[Xmca-l] Re: Sociocritical Literacies and more context

[Kris Gutierrez]

Annalisa, Manuel initiated the last uptake. (I think others have clarified that now :)  

Mike C., Miguel Zavala, Larry Purss and I posted some thoughts before the holidays.  For me it is useful to connect Manuel’s recent post to those earlier thoughts/conversations. 

Some very quick very unedited thoughts following up on Manuel’s post:  

Michael G., Mike C. correctly points out that the testimonios/autobiographies were not research techniques but generative tools that were indeed a part of the interconnected set of practices that created a collective zoped—a third space if you will.  I try to elaborate this idea in the Scribner Lecture piece (sociocritical literacies).  My own work on Third Space, the collective work of the instructional team of MSI, ongoing conversations with Mike C. and Yrjo over the years at the lab, and their work certainly informed this idea of a collective zoped, collective third space  (See Engeström, 1987, 1994 in particular; Nicolopoulou & Cole, 1993; Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003; Tuomi- Gröhn, Engeström, & Young, 2003; Chaiklin, 2003, Moll, 1990; Moll & Greenberg, 1990 as key examples that certainly inform this work as well. And LSV and Bakhtin are ever present).  These, I think, are useful references, all cited in the article. Shirin Vossoughi’s recent MCA piece also is very relevant to this discussion.

Some relevant excerpts from the sociocritical article, 

"To illustrate these points and their relation to a collective
Third Space, let us examine the MSLI more closely.
The activity system, the MSLI, has a specific internal
logic organized around expanding the students’ sociohistorical
and educational ecology through the collective
imagining of a new educational and sociopolitical future.
To avoid the “interactional reductionism implicit
in much Vygotskian-inspired research” (Nicolopoulou &
Cole, 1993, p. 284), the specific interactions and practices
of the MSLI are understood as what Nicolopoulou
and Cole call a “genuinely collective reality” (p. 284).

Here we see the [Migrant] institute as an example of the Third
Space, a collective zo-ped, at the larger level of activity
the object of which is the sociohistorical reconstruction
of what it means to be a migrant student. This movement
involves a process of becoming conscious “historical
actors” (Espinoza, 2003) who invoke the past in
order to re-mediate it so that it becomes a resource for
current and future action (p. 154)." 

Testimonios and their embodiment in Teatro del Oprimido (Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed that Manuel introduced to us and the program and that he and Vossoughi elaborated) were key means of developing/inciting a new social and pedagogical imagination and for imagining new futures with/for the migrant students, their communities, and indeed for all of us, as Manuel so thoughtfully writes. Teatro served as a collective problem-solving space—a space where the playful imagination helped to make inequities and the roots of social problems visible, while providing an opportunity to re-frame events, re-mediate and enact an imagined future collectively (such as flying collectively/social dreaming).  I hope Manuel and Shirin jump in and elaborate these thoughts.

Re: Research design:  For me, Migrant was in Yrjo and Mike's approach, a formative experiment; what I term social design experiments—a designed based research approach that foregrounds equity, diversity, historicity, and re-mediation, for example. As Susan Jurow and I wrote and presented at the ICLS conference this summer (a piece that we expect will be part of a larger set of papers with Mike C., Yrjo and Annalisa, and Bill Penuel), social design experiments: aim to make possible a sustainable and dignified life for all humans; address the challenges of leveraging cultural diversity and reducing social inequality; and call for the co-design of new tools and futures with members of non-dominant communities, as but a few key design principles. 

     Absolutely, research as re-searching—searching for the answer to a question you have searched for repeatedly without success! Well said, Miguel Cole! Thanks, for your thoughts, Michael Glassman! 

     more on sociocritical literacies, later.   kris

      
 




Kris Gutierrez
gutierkd@gmail.com

Kris D. Gutiérrez
Professor
Graduate School of Education
5629 Tolman Hall #1670
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720-1670

Distinguished Professor
Learning Sciences and Literacy
School of Education
University of Colorado, Boulder
 

> On Dec 30, 2014, at 9:50 AM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> Sorry for being silly here, but I couldn't help but see that so far on this thread, there have been appearances by:
> 
> mike, Annalisa, Michael, Luisa, and Miguel!
> 
>