Recent comparative education research has been much more culturally sensitive (see, e.g., Lave 1977; Scribner and Cole 1981). Yet, the formal/informal dichotomy remains the model by which these findings have been interpreted (Greenfield and Lave 1982; Cole and D'Andrade 1982). Lave probably expressed the frustration of many others when she wrote recently, "We cannot afford to hold as our principal basis for comparing educational forms the schoolcentric, simplified dichotomy of formal and informal education" (1982: 185).

I agree with Lave that the formal/informal dichotomy needs to be replaced. My primary aim in this paper is to propose a less ethnocentric taxonomy in its place. However, I disagree with Lave's contention that psychological theory has nothing to offer here; in fact, my replacement is drawn from recent research in cognitive psychology. An additional goal of this paper, therefore, is to defend the use of psychological theorizing in anthropological research. Although my discussion will be focused on cross-cultural cognitive research, some of my points are intended to have more general applicability.

On the basis of my interviews with some urbanites and suburbanites in the United States, I will argue that Jameson's account of "postmodern schizo-fragmentation" is only partly right. Each person whose talk I have analyzed did have disparate schemas that can be traced to heterogeneous social discourses and practices.3 However, emotionally salient life experiences mediated their internalization of social discourses and led to a partial cognitive integration of them. This was true across boundaries of age, ethnicity, color, class, and gender for my interviewees, suggesting problems with not only Jameson's account but also others that expect a "rupture of narrativity" among marginal or exploited groups in this society (e.g., Ortner 1991). My research also throws suspicion on studies that infer general forms of consciousness from art works or theories created for an elite audience.