Peggy Bengel
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Mind, Culture, and Activity
Volume 5, No. 1
Abstracts
Reappropriating Schema: Conceptions of Development From
Bartlett to Bakhtin
Diane E. Beals
Bartlett posited the theory of schema as the organization and
development of mind. His work pointed to the organismic (not
mechanistic), active (not passive) nature of mind. Bartlett also
emphasized the importance of social and cultural influences on
schema, although he tended to view "social group" as a one-
dimensional entity. Bakhtin, with his emphasis on mind as
constructed socially through dialogue within multiple words and
worlds, has provided a remedy to this problem. His view of
appropriation, in which we take the words and utterances of
others, reworking them for our own purposes, connects well with
Bartlett's schema. Together, the two views provide a powerful
portrait of the organization and development of mind as dynamic,
organismic, and dialogic.
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The Concept of Breakdown in Heidegger, Leont'ev, and Dewey
and Its Implications for Education
Timothy Koschmann
Kari Kuutti
Larry Hickman
Heidegger, Leont'ev, and Dewey held surprisingly similar views
on the role of breakdown or failure as a means of revealing the
nature of the world around us. For Heidegger, the resources by
which we conduct our day-to-day activities do not usually
require our conscious awareness. If our ongoing activity is
blocked, however, this "transparency of equipment" is dispelled
forcing a more deliberate mode of action. Leont'ev's
development of breakdown hinges on the analytic distinction
he makes among Activities, Actions, and Operations. When the
necessary conditions for an Operation are absent, the chain of
Operations becomes transformed ("unfolded") back into a
sequence of independent Actions. Dewey's notion of breakdown
is related to his views on sensory excitation, stimulus and
response, and the habit-formation function in the lives of
complex organisms. Implications of these three models for
learning and instruction are developed.
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Unit of Analysis in Transit: From the
Individual's Knowledge to the Ensemble Process
Nira Granott
Many researchers view development as evolving through
interaction between the individual and the social environment.
Successive units of analysis, previously suggested in the
literature, gave increasing access to studying development from
this perspective. However, a few conceptual and practical
difficulties in the application of these units remain unresolved.
This article suggests a different unit of analysis, the ensemble.
The ensemble is the smallest group of individuals who directly
interact with one another during developmental processes related
to a specific activity-context. Like the musical ensemble, the
developmental ensemble is characterized by the interdependence
and interrelation between the development of its members. As a
unit, the ensemble has several advantages. One, it accommodates
the dynamic social constellations that form and change within
social settings during unconstrained developmental processes.
Two, the unit is objective and clearly identifiable. Three, the
underlying structure and dynamics of ensemble processes
indicate how development occurs through social interaction and
can be compared across ages, activities, and cultures. Ensemble
processes allow the dynamic systems approach to be used in the
study of development, focusing on interactive systems and on
their dynamic processes. These attributes of the ensemble are
analyzed and demonstrated by findings of a study on collaborative
problem solving.