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?
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