>
> Dorothy-- you write
>
> The unity of analysis, then, must be the psychological activity in all
its
> complexity (e.g., Barker's "behavior setting" redefined in cultural terms
a la
> Bronfenbrenner's "microcosm")), not in isolation. The quotes are taken
from
> the "Collected Works" (Vol. 1-6), by R. Rieber & A. Carton (Eds., N.
Minick,
> Trans.) , New York: Plenum.
>
> As I commented in another note, I appreciate and understand the
application
> of Vygotsky's writing about units of analysis in Collected Works you
site.
> But he chose word meaning, not activity/context/etc as a unit.
In Collected Works V. 3 he referred to the instrumental method as a unit of
analysis. The above quote of Dorthy's however must be looked at in respect
to how Vygotsky defined Activity.
In the 1931-32 a group of Vygotsky's students, Leontiev, Zaporozhets and
others, left Moscow and established a research center in Kharkov, Ukrain
which became known as the Kharkovite school (Kozulin 1990). Their research
elaborated Vygotsky's ideas in two directions; study and design of age
specific leading activities (play, learning etc.), and study of goal
directed activities (reading, sensory standards etc.) (Kozulin 1990). As
Veresov mentions Russia has two words for activity one coming from the
German tradition in which Leontiev relied upon and Vygotsky's use of
activity as in Dorthy's quote which was more Pavlovian in orgin.
Psychological activity then would be similar to the type of research Venger
did with perception type of activities (sensory standards), which we would
probally consider behaviorist.
Nate