What causes development, Steve?
Your question goes to the heart of all developmental/cultural-historical
analysis.
Can you bring the question back to Kevin's paper and perhaps see if the two
approaches he contrasts contrast in terms of how they think about the
process
(causes?) of change?
Reading a luria article that Martin has sent me back to while pretending to
work,
and am reminded to check out why Kevin's video is not posted!
mike
On 7/3/06, Steve Gabosch <sgabosch@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> A recent series of classes in "root cause analysis" at my aerospace
> company has gotten me thinking about how CHAT views causality, and
> what tools it uses to analyze it. It is possible that CHAT could use
> a leap forward in this area. Does it have a conscious methodology
> regarding causality? The complex questions Mike raises about the
> sociocultural, the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic is a very good
> example. How does one understand how they interact and transform one
> another? How does CHAT understand these processes in a broader
> picture of causes and effects? In the case Mike describes, what
> "caused" or what were the "causes" for a bright and willing graduate
> student in mathematical psychology in the late 1950's to have
> "trouble" with the deep math? His community of practice? His prior
> training? His neurology? His inner romantic scientist? :-)) We ask
> these kinds of questions again and again of every human every
> day. CHAT, following Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev et al has made
> strides explaining essential elements and relationships in
> *development*. But what has it discovered about *causality*?
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 08:32 PM 7/1/2006 -0700, you wrote:
> >How about both-and? If a kid has downs syndrome or spina bifida or a
> >perinatal stroke it is a difference that is very difficult to avoid
> having
> >be a difference
> >that makes a difference. Not impossible to incorporate into human society
> in
> >a human
> >way, but not easy either.
> >
> >Being short at the wrong age?
> >"Too thin" for sociocultural norms?
> >"Wrong" color hair?
> >
> >All differences that can be turned into serious deficits and often are,
> with
> >long term
> >negative consequences for those so interpreted.
> >
> >None of this negates the fact (if I may be allowed to use that word) that
> >failure has been constituitive
> >of formal schooling since at least 4000BC, on the record. But it does
> >complicate theories that assume
> >that humans have "broken free" from phylogenetic constraints. That was
> wrong
> >in 1920 and it is wrong
> >today. Humans are evolving. Evolving in a cultural medium, to be sure,
> but
> >evolving.
> >
> >I do not think this was Kevin's main target of inquiry and do not want to
> >derail the conversation. I was
> >marking time and voicing a long time concern, not direcrected
> specifically
> >to his article but to some
> >too-frequent implications derivable/derived from theoretical ideas that
> were
> >imbricated in his article.
> >
> >mike
> >
> >On 7/1/06, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>At 10:43 AM 1/07/2006 -0400, you wrote:
> >> >.... What I was trying to foreground is this: Failure, incompetence,
> >> >inability, etc., happen all the time. There are differences, though,
> in
> >> >how consequences of these get organized in different systems of social
> >> >relations. Some systems are benign, and even if certain displayed
> >> >inabilities might preclude particular life courses, they don't get
> used
> >>to
> >> >close off the possibility or likelihood of a desirable and valued
> future
> >> >in general. Other systems are not benign, and displayed incompetence,
> >> >inability, or failure do get used to greatly reduce the likelihood of
> a
> >> >valued future. I think it's very important to pay attention to how
> >> >systems of social relations organize these consequences - ...
> >>
> >>So it's not so much the source or cause of difference, but how
> difference
> >>is "interpreted"?
> >>
> >>Andy
> >>
> >>
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>
>
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