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Re: [xmca] Current edition of Theory & Psychology
Arturo,
It's interesting that you mention Steiner. We include Steiner's (as well
as Luria's and Zajonc's) interpretations of Goethe, in building a
romantic science foundation for our undergraduate courses. This is also a
genetic CHAT approach in that it imagines the learner as intimately
involved with her subject matter - over time - allowing her and the
subject to evolve in concert - coming always into a better fit or into
better coordination with each other and with their developmental contexts.
Only then, according to Goethe and followers, can we develop the "sensory
organs" necessary for a meaningful understanding of the phenomenon of
interest. Otto Scharmer (in Theory U) applies this logic to business (and
I believe public service) interventions. In all cases the feelings of the
participants take center stage - as integral parts of our perception,
cognition and communications.
Deb
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Arturo Escandon
<arturo.escandon@gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi Deb,
>
> I cannot refer right now to all the issues brought by Mike, Ivan and
> Larry. Suffice to point out that I have been working on a hybrid
> between CHAT and Basil Bernstein's sociology of education. I will as
> soon as I can address those issues. They represent one way to go about
> analysing the connection between macro and micro structures.
>
> What I see is a complete reshaping of pedagogical identities. Perhapst
> Bernstein's language of description may help in analysing the
> reshaping of those pedagogies. Plus, his "coding theory" provides some
> empirical tools to go about linking power and discourse.
>
> Just a brief intro to identities, taken from Doherty, in which she is
> interpreting Bernstein in a context that might be familiar to all of
> us
> http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/223123/Doherty.pdf
>
> A ‘retrospective’ orientation seeks to recapture and restore the past
> in the present, and is pedagogically realised in tight control over
> the inputs of education – putting the brakes on change, so to speak. A
> ‘back to basics’ push would constitute a retrospective orientation. A
> ‘prospective’ orientation reflects the neo-conservative effort to
> undergo change in order to retain desirable aspects of the past in
> conditions of the present, controlling inputs and outputs. The US
> curricular reforms following the success of Russia’s Sputnik mission
> would be an example of a prospective orientation designed to restore
> US supremacy. These two orientations are considered ‘centred’ because
> they are driven by top-down policy and aim for convergence, that is,
> uniform outputs, whereas de-centred identities encourage divergence.
> Centred orientations can also be read as shaping education as public
> goods, while the de-centred orientations construe education as more
> private, or positional goods for the individual. A decentred,
> ‘therapeutic’ identity is premised on progressive theories of personal
> development and constructs multiple ‘presents’ through personal
> identities. The Australian curriculum in the 70’s, post
> the Karmel report, went down this path, with more attention paid to
> ‘realising the individual’s potential’ and diversifying schooling to
> meet local needs. The de-centred ‘market’ identity is
> competitive and contingent as it responds to market values and market
> opportunities as they arise – ‘the transmission here arises to produce
> an identity whose product has an exchange value in a
> market ... the identity is a reflection of external contingencies’
> (2000, pp. 69-70). The offering of Steiner, Montessori and IB programs
> as curricular alternatives with the choice left to the family
> produces such ‘market’ conditions for the play of ‘reputational
> difference’ (Labaree, 1997, p.52). It is argued here that the market
> identity is essentially an empty signifier, contingent on external
> conditions, through which the other identities can speak, according to
> their ‘market value’ or desirability in the economic, political and
> cultural fashions of the times.
>
> Another example in Johansson, where she analyses the teaching of Maths
> in Sweden:
> http://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/4644970/Johansson_MES6.pdf
>
> Overall, these identities are the result of the recontextualisation of
> knowledge by educational organisations and are functions of degrees of
> insulation between categories and agents (power) and principles of
> control (who controls what). Thus, the intervention model presented by
> Yrjo is quite different to the proposed mutual appropriation model,
> and they would entail differences in terms of how the upper and lower
> reaches of the ZPD are constituted.
>
> Also check Daniels (for a better metatheoretical proposal of
> integrating Berstein and CHAT).
