disabilities under construction

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 09:33:13 PST


That is some grim portrait you paint, Scot, but it fits with the lead
story in the "Monitor'" the magazine/newsletter of the American Psych
Association. It basically makes the claim that it will be possible to
base instruction on knowledge of brain patterns for distinct populations.

What makes all of this interesting theoretically to me is that the sort
of chat perspective I hold to takes really seriously the idea that humans
are hybrids of the phylogenetic and cultural-historical, so all differential
diagnoses are suspect in the individual case, except perhaps in very
extreme cases. We know that learning disabilities is a garbage category
and we know a lot about its social construction at several levels of the
system. That constructive process is not working on nothing. It is working
on structuration that has deep phylogenetic roots.

This same characteristic makes for a lot of very difficult and murkey
debates about useful ways to deal with the obvious variability in children
who enter the formal educational system.

Scott-- An article on these topics ought to find a friendly home in the
joural titled "Mind, culture, and activity." :-)

Thanks, Virginia, for bringing the topic to our attention. Sorry to be
flakey in responding, but life is like that these days.
mike



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