoulou & Weintraub, 2009; Psaltis, Duveen, & Perret-Clermont, 2009;
Psaltis, 2011-b; Simao, 2003; Sorsana & Trognon, 2011) where following an
384 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

experimental ethnography (Duveen & Psaltis, 2007; Psaltis, Duveen & Perret-
Clermont, 2009) an asymmetry of gender status was crossed with an asymmetry
of knowledge on cognitive tasks and the eects of such criss-crossing of asymme-
tries on conversation types and on the change of the representation of the conser-
vation of liquids was explored. In this line of work, another theoretical tool can be
found for introducing in culture and social representations theorizing power and
status asymmetries relating with varying categorizations and their role in the gen-
esis of social representations. The by now well-established Fm eect (Duveen &
Psaltis, 2007; Psaltis, 2005-a, 2005-b, 2011-a; Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007; Psaltis,
Duveen & Perret-Clermont, 2009; Zapiti & Psaltis, in press) for 67-year-olds,
shows that the conicting nature of gender status and knowledge asymmetries in
dyadic interaction creates a more balanced communication. Such communication
is linked with more exible forms of knowledge, interiorization of operations and
in depth understanding of the object under discussion often through the establish-
ment of a communication coined as Explicit Recognition. This kind of research
allows for a clearer understanding of the communicative forms that facilitate the
transition from representations of belief to representations of knowledge and an
understanding of how power and status asymmetries of varying nature by their
alignment or conict can aect the formation of communication types and subse-
quent change of social representations.
This work also provides insights about dealing with diversity in the school con-
text at dierent ages (Mogghadam, 2012) since we see that the categorization of
gender for children, even at the age of 67 years, is important in dierentiating the
dynamics of interaction and consequential for the change of their representations
of objects although the argument could be extended to ethnic (see Leman & Lam,
2008) and other forms of identication and other categories that imply power
asymmetries. One potential avenue of exploration of the multiplicity of social cat-
egorizations and power asymmetries is to criss-cross varying sources of asymmetry
in a way that they balance the opportunities for exchange of views (Duveen &
Psaltis, 2008; Psaltis, 2011-b). Such a view goes beyond the classic cognitive-struc-
tural model of cross-categorization (Doise, 1978) and more recent approaches on
multiple categorization (Crisp & Hewstone, 2006) in that it takes into account the
social interactive and communicative eects of the criss-crossing of categories as
sources of asymmetry recognizing the detrimental eects of compounted asymme-
tries on the autonomy, participation and agency of a single interlocutor and chal-
lenging the eects of such categorization of asymmetries when varying asymmetries
conict in a single interlocutor. From this perspective, Moghaddams (2012) prop-
osition of not dealing with dierences before the age of 14 seems rather unrealistic
in that such categorizations based on visible dierences between people would be
unlikely to change irrespective of the policy used. Not only that, but one might
argue that if they are left unrecognized by the teachers and not tackled in a critical
spirit until the age of 14 then it would be too late to undo any harm done from the
workings of exclusion dynamics in the learning process due to the multiplicity of
sources of asymmetry (expertise, gender, race, social class) in society that penetrate
Psaltis 385

the educational praxis. Such social marking of the school life from peer culture
itself and the diversied dynamics of fragmented societies expressed through the
media or family certainly nd their ways in peer life and constrain social relations
between same age children, often in unreective ways (Zittoun, Duveen, Gillespie,
Ivinson, & Psaltis, 2003).

How could we manage diversity?

