It seems to me that your confusions are productive of interesting thinking,
Karin. Even without language differences, we are discussing issues which
have no generally agreed upon "right answers" and certainly no right
answers at all if basic terms are being used in systematically different
ways.
To add to your list of complexities, in addition to what you refer to as
"layers" of culture we have the predicament that no two people have the
same knowledge of
"their own" culture. This fact leads Jaan Valsiner to speak of "personal
cultures."
All of these uncertanties make it even more fascinating to ask how/why
an intelligent introductory book of theories of child development would
contain a chapter called "Vygotsky's theory and the contextualists" (among
whom he is counted). So now I need to write down my thoughts in an orderly
way and will post the paper on my web page when it is done, so you can
see what further confusions it causes!
mike
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