[Xmca-l] Re: units of analysis?
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Sun Oct 12 22:42:31 PDT 2014
As Julian said, a perezhivanie is a "unity of the person and their
environment," that is, a unity (or relation) between a mind (for it is
not the soma we are talking about, but the personality) and the material
world outside the skin, between internal and external, mind and matter,
objective and subjective.
To say "relation" makes it sound a lot less like a contradiction. To say
"unity" brings out the contradiction, because subjective and objective,
mind and matter, are opposites and supposedly cannot be united. But
united they are, in the formation of the personality and in experiences.
"United" because it is a real process, not just a relation. "Unity" is
the right term, but those of us who have been raised on Set Theory and
Formal Logic, to ensure that it is not too offensive to our common
sense, it is best to say "relation".
The contradiction is also in what I said before: it entails the whole of
the person and the whole of the environment/world (5thD and the Iraq
War), and yet it is a quite specific and finite relation (it didn't
involve the War in Rwanda). It involves the whole world because it could
involve *anything* in the world; the environment is unbounded. It
involves the whole person because it is an experience of a person, not
of an emotion or any other post facto abstraction. And yet, its impact
is quite specific.
It involves the whole person, and yet it is wrong to say that it is a
unity of cognition and affect, because it is a whole, and only as a
result of reflection (auto- or hetero-) can moments of cognition,
affect, attention, be isolated.
Is that enough "contradictions" for you, Mike?
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
mike cole wrote:
> Fascinating Andy.
>
> And for perezhivanie how does it work?
>
> mike
>
> On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 9:51 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> Martin, I think it is nothing more than the limitations of a
> metaphor - it can only illustrate one aspect of the target. In
> this case it is simply saying that a quantity of water is just
> thousands H2O molecules, and nothing else. No addition is required
> to manifest all the properties of water.
>
> You would have to be a chemist to know the forces that bind the H
> and OH together and how they can be separated, H containing a
> positive charge and OH containing a negative charge - a good old
> positive/negative contradiction. All chemicals with the H ion are
> acids and all chemicals with the OH ion are alkali, but water is
> both acid and base and therefore neither. *If you want* the water
> molecule is a tangle of contradictions and transformations, along
> with Carbon, the foundation of the chemistry of life. :)
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> Martin John Packer wrote:
>
> Good question, Mike! What you're pointing out is that LSV's
> own example doesn't quite do justice to his analysis in T&L.
> Water is not a dynamic system: once hydrogen bonds with oxygen
> the process stops: water is a stable molecule. He should have
> picked an example in which an internal tension or clash of
> some kind provides a continual motor for change.
>
> In somewhat the same way, I'm trying to figure out how a
> triangle is dynamic. It's one of the most stable geometric
> shapes. :)
>
> Martin
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 10:26 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu
> <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Martin. What is the contradiction between hydrogen and
> oxygen such that two
> atoms of hydrogen combined with one atom of oxygen give
> rise to water with
> its distinctive qualities? Knowing that should help people
> to rise to the
> concrete for their own cases.
> mike
>
> On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Martin John Packer
> <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co <mailto:mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
>
>
> wrote:
> Well, if it works for you, Helena..! :)
>
> Clearly Yrjo does claim that the triangle represents a
> dynamic system with
> contradictions. I'm still reading the chapter that
> Mike linked to, and I
> already some questions. But I'll wait until I read it
> all before posting.
>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 6:10 PM, Helena Worthen
> <helenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On the contrary.
>
> To me, that very affordance is one of the great
> things about activity
>
>
> theory and the activity system as a unit of analysis.
> A very simple example
> is that if you change something in the
> norms/customs/laws/history corner of
> the triangle (like win a court case that gives you a
> stronger footing in
> bargaining), then your tools also change. Another: if
> by bringing new
> members into the community (the base of the triangle)
> out of which division
> of labor raises the subjects, you may find yourself
> with a leadership team
> that is not all white, or not all primarily
> English-speaking, which in turn
> will change what tools/resources you have and may, if
> you're lucky and
> quick, change your history.
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>
>
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 2:54 PM, Martin John Packer wrote:
>
>
>
> And what's neat about this way of thinking is
> that it implies that,
>
>
> once one understands the relationships among the
> components, one can bring
> about changes in one component in the totality by
> acting on *another*
> component of the totality.
>
>
> The activity system triangle does not suggest
> to me this type of
>
>
> relationship among components. Instead, it seems to
> represent elements that
> are only accidentally brought together.
>
>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 2:43 PM, Martin John Packer <
>
>
> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co
> <mailto:mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>> wrote:
>
>
> Seems to me the problem in many research
> projects is that the question
>
>
> is not formulated in an appropriate way. LSV was
> exploring a method of
> analysis that seeks to understand the relationship
> among components in a
> complex totality. Not the causal influence of one
> factor on another, which
> is often how students frame their research interest.
> And this means that
> the unit of analysis has to represent, exemplify, this
> relationship.
>
>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 1:31 PM, Helena
> Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com
> <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>>
>
>
> wrote:
>
>
> As someone who uses the concept of
> "unit of analysis" in a very
>
>
> down-to-earth, quick and dirty, applied way to shape
> collective responses
> to a crisis in a labor and employment relationships
> (like, when a rule
> changes creates difficulties for workers), I would
> agree with Andy:
>
>
> The other thing is that
> discovering a unit of analysis is an
>
>
> *insight*. It
>
>
> is not something that can be
> achieved by following a template,
> it is
>
>
> the
>
>
> breakthrough in your research into
> some problem, the leap. It
>
>
> usually comes
>
>
> *after* you've collected all the
> data for your research using some
>
>
> other
>
>
> unit of analysis.
>
>
> First comes the story, the details,
> the experiences. The question
>
>
> lying behind the telling of the stories is, "What are
> we going to do?" The
> unit of analysis gets defined by the purpose we are
> trying to accomplish.
> Are we trying to get the employer to back off
> temporarily? Are we trying
> get the rule changed? Example: In a big hospital
> system in Chicago,
> clerical workers were no longer allowed to leave an
> "I'm going to be late
> to work today" or "I have to stay home with my sick
> kid today and will miss
> work" message on the answering machines of their
> supervisors. We're talking
> about a workforce with hundreds of employees, most of
> them middle aged
> minority women -- with grandchildren and extended
> families to be
> responsible for. Not being allowed to leave a message
> on a machine, but
> being required to actually speak to a supervisor in
> person who would then
> keep a record of the call, was a problem because
> supervisors were often
> away from their desks and the whole phone system was
> unreliable. Also, a
> lot of workers didn't have cell phones at the time
> this was happening
> (2004) and pay phones are few and far between, so if
> someone it out buying
> more asthma inhalers for a grandkid, making a phone
> call is not easy.
>
>
> So, exactly what is the purpose that
> we're trying to accomplish,
>
>
> here? To repeal the rule? To fix the phone system?
> To educate members of
> the union and other others about how to respond
> collectively to something
> that only affects some of them? To make a profound
> change in society so
> that middle-aged women are not the primary caretakers
> of an extended
> family? Pick one. Once you've picked one (hopefully,
> one that you can
> carry out) you can define the unit of analysis and
> then reviewing the whole
> Engestrom triangle and evaluating your strategy
> becomes, as Andy says, a
> matter of solving puzzles.
>
>
> >From the employer point of view,
> asking workers to actually speak to
>
>
> a live supervisor makes a certain sense. That's why we
> talk about activity
> system(s), not just one activity system. But they are
> often in conflict
> with each other, which adds to the drama.
>
>
> Is the data in your study being
> gathered with some purpose in mind?
>
>
> Is the purpose the purpose of the children, the
> purpose of the class, or
> the purpose of the PhdD program? To me, what would be
> most interesting
> would be a comparison between the unit of analysis
> (purposes of children)
> and unit of analysis (purpose of classroom). I'll bet
> they're not identical.
>
>
> Helena
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>
>
> On Oct 12, 2014, at 10:20 AM, Katerina
> Plakitsi wrote:
>
>
>
> This problem of the ' unit of
> analysis' is my concern too. I
>
>
> supervise
>
>
> three PHD students on Science
> Education in a CHAT context. Two of
>
>
> them on
>
>
> early childhood science education
> and one on primary science. They
>
>
> have
>
>
> collected log files, children
> discourses consisted of
> scientific justifications,
> accepted rules, and forms of
> division of
>
>
> labor.
>
>
> They have collected children
> narratives, and drawings. When they
>
>
> decided to
>
>
> analyze their data they follow
> different paths into CHAT context
>
>
> mainly
>
>
> modeling them using Engestrom's
> triangle. They still doubt about the
>
>
> " unit
>
>
> of analysis".
>
> Στις Κυριακή, 12 Οκτωβρίου 2014, ο
> χρήστης Andy Blunden <
>
>
> ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
>
>
> έγραψε:
>
>
>
> Katie, picking up on your
> concern about units of
> analysis, it was
>
>
> one of
>
>
> the points I mentioned in my
> "report" from ISCAR, that this
> concept
>
>
> was
>
>
> almost lost to us. A phrase I
> heard a lot, and which was new for
>
>
> me, was
>
>
> "unit to be analysed." If
> anyone knows the origin of this
>
>
> expression, I'd
>
>
> be interested in hearing. It
> seemed to me that what it
> referred to
>
>
> was a
>
>
> "closed system" for analysis,
> that is, abandoning CHAT
> methodology
>
>
> whilst
>
>
> keeping the word. If I am
> mistaken about this, please
> let me know.
>
> The other thing is that
> discovering a unit of analysis
> is an
>
>
> *insight*. It
>
>
> is not something that can be
> achieved by following a
> template, it
>
>
> is the
>
>
> breakthrough in your research
> into some problem, the leap. It
>
>
> usually comes
>
>
> *after* you've collected all
> the data for your research
> using some
>
>
> other
>
>
> unit of analysis. In Kuhn's
> terms, discovery of the unit
> is the new
> paradigm, after which it is
> just a matter of solving
> puzzles. So for
> graduate students to use the
> concept of unit in their research,
>
>
> often
>
>
> depends on the wisdom of teh
> direction they get from their
>
>
> supervisor. I
>
>
> don't know how many PhD
> students I've met who have got
> to this
>
>
> point in
>
>
> their thesis and discover that
> the data they have is not the data
>
>
> they now
>
>
> know they need.
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> Katherine Wester Neal wrote:
>
>
>
> I like Holli's plan to
> commit some time to
> reading the two
>
>
> articles. But,
>
>
> as usual, I don't know
> that I'll have much to
> contribute in posts.
>
>
> I
>
>
> usually get deep in
> thinking about the posts
> and don't follow that
>
>
> through
>
>
> to write something. The
> writing is much harder,
> and I am usually
>
>
> just
>
>
> trying to keep up with
> reading!
>
> For me, the thread has
> been fascinating, probably
> because I'm
>
>
> interested
>
>
> in different units of
> analysis, what they might
> be used for, and
>
>
> how they
>
>
> fit together with theory
> and conducting research.
> What are people
>
>
> doing
>
>
> with units of analysis and
> why? Or why aren't units
> of analysis
>
>
> being used?
>
>
> If anyone wants to write
> more in that direction,
> I'd be very
>
>
> interested to
>
>
> read, and I'll try to
> respond, although the
> questions might be as
>
>
> basic as
>
>
> these.
>
> Lastly, Andy has basically
> been articulating my
> thoughts (in a
>
>
> much more
>
>
> eloquent way than I would)
> about action as a unit of
> analysis. In
>
>
> Mike's
>
>
> example about driving and
> thinking and writing, I'd
> add that the
>
>
> action is
>
>
> mediated. Together with
> sociocultural and
> historical factors that
> influenced those actions
> (and which, as has been
> said here before,
>
>
> are
>
>
> often difficult to get a
> look at), the actions
> create a picture of
>
>
> much
>
>
> more than just Mike's
> behavior.
> Katie
>
> Katie Wester-Neal
> University of Georgia
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> ............................................................
> Katerina Plakitsi
> Associate Professor of Science
> Education
> School of Education
> University of Ioannina
> University Campus Dourouti 45110
> Ioannina
> Greece
> tel. +302651005771
> fax. +302651005842
> mobile.phone +306972898463
>
> http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits
> http://erasmus-ip.uoi.gr
> http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural
> science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
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