critical events

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Wed, 10 Jan 96 00:57:26 EST

I would be grateful to Isak Froumin for some further elaboration
on the relation of micro-macro issues to the examination of
'critical points' or events in Vygotsky.

I can certainly imagine that there are some micro or local
events, as in the development of an individual, the trajectory of
a life, when we might see a stronger, more consequential shaping
of individual habitus into conformity with some larger social
pattern. These could well be critical events in shaping, say, our
gender identity, our social class dispositions, our commitment to
some cultural worldview (scientific, ideological, philosophical,
religious), etc.

But how do we identify these events? Do we not need to already
have some macrosocial hypothesis about what is a 'larger social
pattern' in order to see an event as critical to someone's
developing participation in it? If we have even just a weak or
vague hypothesis of this kind, perhaps studying such events can
help us better understand more specifically what the pattern is,
as well as how it may come to matter in our own lives and those
close to us? JAY.

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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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