Yes, I'd like to have permission for acessing it - the article.
Your thinking emerged much more clear to me after your clarifying explanation below. But I think, personally, that it would be something absolutelly unthinkable one to dischage the macro levels as conditions that contingence the construction of mind and subject. The subject, in my oppinion, is something elaborated, constructed over the individual. The individual seems to me our animal, strictly biological frame. So, the subject would be something built over it - our typically human nature raised over given biological condictions.
-----Mensagem original-----
De: Keith Sawyer <ksawyer@artsci.wustl.edu>
Para: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Data: Quarta-feira, 17 de Abril de 2002 19:53
Assunto: Multiple levels of context and sociological theory
In proposing the four nested levels of context, I see Mike as being influenced by Bronfenbrenner's theory (see Cultural Psychology, p. 226; also Nicolopoulou & Cole in "Contexts for Learning"). I think there was microcontext, mesocontext, macrocontext, and one more? These are roughly parallel to Vygotsky's four levels but they have a more static connotation whereas the Vygotskian terms are always -genetic, implying that the focus is on change over time.
You are right to point out that in sociological theory the "micro/macro" discussion tends to be presented in binary terms. However, that doesn't necessarily mean sociologists are not cognizant of these other levels. (Robert Merton talked about "middle range" theory...) Sociological theorists would say that any level above the individual is "macro". The critical debate is about whether ALL of those higher levels can be accounted for in terms of individuals, or not. If the methodological individualist is correct, then all of the higher-level entities go away and the individual level is sufficient. So I believe that this battle is more foundational than the discussion about the more subtle distinctions between different levels of social context. (If anyone is interested in a more involved treatment of emergence issues in sociology, I have an article "Emergence in sociology" that will be published in "American Journal of Sociology" in late Summer.)
Ricardo wrote:
(4) My question is: Why to consider only this two levels of analyse when appoaching, since a sociocultual perspective, human activity? According to MC, in Cultural Psychology: a once and future discipline a historical-cultural approach to human pshychesism must take into account four levels of analyse (Same ones postulated by LV and his team): macrogenetic, filogenetic, ontogenetic and microgenetic. Wouldn't those four levels be the way to solve the conflit you pointed to in your articles?
R. Keith Sawyer
http://www.keithsawyer.com/
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
Washington University
Campus Box 1183
St. Louis, MO 63130
314-935-8724
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