This collection uses Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of human development to frame their analyses of schooling.

1. Introduction: constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry Carol D. Lee and Peter Smagorinsky; Part I. Paradoxes in Vygotsky's Account of Development: 2. Vygotsky's two minds on the nature of meaning James V. Wertsch; 3. Creativity and collaboration in knowledge construction Vera John-Steiner and Teresa Meehan; Part II. Studies of Collaborative Inquiry: 4. Dialogic inquiry in education: building on the legacy of Vygotsky Gordon Wells; 5. Consequential progressions: exploring collective-individual development in a bilingual classroom LeAnn Putney, Judith Green, Carol Dixon, Richard Duran, Ana Floriani and Beth Yeager; 6. Linking writing and community development through the children's forum Anne Haas Dyson; 7. Synchronic and diachronic dimensions of social practice: an emerging methodology for cultural-historical perspectives on literacy learning Kris Gutierrez and Lynda Stone; 8. Idiocultural diversity in small groups: the role of the relational framework in collaborative learning Peter Smagorinsky and Cindy O'Donnell-Allen; 9. Signifying in the zone of proximal development: literate cultural competencies in language minority classrooms Carol D. Lee; 10. Teachers' developing philosophies on literacy and its use in public schools: a Vygotskian perspective on internal activity and teacher change Arnetha F. Ball; 11. Inspired by Vygotsky: ethnographic experiments in education Luis C. Moll; Author index; Subject index.