Re: Leont'ev-Vygotsky controversy

From: david.preiss@yale.edu
Date: Fri Feb 20 2004 - 17:17:47 PST


Hi,

I have been following up all this discussion while moving back to
Chile from the USA to do the field work of my dissertation and have
not been able to participate. There are some questions that I wanted
to add to the forum, although maybe they were asked/answered and I
missed them:

1. What are the methodological implications of both approaches? Do
they change the rules of the game?

2. What does consitute "progress" in CHAT research? When does a
theorethical problem get solved and we can move on to the next issue
at hand?

3. What shape does it take the accumulation of knowledge in CHAT? Is
it just a shift of theorethical approaches, a change of discourse, a
rethorical change or there is in fact something about we get some sort
of "objective" understanding which can be transmitted culturaly? (I am
thinking here of the 4th folk pedagogy of Olson and Bruner, 1996)

4. How do Leontiev and Vygotsky differ in all of the above?

David

Quoting Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>:

> Ana-- I believe that the discussion of the basic concepts, their
> relations
> to each other as used in the 1930's and as they have come down to us
> now
> is is very helpful for our own conceptual clarity as we set about
> conducting
> research. I am less interested in trying to sort out the motives and
> "real
> reasons" for the choices people made in Russia in the 1930's that are
> NOT
> grounded in the research we are trying to do now. We know that even
> the
> so called "original" texts of Vygotsky were sometimes from student
> notes and
> have been differently presented in Russian editions, never mind
> translations.
> I did my best 25 years ago to get the original articles in Ukrainian
> published
> and at least some are now publically available in English-- even if
> not in
> Russian.
>
> The plain fact of the matter is that to re-enter the discussion
> seriously
> requires that we collect a number of key texts and examine them. I
> simply
> cannot do that right now. I worry that second/third hand accounts
> create
> a form of playing "telephone" or perhaps Vygotskian chaining.
>
> Perhaps someone in the group will identify a set of key texts and we
> can
> find a way to make them available, and agree on a period of joint
> discussion.
> mike
>



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