Call for Participation

William E. Blanton (Blantonwe who-is-at appstate.edu)
Fri, 15 Aug 1997 11:41:06 -0400

Dear XMCA colleagues

Another copy of this may be posted in the next day or so. It was
sent to Weber while it was down. I thought this might get posted before
Peggy Bengel could unpack the trunk of xmca messages she must redirect.

Bill Blanton

Each year AERA selects a number of proposals to be offered as professional
development courses either the two days before or two days following the
meeting. Accepted proposals receive per diem for the staff for two days and
an small honorarium, to small to mention. A small materials budget is also
made available.

Margie Gallego, Mike Cole, and I were planning an AERA presession institute
to disseminate information on the Fifth Dimension. Remembering that a
symposium developed for AAA last year did not materialize, we though it
might be a good idea to develop a similar proposal for AERA at San Diego.
It would then be possible to embed our purpose in a broader activity aimed
at introducing AERA members to cultural-historical activity theory.

The purpose of this posting is invite those interested in participating in
the proposal outlined below to let us know. We will need to put together a
staff to cover the material outlined. The final product will be the normal
AERA "too small to tell what we want to do length."

Ideally, we will attract a group that we will be able to contact before the
presession. By the way, we will propose that this be a presession. In doing
so, we will be able to send them reading materials and determine their
interests. This will help us in developing a structure.

We touched bases with Vera John-Steiner to make sure we would not conflict
with any proposals from the SIG. She also gave us some suggestions. We
then waited until those submitting program proposals had time to meet
program deadlines. Now we are getting ready to submit our proposal. The
proposal is due September 10. We need to have it together by September 3.

If you are interested in one of the areas/topics below, let us know by
August 22. We will put the program together based on the response. We also
invite suggestions for improving the proposal. We will get back to you
promptly.

The theme for the conference is Diversity and Citizenship in Multicultural
Societies. We want to encourage international colleagues to respond,
particularly those south of the United States.

Send responses to Blantonwe who-is-at conrad.appstate.edu

Bill Blanton

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory: Proposal for AERA Professional
Development Course

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) is associated with the writings
of the Russian "troika", L. S. Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1962; 1978; Reiber &
Carton, 1987; 1994; 1900; 1900) , (A. N. Leontiev (1978; 1979; 1981), and A.
R. Luria (1961; 1976; 1987a; 1987b; 1979; . Their enterprise, the
sociohistorical school, was led by Vygotsky. The "troika" was greatly
influenced by Spinozistic monism, Hegelian dialectics, classical German
Idealism, and Marxism (Bronckart, 1996; Raeithel, 1991). The influence of
Darwin, Durkheim, Kohler, Freud, James, Janet, Piaget, Stern, Levy-Bruhl,
and others is also apparent in their work. The second generation of
cultural- historical activity theory is represented in the work of a diverse
group (e.g., Bakhurst, 1991; 1995; Cole, 1996; Engestrom, 1987; Rogoff,
1990; 1995; Tryphon & Vneche, 1996; Van der Veer & Valsiner 1900; Wertsch
1985; Wertsch, 1991; Wertsch, del Rio, & Alvarez, 1995).
Cultural-historical activity theory has been applied to problems in areas
such as education (Davydov, 1990; Foreman, Minick, & Stone, 1993; Hedegaard,
Hakkarainen & Engestrom, 1984; Moll, 1990; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989),
how institutions think (Douglas, 1986), how societies remember (Connerton
1989), collective remembering (Middleton & Edwards, 1990), learning and
development (Rogoff, 1990), work and practice (Chaiklin & Lave, 1993;
Engestrom & Middleton , 1996; Martin, Nelson, & Tobach, 1995), verbal
thinking (Tulviste, 1991), computer technology (Nardi, 1996); and cognition
(Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991; Salomon (1993).

The purpose of the proposed professional development and training course
will focus on introducing cultural-historical activity theory to two groups
of professionals: entry level faculty and of experienced faculty who wish to
apply the theory to problems in their area of expertise.

Outcomes
Procedures
Evaluation

Day One:: A cultural-historical activity theory primer

I. The roots of cultural-historical activity theory
A. Philosophy: Spinoza, German Idalists, Feuerbach, Marx, Hegel,
Lektorsky, Ilyenkov, Northern European influences, etc.
B. The "troika: Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev
C. Tenets
D. Literature
1. Must reads
2. Important journals
3. Web sites, etc.

II. Current orientations
A. Text mediation
B. Context, practice, action, activity
C. Practices
D. Participation models
E. Activity systems
F. Distributed cognition

III: Exemplary research studies applying current applications

IV: Methodology
A. Units of analysis
B. Levels of analysis
C. What kinds of data
D. How much data
E. Technical tools, such as discourse analysis

DAY TWO: Cultural-historical activity theory applied to concrete problems

I. Developing a research problem: Participants select two areas (???)
from the list below. Each areas will be led by a person who is engaged in
research on the area
A. Work activity
B. School going activity
1. General curriculum and instruction
2. Literacy, mathematics
3. Pupils and learning activity
4. Teacher collaboration
5. Informal learning activity
6. Technology
C. Accessing the literature on the topic
D. Participants develop a problem

IV. Networking
A. AERA SIG
B. XMCA
C. ISCRAT
D. Related professional groups