Ares message

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 08 2003 - 11:27:29 PST


Did Nancy Ares' message make it to xmca? And ANYONE HAVING TROUBLE POSTING,
EMAIL bjones@weber.ucsd.edu for help. Here is nancy's message just
in case.
mike

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Hi all,

I'm going to go out on a limb here and respond to M. Cole's attention to the lack of response...

Lee's article is incredibly well-written and articulate, along with posing important claims about the power of a sociocultural lens when brought to bear on issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and to the efficacy of taking as central the influence of culture on modes of communication and interaction. Implications for design of learning environments and of educational technology are numerous and critically important to efforts in sociocultural, cultural historical activity theory to address diversity and to respond to our multicultural world. There are few limits to the dialogue that could/should emanate from such a rich intellectual and research endeavor.

The question of why Boykin's and others' work isn't mainstream is, I think, connected to the notion of "culture free" --

"Question: In what sense/way is the CBN facility culturally specific? Isn't it a "culture free" medium whose culture responsiveness depends entirely on content?" --

Any artifact is culturally bound, because it is a product of culturally specific activity developed over time. All technologies are cultural artifacts that contain and communicate cultural knowledge. In the same way, "content" is also a cultural artifact, built over time through social interaction and influenced by cultural/social norms and values. The very notion that interacting with visual and textual representations of knowledge in a CBN facility is useful, powerful, informative, etc. is culturally bound. There is no such thing as a "culture free" technology.

Boykin's and others' work on culturally specific communication and interaction patterns, norms for interaction, standards for modes of communication, etc. fly in the face of accepted notions that technology (and curriculum and pedagogy and research) can be value- or culture-neutral. Such color- or culture-blind notions are highly influential and normative in liberalism in Western culture (see Carew, 1997). We continue to work against notions of objective truth and universal reality at fundamental levels, as evidenced by the lack of attention to Boykin's and others' work that highlight the structure-level influences of cultural practices, languages, norms, etc. on cognition, development, and activity. There is a parallel line of thinking in Vygotskian notions of the influence of culturally grounded social interactions on cognition and development, but the fact that Boykin and others' work focuses on "minorities" adds another, more political layer to the silence.

I haven't jumped into the dialogues of late (I'm new to the list), but I have very much appreciated the exchanges that are wide-ranging and inviting of a variety of perspectives. An important example is Michael Coles' open-ended question about Boykin's work and "culture free" technologies; they invite important dialogue from a variety of perspectives...

Nancy Ares



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