I tried to argue that we should take culture o its pedestal as the foundational
source of dierence (cf. Phillips, 2007), avoid reied views of culture and sensitize
our social-psychological gaze to the eects of multiple inequalities in communica-
tion since communication is the motor not only for the change of social represen-
tations but also for the learning and cognitive and moral development of children.
Mogghadam (2012) rightly criticizes the two traditional approaches in managing
diversity. On the one hand, in many forms of multiculturalism, culture is widely
employed in a discourse that denies human agency, dening individuals through
their culture, and treating culture as the explanation for virtually everything they
say or do, not to mention the implications of cultural relativism for the use of
multiculturalism as a smoke screen to promote the suppression of women, nation-
alism and secessionist movements. On the other hand the assimilation approach in
its colour blind version certainly fails to recognize the detrimental eects of
categorization on social exclusion. A defensible third way could be omnicultural-
ism under certain conditions. First, that it will put human agency in dialogue with
social representations at its centre and it will dispense with strong, reied and
homogeneous notions of culture and more importantly that it will take seriously
into account the ndings of social developmental psychology on the microgenesis,
ontogenesis and sociogenesis of social representations (Lloyd & Duveen, 1990).
From this perspective, it would seem more appropriate to shift our terminology,
empirical studies, theoretical focus and policy suggestions away from the discourse
of culture management to an advancement of our understanding of the eects of
multiple forms of inequality on forms of communication that both promote and
hinder change of social representations under varying conditions in the hope that
we advance our understanding of contact between people as social interaction
between varying positions and perspectives in the representational eld
(see Psaltis, 2011-c).
The study of such social interaction needs to incorporate an understanding of
the time orientation of each position, their representations of the past and the
future and how contact alters or not such perspectives in a way that goes
beyond the reied view of the other as a generic out-grouper (see Psaltis,
2011) and recognizes the fact that identities are both about identication and
being identied by others (Duveen, 2001; Kadianaki, 2010). It will also have to
incorporate productively the literature on majority and minority inuence that
already includes discussions of the role played by the representation of a
386 Culture & Psychology 18(3)

source of inuence and the role of behavioural styles in hindering or promoting

change (Moscovici, 1976; Psaltis, 2005a, 2005b).
From this perspective, the content of any new approach to managing diversity
needs to be specied in a way that it is not (and not perceived to be) an eclectic
middle road between the two traditions of assimilation and multiculturalism but as
a paradigmatic shift that concerns itself with the quality of communicative pro-
cesses under conditions of conicting or aligned status/power asymmetries that are
based on varying forms of communication, in a way that such categorizations are
surpassed in social interaction and create the potential for novelty and genetic
change of social representations. A basic universal principle of human psychology
that this approach could be premised on is the Piagetian (1932) distinction between
relations of co-operation and relations of constraint. The educational implications of
such an approach for managing diversity is that the aim of education should be to
promote a reective and enhanced consciousness of the dynamics of communica-
tion in teacher-student and peer interaction in relation to the varieties of social
representations that constrain and enable the participation and inclusion of each
individual in the educational praxis.

Author Note
This paper received no specic grant from any funding agency in the public, com-
mercial, or not-for-prot sectors. I would like to thank Alex Gillespie and Irini
Kadianaki for making comments on an earlier draft of this paper

Note
1. A search in Google Scholar with the specific phrase social representations in the title of
the article for the periods 19881993 returned 168 results, 19941999 returned 286 results,
20002005 returned 527 results, 20062011 returned 800 results. A more detailed analysis
of publication trends on social representations year by year on PsychLIT can be found in
Eicher, Emery, Maridor, Gilles, & Bangerter (2011). In this analysis a stabilization of
publication on Social Representations appears after 2006, but it also reveals that one of
the strengths of the theory is its global outreach.

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Author Biography
Charis Psaltis is an Assistant Professor of Social and Developmental Psychology at
the Department of Psychology of the University of Cyprus. He holds a degree in
Educational Sciences and a degree in Psychology. He received his MPhil and PhD
in Social and Developmental Psychology from the Department of Social and
Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the
University of Cambridge. He did post-doctoral research at the Oxford Centre
for the Study of Intergroup Conflict, at the Department of Experimental
Psychology of Oxford University, studying contact between Greek Cypriots and
Turkish Cypriots. His main research interests are intergroup contact and inter-
group relations, social interaction and learning and development, social represen-
tations of gender, the development of national identities, history teaching and
collective memory. At the Univeristy of Cyprus he is co-director of the Genetic
Social Psychology Lab.

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