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Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?



Hi Andy,

I too thought the ISCAR newsletter interview article was very good. I especially liked your comparison of CHAT to interactionist approaches, which you and I have discussed before. One area that continues to be messy, as you suggest, is the relationship of CHAT to social constructIVism and social constructIONism.

Since CHAT's first home is developmental psychology, it is out of the work of Piaget and Papert that these terms are usually defined, and so closely that they are often conflated. While these theories acknowledge the social and perhaps cultural influences on learning and interpretation, they centre on a cognitivist, mental model view of knowledge. There is also the normative aspect of giving control to the learner to construct his or her individual world-view.

The other social constructIONism comes out of communications and sociology (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 1966), that challenges the inevitability of categorisations that are taken for granted in common discourse, and which form the bases for many institutions. This post-modern constructIONism generally places knowledge in discourse and interaction, but in more recent scholarship focuses on the cultural situation of the individual. This isn't a learning theory but rather a critical, meta-theoretical stance. To complicate matters, there are different strands with various accounts of what should be treated as real, true, essential, scientific, etc. and how communication should relate to action. It also challenges academic research standards with advocacy for interventionist approaches to practice. For an interdisciplinary expansion of CHAT, I think this constructIONism offers a rich field for comparison.

--
Ron Lubensky
http://www.deliberations.com.au/
0411 412 626
Melbourne Australia
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