Re: Ch 5

From: Judith Diamondstone (diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 15 2001 - 10:20:35 PDT


Aha! Bill, my apologies. I wasn't paying attention; I would have forwarded.
I saw 'xmca' on the 'cc' line of the message you sent earlier.

Speaking as a potential user of AT, I hope that reports of LBE-based/your
work make the various steps of the research process visible.

Judy

At 07:29 AM 6/15/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>Checking the archives, the following seems not to have been posted over the
>last couple of days -- apologies if it actually has been. But persistence
is a
>valuable strategy, so here is another attempt:
>
>My work is drawing fairly heavily upon the methodology laid out in chapter 5.
>At present I have decided to immerse myself and surroundings in activity
theory
>-- bringing the processes and language to bear in as many situations as
>possible. This includes (1) participation in a university-wide academic
>planning process on assessment, (2) program redesign meetings, (3) a grant
>awarded to a colleague that aims to introduce computational modeling
curriculum
>in the university, and of course (4) two case studies that I have initiated
>relating the university to schools through two different kinds of
partnerships.
> The first two, perhaps three, situations are not intended as systematic
>approaches to the transformation of the environment in which I work, but
rather
>are the focused and deliberate externalization of a desperation that grows
with
>recent and local changes -- far from an intellectual terrorism (it is my
strong
>displeasure to use adversarial terms ;-). The side effect being some
personal
>growth in facility with theory, its articulation, and application. The
system
>is so "ripe" to accept a framework that will provide a handle on systemic
>issues, that in the third situation the uptake was immediate and led to
>inclusion of my preliminary analysis in a presentation at recent meetings in
>D.C.:
>
>http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/e/
>
>[This paragraph describes briefly some modifications I have made to the
>extended activity system model in the URL above and can be skipped.] The
>"community" category with this "ultra-institution" (nice phrase, Mike)
must be
>interpreted, as Paul recognized in an earlier posting, to be sliding towards
>gesellschaft, away from gemeinschaft, characterizing the alienation that
>accompanies systemic movement towards partitioned, stratified, and
hierarchical
>organization. "Social and Cognitive Structures" is a rephrasing of the
category
>"rules" to provide a form that is more receptive to the detailed
description of
>individual development (IMHO Yrjo, we still have much more work to
complete on
>this aspect, and private communications are to follow, hopefully soon)
>
>It should also be mentioned that I have been reading the book "Schooling in
>Capitalist America". (As the authors apologize, their book is only having to
>do with the United States. But, as such, the title captures the disposition
>held widely across the U.S. that the two terms are synonymous, and this
>disposition is part of what constitutes the U.S. culture of schooling. The
>title is provided as a tribute to how deeply cultural imperialism is embedded
>in the collective consciousness of the country). Reading this book comes in
>part from my need to weave more delicately into an activity theoretical
>analysis of education the economics of schooling that has been primarily
>missing in contemporary US educational research. (This relates to a case
study
>of a school in a county with a high level of poverty) The book takes an
>historical and dialectic approach to understanding the culture of schooling -
>and being well researched, it has been useful thus far, and quite radical in
>view, even though it is 25 years old. The prime point of the book is that
>there is a correspondence principle relating the structure of schooling to
the
>structure of capitalist society -- that the structures are not only similar,
>but that schooling in the US reproduces and legitimatizes the inequalities,
>especially economic inequalities, that exists in society. Consequently,
>schools are resistant to change because of their embeddedness in larger
>petrified societal economic structures that are not democratic (even
though the
>political structures may be). The authors claim that reforms and theories
that
>ignore these economic relations and will have little effect on change.
My gut
>instinct here is that there is a lot of work that the authors have done that
>CHAT (applied to U.S. schooling research) can benefit from, and the basis in
>dialectics should help with translations of former to the arena of the
latter.
>
>A side comment about the dearth of respect that tradition carries for
applied
>studies in the social sciences -- in education it seems to be something
quite
>different happening. There is a great deal of work day to day occurring
within
>institutions that is "theory-free" -- and it is recognized by some
researchers
>( Tyack and Cuban for example) that discourse among teachers often includes
>very little theoretical content except of the personal kind. This is not
to be
>taken as disparaging of teachers. I count many friends among teachers and
many
>more who have my deep respect. Rather, I think it's a testimony to the
>unimportance of 'in-the-head' cognitive theories that do not account for the
>social, material (technological), and economic dimensions of schooling that
>practitioners face in their day to day work.
>
>Ok so -- the major weakness that a contender (known as "design experiment"),
>to the developmental research laid out in chapter 5, displays is its singular
>basis on cognitive theory, to the exclusion of other developments in the
social
>sciences. For example, the development of design experiment methodology, to
