[Xmca-l] Re: Activity Setting

[Andy Blunden]

I am still trying to get clear on exactly what concept of "activity 
setting" this is though, Carol. It seems the term is a little polysemous.
Unfortunately that web page only had the Introduction, but Amazon 
allowed me to read most of pp 72-81 on activity settings. Here is a key 
passage for how you define "activity settings" there:

    "Contexts in which collaboralive interaction, intersubjectivity, and
    assisted performance occur -  in which teaching occurs - are
    referred to as activity settings. What are these activity settings,
    and how can they be considered, evaluated, and designed? Although
    activity settings can be subject to abstract theorectical analysis,
    such as that to come in this chapter and that of Wertsch (1985b, pp.
    210-216), they are as homely and familiar as old shoes and the front
    porch. They are the social furniture of our family, community, and
    work lives. They are the events and people of our work and relations
    to one another. They are the who, what, when, where, and why, the
    small recurrent dramas of everyday life, played on the stages of
    home school, community and workplace - the father and daughter
    collaborating to find lost shoes, the preschooler recounting a folk
    tale with sensitive questioning by an adult, the child who plays a
    board game through the help of a patient brother, the Navajo girl
    who assists her mother's weaving and who eventually becomes a master
    weaver herself. We can plot our lives as traces of the things we do,
    in dissolving and recombining social groups and energy knots. Those
    are activity settings."

It seems to me that "activity settings" is the sum total of all the 
relations of a person to everything in the time and place where and when 
the relevant activities occur. As a concept of Activity Theory, it 
differs radically from "behaviour settings" because it is concerned with 
meaning and the significance of things for the person and their 
perception of them, not just the bare, external things and objective 
relations.

But later, p. 77, it looks more like what I would call "an activity". 
The following paragraph resonates with the discussion we just had about 
Leontyev's distinction between the motive an activity and the "really 
effective" motive of a child participant:

    "Why an activity setting exists and functions may be described in
    terms of two facets:the motivation and the meaning.

    "The goal of an activity setting usually provides its motivational
    impetus. If the goal is canoe building, the canoe itself - which may
    be important for the subsistence of the family and group - carries
    within it the motivation for the activity, at least for the more
    powerful authorities who sanction it and who make available the
    needed resources.This is not necessarily the motive for
    participation by every member of the activity setting: Some may join
    in because their friends are participating; less powerful members,
    such as children, may participate only under threat by their
    parents, or because they like the society of the uncles who are
    carving."

I see also a lot of references to power relations within the activity 
which remind me of Jean Lave's conception of a "practice" and "situated
learnng."

Do these excerpts do just to the concept, Cliff?