> http://orgs.man.ac.uk/projects/include/experiment/harry_daniels.pdf
>
> Best
>
> Arturo
>
>
>
> On 14 November 2011 05:19, deborah downing-wilson <ddowningw@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Ivan has captured my thinking perfectly - I don't believe that anyone
> > involved the project we discuss here would deny that it has taken on a
> life
> > of its own that at this point in time defies our efforts to explain it.
> > I might add that the term "mutual appropriation" was chosen precisely
> > because of its several rather ambiguous implications. Yes, all of the
> > players appropriate parts of the project in pursuit of sometimes mutual,
> > sometimes disparate goals, but it is also true that a culture of acting
> in
> > ways that are mutually appropriate - or that feel like the right things
> to
> > do for the good of the group - has evolved. My feeling is that this
> > culture is not only shaped by larger social systems and forces but by the
> > collective affective investment - perhaps encouraged by the obvious
> > differences in resources and influence - but this should be interpreted
> in
> > light of the fact that virtually all of the UCSD players know that we
> take
> > away far more than we bring to this table.
> >
> >
> > Deb
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> Arturo, two things coincide for me in reading your email: 1) I've been
> >> working for the last 4 years in the same collaboration that
> >> Lecusay,Downing-Wilson,Cole have written about, and 2) I too share the
> >> following concern:
> >>
> >> ----
> >> CHAT keeps operating with a process and methodological
> >> ontology whereby the individual and the social are inseparable but
> >> does not provide a clear cut language of description of how the social
> >> structure shapes activity or, to put it in Seeger's terms, how power
> >> shapes discourse (and consciousness and identy).
> >> ----
> >>
> >> As the authors have described, the community setting in which this
> latest
> >> of LCHC's projects has unfolded does not permit even the relatively
> loose
> >> structures that were the hallmarks of previous 5D projects --this is
> where
> >> the ad-hoc stumbling upon interesting things to do together is such an
> >> important component of the dual sense of "appropriation". In the social
> >> space that has been created between LCHC and Town and Country there
> exists
> >> (as I have experienced it over the last four years) an enduring
> liminality
> >> that refuses to come to closure --neither LCHC participants, including
> grad
> >> students, staff, and undergraduate students, nor T&C participants have
> >> arrived at any definite position vis a vis what we are doing together.
> The
> >> kids get older, new ones arrive, some teens have left, club and group
> >> structures change, entire families move out. UCSD's side of the story
> is
> >> more predictable in the institutional sense of allowing year-on-year
> >> planning of classes and recruitment of students, as well as, of course,
> the
> >> staying power of UCSD as a much longer running process than the
> >> collaboration itself. But this can only explain the brute sense of our
> >> continued presence, one which would be impossible to impose in any
> case, so
> >> that we still have to try and explain the delicate sense of our
> continued
> >> presence --what is happening in the space of this
> >> cross-cultural/cross-institutional intersection that keeps pulling
> together
> >> (in a delicate way) such a heterogenous amalgam of participants --a
> >> constant churn of undergraduate buddies, a more stable set of grad
> >> students, a constant, but slowly changing, stream of kids, Ms. V., and
> the
> >> few community parents that regularly lend a hand?
> >>
> >> You and Andy have said that there must be some kind of crisis, and this
> may
> >> be so, but if this is what is allowing the participants to come together
> >> anew, it is not the kind of crisis that can be compared to, say, Occupy
> >> Wall Street, or Greece, or the Arab Spring. It might be that I lack the
> >> requisite social imagination, but the way I see it, what is special
> about
> >> this collaboration is that it holds together without disclosing to its
> >> participants directly how this is happening. We have been at it for
> four
> >> years, and it isn't obvious to me why, as a T&C elder says, we "keep on
> >> keeping on". This is especially true in light of severe, and recurrent,
> >> frustrations on every side. For example, in the absence of UCSD
> students,
> >> homework does not get done nearly as regularly as when they are there
> >> --this creates a huge problem for Ms. V, who must still try to satisfy
> this
> >> community need in our absence. Sometimes we at LCHC find ourselves at
> odds
> >> with local customs and decisions, to which we nevertheless submit in
> order
> >> to keep on keeping on. But where are we keeping on to? (Especially
> >> without access to clear-cut language with which to explain any of this!)