>the best of my knowledge, ignores Bronfenbrenner's work on ecological
validity
>and reciprocality. Ironically the term "design science" purveys the facade of
>science's success in shaping engineering practices, while ignoring science
>itself as an historical, accumulative, and diversified ensemble of
experimental
>and theoretical strategies, technologies, and conceptualizations. With
such a
>narrow foundation, for example, it is possible to delineate and articulate
>independent and dependent variables on learning outcomes. Consequently, the
>focus is primarily on cognitive skills, and an approach thus defined never
>comes to fully challenge the culture of schooling, and instead propagates the
>deep technocratic-meritocratic structures that energize it. Furthermore, the
>methodology being blind to the ecology and economy of schooling, it is not
>possible for many teachers to participate in design experiments, and so while
>wide-spread tinkering is not possible, perhaps it is only for those Ph.D.
>candidates who can muster the resources and overcome the two major
constraints
>imposed by U.S. society, i.e. money and time.
>
>I do not necessarily find that the specific sequences Yrjo provides as ideal
>must be followed for developmental researchers, but that indeed, inclusion of
>each of the steps described improves the richness of the work that can be
done.
> As Mike has pointed out, systems come to the point where problems,
>contradictions, become salient to everyone, or nearly so, and this is the
>situation faced by my co-author, Cindy Jouper, in our joint study of change
>with her and her school. One of the greatest difficulties faced is what
to do
>about such systemic problems, the key word being 'systemic' meaning that
>resolution demands complex and coordinated developments by and of the many
>people and of the many things that constitute the system. So it would seem
>that it is necessary for the creation of new instruments to be systemically
>oriented, to lead to comprehensive reforms. Unless there is experience in
the
>system to do so, I think that this is far from being guaranteed -- in Cindy's
>situation, she appropriated the fruits of systemic change experience from
>another institution, ESD113. Still, however, the constraints of the county's
>economic basis militate strongly against the sustainability of an approach
that
>encompasses only the school system.
>
>(The working paper can be accessed at
>http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Raymond.pdf)
>
>What I think is special about the change lab approach is the use of such
>instruments as the expanded model to help the people who constitute the
system
>to comprehend and conceptualize it and its processes of development. It
is the
>vision, and the process of envisioning, that the expanded model and the
>expansive cycle, as instruments, make possible -- in asking "what is wrong?"
>people can address "what do we want to do" and begin to map out a path to get
>there -- these instruments mediate the collective zone of proximal
development,
>by providing a selective mirror through which an institution can see its
>future. There are some contrasts to Senge's approach that are useful to
make,
>and extend the vein that I have started mining. First, Senge does promote
the
>creation of instruments, such as through modeling, that can lead to systemic
>developments. The modeling promoted is termed "system dynamics" and there
are
>some well thought out connections to mathematics and using computational
tools
>that makes economic modeling possible and highly productive. That many
>institutions have ignored the economic basis of their functioning in a
systemic
>view, or leave economic considerations to a few individuals, is part and
parcel
>of the problems institutions face in a capitalist society, where the division
>of labor become highly fragmented, and where change necessarily includes
>economic transformations. System dynamic modeling helps people to see, in
>causal and varied degrees of quantitative description, what their system is
>like -- and where to look for leverage points of change, and this is its
>greatest affordance. Unfortunately, the qualitative transformations that are
>necessary to enact change, to envision a new model -- hence a new
structure --
>are not addressed very well in Senge's work at all. But these ARE the
>strengths of the expansive learning model.
>
>I disagree with Diane that CHAT universalizes conformity and normalcy --
rather
>CHAT has provided a mediational tool for a researcher to account for, and
>model, major patterns in activity systems, which tend to be more universal
>(within a particular ensemble of cultures/societies) and so also defining of
>what is normal. CHAT goes further in describing how these systems break
down,
>i.e. the basis in Marx's work provide a way to account for how people become
>alienated from their activity -- and thus what it is that sets the stage for
>the break from normalcy. Conformity is an essential attribute of capitalist
>systems, (though not limited to capitalist systems) and it seems that any CH
>activity theoretical analysis would necessarily reveal what are the rules by
>which a system functions -- this does not mean that CHAT promotes conformity,
>but recognizes what exists. It would seem to me that is is a highly useful
>step in subsequently identifying what is different, and the challenge as Yrjo
>has put in one of his change lab papers is how diversity can be recognized
with
>such a framework. I interpret this is a call for what instruments, what
forms
>and models can be constructed that will contribute to richer
conceptualizations
>of systems in which diversity is to be valued.
>
>BTW, the marx/heaven joke was great.
>
>bb
>
>
>=====
>"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
>[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
>
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