You wrote:
>Dewey, I like your description of the necessity of holding in tension
>and in perspective both the individual and the socio-cultural-historical
>context of learning. This seems to be one of the fundamental theoretical
>tensions in the history of the social sciences, and people seem
>inevitably to focus more heavily on one side of the issue or the other.
>It's almost like looking through a telescope: through one end of it,
>everything is close up (the individual is in focus); through the other
>end, everything is far away (the whole is in focus); simultaneously
>accounting for or seeing both seems to be what's difficult.
Thanks.
>
>I was also intrigued by your final sentence:
>> So, in my view, while we cannot talk about equality
>>of or relative validity, we can talk of implications taken-as-agreed-upon
>>by groups of people and hegemonies of implications.
>
> The idea of agreed-upon HEGEMONIES of implications is interesting.
>Could you give some examples?
"Hegemony" is not a term that is typically included in the socialization
and training of a physicist. This may have been my first use of it in
"public." So, let me try to explain what I meant.
First, in my sentence I was referring to the notion (which I take from Paul
Cobb, now at Vanderbilt) of "taken-as-shared". I believe that we have to
be careful to recognize that implications are, I my view, meanings and
meanings are individual constructions which at best we can take-as-shared.
So, at best we can only say that implications are taken-as-agreed-upon.
Once these implications are taken-as-agreed-upon by some group, there can
be hegemony of this group's ideas over others. Within any group 'holding
the power' a taken-as-shared set of ideas is agreed upon or accepted as
'right.'
Example: Most Physicists and Astronomers would agree with each other when
they say the universe started with something called the "Big Bang." That
the universe started with something called the "Big Bang" is an
implication/meaning drawn from observations. It is agreed upon by
physicists and astronomers (not all of them) and they press this
implication on students and the public. There are other views but they are
not given much corner if any at all. At a meta-level, that this comes
across as virtual fact both informally to the public and by implication in
instruction is hegemony of another sort. It is hegemony of the notion of
scientific knowledge as truth or closer to the truth than anything else.
This is agreed upon by most scientists and promoted by them in all sorts of
ways.
Dewey
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/SN318 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad who-is-at varney.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper
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