> >>
> >> So, these kinds of open-ended interactional spaces elicit from their
> >> participants a degree of patience that is rarely seen anywhere --more or
> >> less equally distributed! Southeast San Diego, where T&C is located, is
> >> not unique in all the ways that its inhabitants are systematically
> >> marginalized, and it is a fact that local community organizers (I've
> been
> >> at some of their meetings) look on UCSD and charitable institutions with
> >> very suspicious eyes. In the face of these realities, mutual
> appropriation
> >> is one factor, but not a wholly explanatory one for the loose
> >> holding-together that is going on here.
> >>
> >> Whatever the answers are, it is impossible for me to conceive of a
> >> satisfying explanation that does not include affective-imaginative
> >> dimensions. The way I see it, the mystery here is not how
> power/structure
> >> shapes discourse/activity, it is why this collaboration holds in the
> face
> >> of what would normally be insurmountable difficulties. Good will and
> >> patience all around? Maybe, but this only pushes the question deeper
> into
> >> the affective-imaginative life of this collaboration.
> >>
> >> Ivan
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Continuing my sharing of the current edition of Theory & Psyhology,
> >> > attached are scans of Deborah Downing-Wilson, Robert Lecusay and Mike
> >> > Cole's paper (which I have been so excited about) and the first 16
> pages
> >> of
> >> > Yrjo Engestrom's paper (I have omitted the case study) which is a
> concise
> >> > synopsis of his current views on activity and concepts.
> >> >
> >> > Andy
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Andy Blunden wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> That's a very interesting series of points, Arturo!
> >> >> Could I just ask you to elaborate a little on what you meant by "the
> >> >> unconscious in sign-making" and "the problem of fetishism of the
> sign."
> >> >> I guess that you are right that in almost any social context (the US
> >> >> included I suspect), the kind of project that Mike writes about can
> >> only be
> >> >> implemented by surruptitiously moving the goal posts set by the
> >> recognised
> >> >> authorities, by a kind of subversion, making use of openings created
> by
> >> >> manifest social crisis.
> >> >> As I'm sure you know, I am in agreement with your critique of the
> >> failure
> >> >> to satisfactorily "marry" psychological concepts with sociological
> >> >> concepts, in CHAT or anywhere else for that matter. But doesn't the
> >> kind of
> >> >> project Mike is talking about, where goals are immanent in the
> project
> >> >> itself, and the project is thoroughly and explicitly collaborative,
> go
> >> some
> >> >> way to addressing this problem?
> >> >>
> >> >> Andy
> >> >>
> >> >> Arturo Escandon wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>> Just wanted to point out that there are places where you cannot even
> >> >>> think of implementing a simple plain standard design experiment, let
> >> >>> alone an ad-hoc intervention because educational settings and
> >> >>> institutions are thought to be mere knowledge
> >> >>> reproduction-distribution centers. Research is the job of the
> Ministry
> >> >>> of Education. "Joint activity"? What on Earth is that in Japan
> except
> >> >>> the illusion of freedom framed under top-down cosmological
> structure.
> >> >>> I am afraid that most of the cases depicted in the journal are a
> >> >>> reproduction of the cultural conditions existing in few settings, in
> >> >>> few communities, in a handful of countries. Am I able to implement
> an
> >> >>> intervention or mutual appropriation in the Japanese educational
> >> >>> context? No. Am I able to do it in "local communities", yes, but
> under
> >> >>> considerable restrictions. However, I am guessing that the most
> >> >>> effective interventions in local communities spring from social
> >> >>> crisis, not from planned activity, that is, some sort of punctuated
> >> >>> equilibrium in which the community changes or perish.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> I am very curious about (1) how the structural constraints and
> >> >>> affordances of organisations themselves shape those mutual
> >> >>> appropriations and how we can account for them; (2) how the
> mediating
> >> >>> means themselves are unequally distributed (knowledge differential):
> >> >>> in order to bridge the differences established by the lack of a
> common
> >> >>> repertoire of meanings you have to engage in meaning making,
> creating
> >> >>> in fact a new differential; (3) the unconscious in sign-making or
> >> >>> using activity. Educational activity brings consciousness at the
> >> >>> expense of bringing unconsciousness as well. I have not read a
> single
> >> >>> decisive work addressing the problem of fetishism of the sign, on
> >> >>> which a theory of the uncosciousness could be integrated into CHAT,
> >> >>> except for works that deal with the problem of "the ideal".
