Issues of cultural analisys

This commentary discusses some questions entailed in the Regina Day Langhout’s (2005) article. The authors’ point of view is an interpretative approach anchored in the European scholastic world, in particular that of Southern Europe with its Latin and Mediterranean culture. In the first part of the article we compare the model of school involved in Langhout’s study with the South-West European one. In the second part, we deal with some epistemological and theoretical issues concerning the way cultural processes are investigated: the level/model of explanation of psycho-social context; the problems raised by the notion of intentionality; the limits of the functionalist interpretative schema of analysis. These issues are traced back to a basic topic: the position of the observer in respect of the cultural system analysed.