The operational definition i have begun using for development in institutions,
based upon lbe, is simply changes in that which constitutes the institution (as
activity system). Since I tend to use the extended triangle to define a
system, this could be changes in who constitutes the system, what are the
ensembles of instruments, what are the rules (I prefer social-and
cognitive-structures) etc. Accordingly changes in these categories are often,
but not always, accompanied by changes in their relations to other categories.
The question raised backstage is -- can this "form" of looking address issues
of diversity, minority voices, dialogue?
I try to keep in mind that the mediational triangle comes out of Vygotsky's
work, that the language that affords and frames dialogue fits both the
artifactual and rules. So the form of the extended triangle does not
explicitly address dialogic issues, I would not say that it precludes them, or
that it is incompatible -- rather, there is a lot of work to be done to make
the theory more applicable. I seem to remember that Ritva Engestrom has an mca
article on this issue.
There is a recent article in AERJ by Carol Lee at Northwestern "Is October
Brown Chinese?" that describes the use of chat for what I would interpret as a
design experiment -- an intervention that is shaped by, and evaluated through
the use of theory -- and that also is appropriate to the present discussion of
development of children. She draws upon Leont'ev (1981) and the categories and
relations of his paper; goals, artifacts, routines, and contexts. She draws
upon an historical analysis of the school, the students (African Americans) and
their discourse community, and the classroom to construct strategies for
intervention. Her analysis focuses on the development of the activity system
-- her classroom. She writes, as if to foretell our present discussion:
"The teacher saw these youngsters as she saw her own biological children, for
whom failure is simply not an option. She had to appreciate the humanity of
these young people, their innate talents, and their infinite ability to learn,
grow, and develop. They could not garner enough resistant behavior to deter
her determination that they would learn and master intellectually difficult
problem solving. There is no question in my mind that such a stance was one of
the most powerful tools in the teacher's pedagogical toolkit." (Lee, 2001,
p133)
I find Carol's paper intriguing, especially this quote in the context of our
exchanges here and now. The use of first and third person captures her
analytical separation in the writing of the paper, but the import of her
message denies the separation, affirming her (the teacher) egalitarian stance
by the researcher (also her). There are powerful wafts of the tensions between
respecting diversity, and the integration of these children into society, with
the concurrent normalization: technocratically, the acquisition of problem
solving skills being the necessary smudging of the childrens' difference and
separation from the rest of society. The children resist the acculturation,
but she won't let them -- failure is not an option. She projects herself and
her past onto her students' future. Simultaneously, she unites what Bowles
and Gintis specifically address as the tensions of the egalitarian and the
productive functions of educational institutions in capitalist society -- they
claim that both cannot be satisfied, but Carol's actions do not comply.
And there is this regret and wonder, on my part, had Carol been able to draw
upon an extended mediational form, with explicit handles for scripts, how
cognition is distributed, and how community inserts itself into her classroom,
would the work and the paper have been different? It is brilliant
nevertheless. A definite must-read.
bb
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 01:01:38 PDT