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Seeger asks the right questions but I believe there is much more out
> >> >>> there about ways of marriaging psychology and sociology to give a
> >> >>> better account of agency. At the end, the issues raised by Sawyer
> are
> >> >>> still relevant: CHAT keeps operating with a process and
> methodological
> >> >>> ontology whereby the individual and the social are inseparable but
> >> >>> does not provide a clear cut language of description of how the
> social
> >> >>> structure shapes activity or, to put it in Seeger's terms, how power
> >> >>> shapes discourse (and consciousness and identy).
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Best
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Arturo
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>> On 10 November 2011 23:41, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>> The current edition of Theory & Psychology looks very special. I
> >> admit I
> >> >>>> have at this stage only actually read the article by Mike Cole,
> Robert
> >> >>>> Lecusay and Deborah Downing-Wilson, but it is a special issue on
> CHAT
> >> >>>> and
> >> >>>> interventionist methodology, with articles by a number of people
> from
> >> >>>> Yrjo
> >> >>>> Engestrom's CRADLE and also Falk Seeger, who is guest editing the
> >> >>>> Special
> >> >>>> Issue of MCA on Emotions.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Mike's article elaborates on what the participants call a "mutual
> >> >>>> appropriation" approach to developing theory and practice. Instead
> of
> >> >>>> implementing a project design and then modifying it in the light of
> >> the
> >> >>>> reseacher's experience, the researchers go in to a local community
> >> with
> >> >>>> very
> >> >>>> open ended ideas about how and what they want to achieve, and
> engage
> >> >>>> with
> >> >>>> their community partner, learn about their (the partner's) project,
> >> >>>> offer
> >> >>>> assistance and resources and share knowledge and objectives and
> ....
> >> >>>> mutually appropriate. The article describes the results of a
> specific
> >> >>>> project which is an exemplar of "mutual appropriation" which has
> grown
> >> >>>> out
> >> >>>> of the 5thD after-school programs which LCHC began in the 1980s.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> The article is actually very moving. I personally think that this
> kind
> >> >>>> of
> >> >>>> work is tackling the main problem in front of us
> cultural-historical
> >> >>>> cultural psychology people today. If you don't subscribe to Theory
> &
> >> >>>> Psychology, I don't know how you can get to read the paper. Maybe
> >> >>>> someone
> >> >>>> has a solution there. But it is a must read. I will read the
> remaining
> >> >>>> articles in the special issue, but this is a real high.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Andy
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> --
> >> >>>>
> >>
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**------------
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >> >>>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<
> >> http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
> >> >>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >> >>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<
> >> http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> ______________________________**____________
> >> >>>> _____
> >> >>>> xmca mailing list
> >> >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> > --
> >> > ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> >> > ------------
> >> > *Andy Blunden*
> >> > Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<
> >> http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
> >> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<
> >> http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
> >> >
> >> > __________________________________________
> >> > _____
> >> > xmca mailing list
> >> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >> >
> >> >
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > Deborah Downing Wilson, Ph.D.
> > Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> > http://lchc.ucsd.edu/
> > <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/>Department of Communication
> > http://communication.ucsd.edu/
> > University of California San Diego
> > http://www.ucsd.edu/
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Arturo J Escandon
> Associate Professor
> Department of Spanish and Latin-American Studies
> Nanzan University
> 18 Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku
> Nagoya, 466-8673 JAPAN
>
> Tel: +81 (52) 832 3111 (extension 3604)
> Mobile: +81 (908) 796 4220
> E-mail: escandon@nanzan-u.ac.jp
> arturo.escandon@nakamachi.com
> __________________________________________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
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>
--
Deborah Downing Wilson, Ph.D.
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/
<http://lchc.ucsd.edu/>Department of Communication
http://communication.ucsd.edu/
University of California San Diego
http://www.ucsd.edu/
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