re: artefacts (primary & sec'y) and rules

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sat, 15 Nov 1997 19:16:48 -0500

Phillip, Thanks for the questions:

>One of the points of the triad is 'rules' and I
>>don't understand the difference between that point, and the rules explicit
>>that would be found in scripts and schemas. How is it that they become
>>separated, so that scripts and schemas, as Peter notes, are secondary
>>cultural artifacts? What about the 'rules' regarding gendered
>>beliefs and behavior, social-economic-status beliefs and behaviors, or
>>rules about how a teacher is to behave, a parent, a student, a principal?
<snip>...
> Any help on this? I feel I'm being terribly obtuse.

I am also feeling obtuse - more so than usual. I prefer the term "norms"
when thinking about rules -- e.g., conversational norms, such as turn-taking
conventions, and other gendered/classed/cultural etc. expectations about who
does what, when, to whom, etc.

Can norms be made tool-like? Do secondary artifacts like scripts count
as norms or tools? I assume that the distinction between rules (/norms) and
tools (the psychological kind) is that tools are both material and ideal.
Thus, language (when conceived as utterance, not some idealized system of
signs) counts as a tool because of its effects, its entailments. But then,
what's the difference between norms-in-use and tools-in-use?

Judy

Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183