Symbolic resources and sense-making in learning and instruction

This paper presents the concept of symbolic resources for apprehending sense-making in learning and instruction. It first reminds the centrality of sense-making in learning and instruction from a sociocultural perspective, and proposes a pragmatist approach to examine what sorts of knowledge people use when they face situations that matter. The paper then presents two series of studies of symbolic resources. The first studies, led in informal situations, allow to define the concept of symbolic resources and a model of its uses. The second series is focused on school situations, and examines how school knowledge can be used as symbolic resources, and also, how symbolic resources can support learning in educational settings. This leads into a discussion on the role of institutional and social dynamics in the relations between learning in and out of school, at the heart of sense-making, as well as on the central role of imagination in learning and development. The paper ends by underlying the centrality of sense-making in learning and development, and the need to complement nomothetic studies with a more idiographic understanding of the complex dynamics involved.