I would caution in explaining the difference of emphasis solely in regards
to internalization. Daniel's for example mentions Vygotsky is legitimated
in Russia from programs that are teacher directed to progressive. All seem
to be an emphasis on social situatedness of cognition. If we are talking
of Vygotsky, Leontiev, El'konin, or Venger they all seemed to emphasize a
certain centralness to the social. Actually, Leontiev was critical of the
higher/lower divide Vygotsky gave to mental processes because he saw the
social as central even in the lower.
Karpov & Haywood's may or may not be right in the Russian context in
regards to "collaborative problem-solving activity", Kozulin makes a
similar argument in reference to Vygotsky's emphasis on "scientific
concepts" in that because of that emphasis everyday ones were ignored in
Russia. If its Vygotsky, El'konin, Davydov there has always been a level
of appropriation of ideas from the west, I wonder on our end what can be
learned from them.
One area is we come up with notions of the "embodied self"or "closed room"
to explain processes that are internal to the individual. As in Vygotsky's
genetic law, many of those processes we see as embodied have their genesis
in social interaction. I don't like a top-down metephore either, but that
seems partly because we tend to see culture in those terms (the big bad
state against the individual).
I would suggest both *Perspectives on Activity Theory* and *Activity Theory
and Social Practice* in which Davydov, Lektortsky and many others discuss
the "development" of Vygotsky and Activity Theory. My take is rather than
simply "internalization" there was a diverse struggle of ideas in regards
to Vygotsky and Leontiev. We, as Americans, are the colonizers and get to
determine the "other" (and history) to a certain extent because we won. I
only say this, because I think there is a rich tradition is Russia (and
many other places) that are often ignored.
*Perspectives on Activity Theory*
Edited by Engestrom, Miettinen, Punamaki
Cambridge University Press (1999)
*Activity Theory and Social Practice*
Edited by Chaiklin, Hedegaard, and Jensen
Aarhus University Press (1999)
/\ / /\ | /-----
/ \ / /__\ ---|--- /---
/ \/ / \ | /----
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu
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"Pedogogics is never and was never politically indifferent,
since, willingly or unwillingly, through its own work on the psyche,
it has always adopted a particular social pattern, political line,
in accordance with the dominant social class that has guided its
interests".
L.S. Vygotsky
********************************************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Serpell <serpell who-is-at umbc.edu>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 1999 2:05 PM
Subject: sociocultural-historical genesis of Vygotsky's theory
> I found Karpov & Haywood's ( 1998, American Psychologist ) paper on the
> "two ways to elaborate Vygotsky's concept of mediation" interesting for a
> number of reasons. First, in relation to my query posted on XMCA last
> month, despite their explicit attention to the two geopolitically
distinct
> strands of research inspired by Vygotsky's theory, the authors never
> mention culture as a relevant consideration for interpreting why these
two
> lines of research have focused on distinctly different aspects of the
> theory. I wonder why ?
>
> The American emphasis on what the authors term "metacognitive" mediation
> seems to me to have arisen from a dissatisfaction with Piaget's emphasis
> on the child's direct interaction with the physical world. Thus many
> neoVygotskian analyses in the US have focused on how the focal child
> interacts with adults and older children in learning about the physical
> world. Vygotsky's Law (inter before intra) provided a sharp theoretical
> formulation to justify a shift of emphasis that situated the child's
> developing cognition within a social context. To some degree this has
> served as an antidote against the Western cultural tendency to treat
> individual minds in isolation, and to objectify scientific knowledge.
>
> Why then did this emphasis on the social situatedness of cognitive
> development not command the same priority attention for Russian (and
other
> Soviet) psychologists ? Was it perhaps that, in the sociopolitical
context
> of soviet socialism, acknowledgement of the social interdependency of
> cognition was less at risk (the water in which the fish were swimming, as
> it were) ? Karpov and Haywood offer no explanation, but assert that in
> their enthusiasm for elaborating Vygotsky's other type of mediation
> (termed "cognitive") into a "theoretical learning" approach to the
design
> of instruction, Russian researchers have "underestimat (ed) ... the role
> of students' collaborative problem-solving activity"(p.33).
>
> The second thing that stood out for me in Karpov & Haywood's description
> of the Russian account of cognitive mediation was its unproblematized use
> of the concept of "internalization". In the "theoretical learning"
> approach to instruction, we are told that "teachers teach methods of
> scientific analysis, and the students then master and internalize these
> methods in the course of using them." (P.31).
>
> I was challenged by a distinguished philosophical psychologist at a talk
I
> gave recently for attributing the concept of "appropriation" as a
central
> feature of cognitive development to Barbara Rogoff rather than to
> Vygotsky. And when I asked for some clarification, I was assured that
> Vygotsky was very much opposed to the dichotomy of internal vs external
> that underlies the concept of internalization. Our discussion turned to
> issues of language and translation, and I began to wonder whether the
term
> "internalization" might be a mistranslation from Vygotsky's Russian text
> of what should really have been translated as "appropriation".
>
> Is there any substance to that idea, I wonder ? I am aware that the
> English word pairs "speech/language" and "teaching/learning" have been
> problematized with respect to early translations of Vygotsky's works. Can
> any of the bilinguals and textual experts on Vygotsky's writing clarify
> for me whether this is also true of "internalization/appropriation"? Or
> did Vygotsky have another term in his vocabulary that translates as
> "appropriation" ? (Any page citations to available English translations
of
> Vygotsky would be much appreciated on this last point).
>
> In case it is not apparent, the connection that I draw between these two
> issues is as follows. If indeed the preoccupation with social
situatedness
> in Vygotsky's theory is partly a reflection of a cross-cultural contrast
> between the context from which his research and writing originates and
> that of post-1960 American psychology, then perhaps its lower salience in
> Russian elaborations of the theory is connected with use of the concept
> "internalization," which lacks the social underpinnings of the
alternative
> concept "appropriation". K & H cite Jerome Bruner (1966) as stating that
> "culture ... is not discovered; it is passed on or forgotten". But for me
> "passing on" is too simple a transmissionist expression, incorporating
> what Lakoff & Johnson criticize as "the conduit metaphor". That part of
> the culture that is taken on by the next generation is what makes sense
to
> them to such an extent that it becomes their own, or "appropriated". And
> this sense of ownership is intimately connected with a sense of
membership
> of the community of practice that it informs (Serpell, 1997a).
>
> Robert
>
> Robert Serpell tel: ( 410 ) 455 2417
> Psychology Department 455 2567
> University of Maryland Baltimore County
> 1000 Hilltop Circle
> Baltimore MD 21250 fax: ( 410 ) 455 1055
>
>
>