Andy

carolmacdon@gmail.com wrote:
> Cliff
>
> I have had a student who used Tharp and Gallimore's "activity setting" and for one, Andy rather liked it. Good to see it thriving. 
>
> Carol
> Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Cliff O'Donnell" <cliffo@hawaii.edu>
> Sender: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 20:01:55 
> To: Lubomir Savov Popov<lspopov@bgsu.edu>
> Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Activity Setting
>
> Thank you for your response, Lubomir. Roger Barker was an important  
> influence on my thinking earlier in my career. His work is highly  
> respected in community psychology. Quoting from our article, here is  
> the distinction we see between behavior setting and activity setting:
>
> "The subjective focus of activity settings distinguishes
> them from the behavior settings developed by Barker
> (1960 , 1968 ). In behavior settings, the focus is on objective
> molar behavior specified by time and place. Behaviors are
> defined by the roles or positions of people in the setting and
> activity is used to coordinate their behaviors. Suggestions
> have been made to alter behavior setting theory to include a
> wider range of individual behaviors, cognitions, and
> interventions in the setting (e.g., Luke et al. 1991 ; Schoggen
> 1989 ; Wicker 1987 ). In contrast, activity setting theory
> unifies the objective and subjective by showing how
> activity is influenced and intersubjectivity developed.
> Rather than a collection of individual behaviors and cognitions,
> intersubjectivity develops as a setting characteristic
> that becomes the shared meanings of culture and provides
> the basis for cultural community psychology." (p. 24)
>
> For a more thorough presentation of our use of the concept of activity  
> setting, please see:
>
> O'Donnell, C. R. & Tharp, R. G. (1990). Community intervention guided  
> by theoretical developments. In A. S. Bellack, M. Hersen, & A. E.  
> Kazdin (Eds.), International handbook of behavior modification and  
> therapy, 2nd Edition (pp. 251-266). New York: Plenum Press.
>
> Cliff
>
> Clifford R. O'Donnell, Ph.D.
> Professor Emeritus
> Past-President, Society for Community Research and Action (APA  
> Division 27)
>
> University of Hawai‘i
> Department of Psychology
> 2530 Dole Street
> Honolulu, HI 96822
>
> On Aug 12, 2013, at 7:12 AM, Lubomir Savov Popov wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi Andy,
>>
>> I am also interested to find the term "activity setting" in  
>> Vigotsky's writings or those of his followers, including everyone in  
>> the East European activity theory tradition. I would appreciate  
>> articles or specific references and page numbers. I need this to  
>> anchor some ideas and to pay tribute to earlier theorists if they  
>> have worked on this.
>>
>> I am also interested if there are people on this list who work on  
>> the development of the concept of activity setting or on activity  
>> theory in relation to the planning and design of built environment.  
>> They can contact me at the e-mail below my signature or via this  
>> list, whichever is more convenient. I was going to make such a  
>> request on this list some time ago, but now is a good occasion for  
>> this.
>>
>> To my knowledge, no one in the East European activity theory  
>> tradition has used the term "activity setting," at least till the  
>> late 1980s. If I have missed something, it is good to catch up.
>>
>> I personally work (on and off) on the concept of activity setting  
>> since the early 1980s. However, I develop it as a methodological  
>> category for the study of built environment. I have to acknowledge  
>> that I got the idea for activity setting from Roger Barker's  
>> "behavior setting." At that time, in East Europe, the concept of  
>> behavior was considered one-sided and with less explanatory power  
>> than the concept of activity. There was no way to introduce the  
>> behavior setting concept without setting the reaction of mainstream  
>> social scientists. Even if someone dared to suggest the behavior  
>> setting concept in an article, the reviewers will automatically  
>> recommend to rework it as "activity setting." In East European  
>> social science of that time, behavior referred mostly to the  
>> visible, mechanistic aspects of activity or in the sense of  
>> "demeanor."
>>
>> Bob Bechtel has done a good work in the early 1980 expanding on  
>> Barker's behavior setting, operationalizing his ideas for the field  
>> of Environment and Behavior (Architecture and Human Behavior; Man- 
>> Environment Systems).  However, this work didn't continue. On the  
>> other hand, at that time, it was too early to talk about activity  
>> settings in the USA. It is early even now, in particular in the  
>> field of Environment and Behavior. Many people in that field resent  
>> the idea of ditching behavior for activity. They believe that the  
>> concept of behavior setting is good enough and there is no need to  
>> introduce one more concept of similar kind.
>>
>> In relation to the field of Environment and Behavior, I personally  
>> believe that Barker has offered very useful ideas and they can  
>> become a stepping stone for developing the concept of activity  
>> setting. The activity setting concept will allow us to use the  
>> apparatus of activity theory which is more powerful than the concept  
>> of behavior. I also believe that the development of the activity  
>> setting theory for the fields of teaching or management or social  
>> work and community building will be somewhat different. Their focus  
>> will be different and this will lead to working on different  
>> details. As usual, it is not possible to study everything about one  
>> object of study. We have to make difficult choices regarding aspects  
>> and depth: what to study first, what to defer, and what to skip.
>>
>> Barker had a lot of conflicts with main stream psychologists (not  
>> activity theorists). I have heard from Bob Bechtel (a student of  
>> Barker) that psychologists were telling Barker: Roger, you think  
>> just like a sociologist, which in psychological parlance meant  
>> Roger, you are a SOB. This illustrates the disciplinary biases and  
>> divisions.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Lubomir
>>
>> Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.
>> School of Family and Consumer Sciences
>> American Culture Studies Affiliated Faculty
>> Bowling Green State University
>> 309 Johnston Hall,
>> Bowling Green, Ohio 43403-0059
>> Lspopov@bgsu.edu
>> 419.372.7835
>>     
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden