[Xmca-l] Re: Your views on a question.

Wed Jul 1 07:27:29 PDT 2020

I neglected to mention that Piaget described himself as a structuralist, for example in this book (recently republished):

Piaget, J. (1988). Structuralism. New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1970)

…which was reviewed here:

Turner, T. (1973). Piaget’s structuralism. American Anthropologist, 75(2), 351-373. 

…the text of which is available here:

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2016-07.dir/pdfyfYQIHEVQj.pdf <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2016-07.dir/pdfyfYQIHEVQj.pdf>

Martin

> On Jul 1, 2020, at 8:19 AM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
> 
> As far as developmental theorists are concerned, it is usually Piaget who is described as a structuralist. While for Saussure (the best known structuralist) the basic structures were binary oppositions, for Piaget the basic structures were sets, in the mathematical sense: elements and operations on elements. Like any structuralist, Piaget had some difficulties explaining change. Ironic for a developmentalist.
> 
> Vygotsky, with all his talk about processes (thinking, speaking) and functions (higher, lower) was clearly in a different camp.
> 
> I have more often seen Gestalt psychology described as ‘structural' than as 'structuralist.’
> 
> My 2 cents.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jul 1, 2020, at 1:44 AM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> David,
>>  
>> The term “structural” has many uses in academia that are not directly tied to the structural/poststructural issues under consideration. For instance, “structural psychology” is the name given to a theory of consciousness developed by Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener. Perhaps it also is used in relation to Gestalt psychology.
>>  
>> Valerie Walkerdine was referencing “traditional Marxist approaches to the relations of power within educational institutions,” not Marx’s writings, per se, though I’m confident she is very familiar with them. 
>>  
>> David
>>  
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 12:42 AM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Your views on a question.
>>  
>> David--
>>  
>> If we are talking about Vygotsky, "structuralist psychology" refers to the current we now call Gestaltism, and structuralist methods are in contrast to functional and to genetic methods.  As Halliday used to say function explains how structure changes, but only history can explain how function changes.  
>>  
>> I believe your man Walkerdine has not read Capital. Marx says:
>>  
>> "If we may take an example from outside the sphere of production of material objects, a schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation." (p. 359).
>>  
>> The views that Walkerdine lays out are essentially Rousseauvian and not Marxist at all. 
>>  
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>>  
>> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
>> Outlines, Spring 2020
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!R26CuXH8RzJcJx3UvQeD3IrDWL4KcOkhbGZXUw9yHSifwwi1--np42pOqS_e66umBTWACw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Ftidsskrift.dk*2Foutlines*2Farticle*2Fview*2F116238__*3B!!Mih3wA!TDxJs9RUMlrW2fxtGBwryS9dFWYit6bRlYXoxgQNSfd813N4HL5qJE37hr2lZBsur0sVrg*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C9e187a64bf7346e6804f08d81d825932*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637291792964041722&sdata=UTPxPAZytTAHRDkrZRZcB0X2l7x9ZlZrVNdwmwaZ0ZI*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!Mih3wA!VF8mLaihINlpIUBzJAuReskKhxNEd9m5HfpjbJwKnJUzVdovJ5pZzAMi_c_vuQtWaSyXkA$>
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R26CuXH8RzJcJx3UvQeD3IrDWL4KcOkhbGZXUw9yHSifwwi1--np42pOqS_e66tncOdgLA$ 
>>  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__https*3A*2F*2Fwww.springer.com*2Fgp*2Fbook*2F9789811505270__*3B!!Mih3wA!TDxJs9RUMlrW2fxtGBwryS9dFWYit6bRlYXoxgQNSfd813N4HL5qJE37hr2lZBsx2gTpzA*24&data=02*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C9e187a64bf7346e6804f08d81d825932*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637291792964051714&sdata=UeR0FSqphSDGYs*2BT6zjGMXHQU5duH6PTRXK13an5QvY*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!Mih3wA!VF8mLaihINlpIUBzJAuReskKhxNEd9m5HfpjbJwKnJUzVdovJ5pZzAMi_c_vuQug0Ik9fQ$>
>>  
>>  
>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:29 PM David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>> wrote:
>> Andy,
>> I’m not schooled in the technical definitions of structuralism or poststructuralism. From odd readings here and there (e.g., Walkerdine, 1990, quoted below), I come to a sense of structuralism as seeking to formulate overarching explanatory systems, and of poststructuralism as resisting universal perspectivizing. So, for instance, I take much of the history of the physical sciences and mathematics (predating the 20th century) to be structuralist ventures, with discovery of inherent limitations to those projects as embodied in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Russell’s Paradox, and Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem helping to give rise to poststructural thought. 
>> Returning to the interest Mike expressed in “transformational agency,” the following quote from Walkerdine helps me locate Marxism within the structuralist tradition, particularly as counterpoised with poststructural interpretations of liberation.
>> I shall draw
>> out certain contradictions for traditional Marxist approaches to the
>> relations of power within educational institutions. One such view is that
>> education, as a bourgeois institution, places teachers in a position of
>> power from which they can oppress children, who are institutionally
>> powerless. To somewhat overstate the case: the teacher, powerful in a
>> bourgeois educational institution, is in a position to oppress children,
>> whose resistance to that power, like all resistance, is understood as
>> ultimately progressive rather than contradictory. Children's movements
>> have tended to understand resistance in terms of 'rights' or 'liberation'.
>> Similarly, certain feminist accounts have used the psychological concepts
>> of 'role' and 'stereotype' to understand women and girls as unitary
>> subjects whose economic dependence, powerlessness and physical weak-
>> ness are reflected in their production as 'passive' , 'weak' , and
>> 'dependent' individuals. While such accounts have been extremely
>> important in helping to develop Marxist and feminist practices, I want to
>> pinpoint some of the reasons why such analyses might not be as helpful
>> as we might previously have supposed in understanding the phenomena
>> presented here. I want to show, using examples from classroom practice,
>> that both female teachers and small girls are not unitary subjects uniquely
>> positioned, but are produced as a nexus of subjectivities, in relations of
>> power which are constantly shifting, rendering them at one moment
>> powerful and at another powerless. 2
>> Additionally, I want to argue that while an understanding of resist-
>> ance is clearly important, we cannot read every resistance as having
>> revolutionary effects; sometimes resistances have 'reactionary' effects.
>> Resistance is not just struggle against the oppression of a static power
>> (and therefore potentially revolutionary simply because it is struggle
>> against the monolith); relations of power and resistance are continually
>> reproduced, in continual struggle and constantly shifting. (Walkerdine, 1990, pp. 2-3)
>>  
>> 2. For example, see criticisms of the notion of the unitary subject of psychology and
>> the assertion of the necessity for an understanding of individuals as a 'nexus of
>> subjectivities' in Adlam, et al, '
>>  
>> Walkerdine, V. (1990). Chapter 1: Sex, power and pedagogy. In V. Walkerdine (Ed.), Schoolgirl fictions (pp. 3-15). London: Verso. Reprinted from Screen Education, 38, 14-24, 1981.
>>  
>> David
>>  
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