Barbara Rogofff

Barbara Rogoff es profesora de Psicología en la Universidad de California en Santa Cruz. Ha realizado investigaciones y participado durante 51 años en una comunidad maya de Guatemala, además de llevar a cabo estudios en otras comunidades indígenas de América y en contextos de clase media euroamericana.

Junto a sus colaboradores, ha documentado formas especialmente sofisticadas de colaboración, atención y sentido comunitario entre niñas y niños de comunidades mayas y otras comunidades indígenas del continente americano.

Desde hace más de 25 años, lidera un consorcio internacional e interdisciplinario de académicos que estudia una forma de aprendizaje común en varias comunidades indígenas americanas: el Aprendizaje por medio de Observar y Acomedirse (LOPI, por sus siglas en inglés). Este enfoque considera a las personas aprendices como contribuyentes activos, promueve la colaboración en torno al interés común, trata el aprendizaje como un proceso de crecimiento y desarrollo, y se basa en la participación observadora y activa en actividades compartidas en curso, evaluando tanto la orientación como los aportes de quienes aprenden.

La profesora Rogoff es miembro electa de la Academia Estadounidense de Artes y Ciencias y de la Academia Nacional de Educación de Estados Unidos. Ha recibido diversos premios por su trayectoria de vida y ha ocupado la Cátedra Presidencial del sistema de la Universidad de California. Además, ha sido becaria del Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, la Fundación Kellogg y el Exploratorium, y se ha desempeñado como editora de la revista Human Development.

Es autora de libros premiados y publicados por la Universidad de Oxford, entre ellos Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community y The Cultural Nature of Human Development. En particular, destaca su obra Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town, escrita junto a una reconocida partera maya. También ha coeditado números especiales dedicados a LOPI en revistas como Human Development, Advances in Child Development and Behavior y Journal for the Study of Education and Development (publicado en inglés y español).

ENGLISH VERSION

Barbara Rogoff is Professor of Psychology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. She has done research and participated for 51 years in a Guatemalan Maya town, as well as doing research in other Indigenous American communities and in European-American middle-class communities. Barbara and her collaborators have observed especially sophisticated collaboration, attention, and community-mindedness among children from the Mayan community and some other Indigenous communities of the Americas.

For about 25 years, she has led an international, interdisciplinary consortium of scholars who are investigating a way of learning that is common in a number of Indigenous American communities: Learning by Observing and Pitching In to family and community endeavors (LOPI; Aprender por medio de Observar y Acomedirse). LOPI involves including learners as contributors, building collaboratively on their interest, treating learning as a process of growth, by means of observing and pitching in to shared ongoing activity; and evaluating the guidance as well as learners’ contributions.

Barbara is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education and has received a number of Lifetime Achievement awards. She has held the University of California Presidential Chair and Fellowships of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Kellogg Foundation, and the Exploratorium, and she served as Editor of Human Development.

She is author of award-winning books published by Oxford, including Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community and The Cultural Nature of Human Development. She is especially proud of Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town, written together with a renowned Mayan midwife. She has co-edited special issues focused on LOPI in Human Development, Advances in Child Development and Behavior, and Journal for the Study of Education and Development (in Spanish and English).