Chapter 13 - Network of Meanings

Summary

This chapter introduces the Network of Meanings, a theoretical methodological perspective, which is being constructed for the investigation and understanding of the complex processes of human development. Initially, the Network of Meanings perspective was elaborated for the study of the insertion of babies into day care. This perspective proposes development as occurring throughout life span, as time irreversible co-constructions of active persons, in the course of the multiple interactions and relations established, within culturally and socially organized environments. The interactive processes established among persons within specific contexts are considered as embedded in and traversed by a socio-historical matrix, which is conceived as being composed by social, economical, historical, political, and cultural elements. Multiple developmental trajectories are possible to be conceived based on the adopted assumptions, especially on the notion of constraint, which at each moment and situation sets some limits and possibilities for the person's development.