Reification of Artifacts in Ideological Practice
NAOKI UENO
National Institute for Educational Research, Tokyo
This introduction serves to frame theoretically two research studies in
this issue which explore the social and situational construction of
literacy and numeracy as embedded in practice. The author argues that
the ÒrealityÓ of cultural artifacts is socially constructed and
reconstructed in a process of ideological practice. Ideological practice
reifies the ÒformÓ of artifacts such that the tool and the human
relations associated with its use gain ÒmaterialityÓ which is powerful
and tangible in spite of a lack of physical grounding. The form of
artifacts reflects the form of social organization in which actual
practice and artifacts socially organize each other in a reciprocal and
non-deterministic manner.
The Social Construction of Reality in the Artifacts of Numeracy for
Distribution and Exchange in a Nepalese Bazaar
NAOKI UENO
National Institute for Educational Research, Tokyo
This study explores street mathematics as they are embedded in the
context of a governmental reorganization of the Nepalese bazaar. The
forced introduction of the metric system caused merchants to organize a
practice of mathematical conversions whereby the old system of
measurement could be coordinated with the new allowing the
merchants to comply with government requirements while responding
to the publicÕs distrust of the new system. The author argues that the
invention and social organization of new artifacts for conversion from
the old to the new system permitted the authority of the old system of
measurement to be reconstructed in the new metric system. The social
organization of the new system was an ideological practice which
eventually ÒreifiedÓ or made real the new cultural artifacts in actual
contexts of the institutionalized practice of distribution and exchange.
Social Rules in Practice: "Legal" Literacy Practice in Nepalese
Agricultural Village Communities
YASUKO KAWATOKO
Daito Bunka University, Japan
This research study explores the development of new literacy practices
in the context of wet-rice farming in Nepal. Designated Òlegal literacyÓ
by the author, the new practice is socially organized around communal
irrigation and involves the social construction of the ÒrealityÓ of new
relations between the farmers as well as the establishment of social
rules which are codified in a Òrulebook.Ó The ideological practice which
establishes the materiality and authority of the new social rules and the
rulebook permits them to work as resources for the resolution of
disputes and for the collaborative management of water, labor,
scheduling and compensation for land appropriated for the water
system. In establishing the development of legal literacy as situational
as well as social, the author compares the infrastructural features and
ideological achievement of two villages.
Sociocultural Change, Activity, and Individual
Development: Some Methodological Aspects
KING BEACH
Michigan State University
This piece which introduces an article in this issue proposes a
methodology for studying individual learning and development related
to sociocultural change.1 The author argues that the mediating function
of activity affords a new methodology that allows the study of
sociogenetic-ontogenetic relations without having to resort to
reductionism or Cartesian dualism. The tri-part methodology involves 1)
Simulation by selecting key activities that can be constrained and
arranged in sequence to model changes in society, and by that same
sequence of activities, induce learning and development; 2)
Heterochronicity which looks comparatively at the histories and
timeframes of various activities in a research site as well as the
comparative histories and timeframes of particular activities and the
lives of different generations of the research population in the interest
of identifying periods of rapid societal change, and 3) Leading activity
which is co-determined by the point in an individualÕs developmental
history at which she participates in the activity as well as the genetic
sequence of activity categoires characteristic of that society.
Sociocultural Change, Activity, and Individual
Development: Some Methodological Aspects
KING BEACH
Michigan State University
This piece which introduces an article in this issue proposes a
methodology for studying individual learning and development related
to sociocultural change.1 The author argues that the mediating function
of activity affords a new methodology that allows the study of
sociogenetic-ontogenetic relations without having to resort to
reductionism or Cartesian dualism. The tri-part methodology involves 1)
Simulation by selecting key activities that can be constrained and
arranged in sequence to model changes in society, and by that same
sequence of activities, induce learning and development; 2)
Heterochronicity which looks comparatively at the histories and
timeframes of various activities in a research site as well as the
comparative histories and timeframes of particular activities and the
lives of different generations of the research population in the interest
of identifying periods of rapid societal change, and 3) Leading activity
which is co-determined by the point in an individualÕs developmental
history at which she participates in the activity as well as the genetic
sequence of activity categoires characteristic of that society.
Activity as a Mediator of Sociocultural Change and Individual
Development: The Case of School-Work Transition in Nepal
KING BEACH
Michigan State University
This study explores how sociocultural change and individual
development are mediated by activities in a process complicated by
temporal transitions in environment and in the activity which leads, or
is psychologically primary. Based on research among rural Nepali
high school students becoming shopkeepers and among rural
shopkeepers attending adult education, the author suggests a cultural-
historical alternative to transfer in understanding the continuity and
discontinuity of personal knowledge across situations and over time.