[Xmca-l] Re: As of 2020, the American Century is Over

[Helena Worthen]

Great list of references, Phillip.

As someone who teaches outside the school context, as compared to what I think is the majority of people on this list, I often have to push myself to justify why I feel so at home in the Vygotskian tradition (or CHAT, or socio-cultural tradition). I notice that my bookshelf looks a lot like yours.  If I walked into your study and looked at your bookshelf I’d probably have a good laugh.

So what do these people have in common that defines them as being part of one tradition?  And compared to what?

Focus on language, social interaction, paying attention to history, paying attention to context - and the assumption that international is a plus?

As compared to avoiding genetics, testing, individualism, anything defined by national boundaries?

On a big scale, in other words, what’s special about the sociocultural approach?  Why do I recognize your list?

Thanks — H



Helena Worthen
helenaworthen.wordpress.com <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://helenaworthen.wordpress.com/__;!!Mih3wA!SsKJXlr9aEy4tVMsmtn0J43hDh_QJCslrIAhqqU4D5SFpiipG-a9GR2v_QkbGfq1s_8fsA$ >




> On May 7, 2020, at 7:18 AM, White, Phillip <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu> wrote:
> 
> Helena & Henry -  yeah, the Choudry & Williams paper re:figured worlds and power was a pleasure to read - nuanced and evocative.  i was reminded of Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind, in which one of his assertions is that one of the attributed of learning - change in which a difference makes a difference - stochastic. also, i think that Yuval Noah Harari's assertion in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, that it was with the emergence of language that as one of the five great apes groups we were able to imagine figured worlds that don't exist - what he describes as the Cognitive Revolution.  
> it was somewhere in the early 2000's that i wrote a review of Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds for MCA.  thought i had first come across Dorothy Holland's work through Margaret Eisenhart's instruction on ethnographic methods and educational research. even earlier, at a conference in the early 90's Eisenhart suggested that every school have an anthropologist as a learning/teaching resource for classroom teachers.  of course, Shirley Brice Heath, as well as Kris Gutierrez, and Jose Lemon (Dancing with the Devil) are great exemplars of that, amongst too many others to mention.
> 
> again, Helena, many thanks for the paper.
> 
> phillip
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