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19.6: What do Organismic and Contextualist meta-theories have in common?

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    As depicted in Figure 8.6, the fact that Organismic meta-theories emphasize the role of the organism in development whereas Contextualist meta-theories emphasize the role of the context should not obscure the several assumptions that these meta-theories have in common: that the person is inherently active and agentic, that change and activity are the natural state of affairs, that development is always co-constructed by interactions between co-active people and their multi-level contexts, and that quantitative changes and qualitative transformations of both are not only possible but likely.

    Perhaps most fundamentally, these meta-theories share the assumption that, although people can be distinguished from their contexts, they cannot be separated, without distorting or destroying both. At the most basic level, the notion that nature and nurture are parts of the same whole and so can only be understood and studied in their combination or interaction reflects a basic underlying assumption that is sometimes referred to as “relational” or “interactionist.” Organismic and Contextual meta-theories have in common that they both are relational and interactionist world views.

    This page titled 19.6: What do Organismic and Contextualist meta-theories have in common? is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Ellen A. Skinner, Thomas A. Kindermann, Robert W. Roeser, Cathleen L Smith, Andrew Mashburn & Joel Steele (Portland State University Library) .