I think I joined the dicussion a bot too late. Got a
lot of email today and was reading them with interest,
waiting for someone to mention culture. Thank you,
Mike.
Understanding of what context ever meant for Vygotsky
is important, in my opinion. Can we talk about one
context? Didn't he imply that culture has the power of
linking the contexts together? "A" context cannot
exist in Vygotskian world. There is a temporal and
spacial trajectory of contexts within the culture. Do
they remain contexts or shall we call them something
else? We can still use the term context if we decide
to examine contexts in comparison to each other.
During the process of comparison the "trajectory" my
fall into a number of contexts (but whose standards
are we using for comparison?).
I am not sure if I have made myself a little bit clear
but this is what my PhD "writing-up" mind is up to at
the moment.
Anna Popova
--- Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> Ana-- I'll put aside the discussion of whether LSV
> believed in evolutionary
> progression or not. I think he did and we can return
> to this question or
> someone else can take it up. But I am focused on the
> meaning(s) of
> context being used in such discussion. So, I want to
> focus on questions
> that arise from your statement that:
>
> the key to understanding Vygotsky is to understand
> that social
> communication precedes higher mental functions in
> human beings. Social
> activities and processes are not just a background
> (context) within which a
> person, and individual develops -- social processes
> and activities are
> internalized (Vygotsky's term) and make the person's
> self. And (!), this
> is not social reductionism, because the process of
> internalization is the
> process of active recreation of a social world as an
> inner microcosm.
> In addition, I think that play -- activities and
> orientations in play --
> are key to understanding how this
> internalizing/recreating works.
>
> 1. Vis a vis LSV's thinking, I think I agree that
> the individual is
> differentiated from the social group, that social
> activities are not
> just a background (is "background" a synomym for
> "context" here?).
>
> 2. Its crucial in avoiding the (sometimes alleged)
> idea that society
> creates the individual and turn the matter to the
> active individual
> internalizing social ....ugh....context (?)
> situation (?) pattern of
> interaction (?) and CREATING the psychological
> plane/inner microcosm.
>
> Do you believe, and do you believe that LSV
> believed, these processes
> to be universal? And in particular, do you believe
> that his account of
> the role of play in development is universal? That
> is the issue that
> Artin and Susan raise.
>
> Now a question. The term, culture, does not enter
> your account. Yet
> isn't culture central to the mechanism of
> development from a cultural
> historical perspective?
>
> And if the answer is yes, is cultural variation of
> any importance?
>
> And a second question. Tool mediated action in
> context is the unit of
> analysis proposed by Jim Wertsch, Volodya Zinchenko
> and others. Is there
> any tool you know of, the effectiveness of which is
> independing of the
> activity it is mediating?
>
> If not, could LSV propose a cultural historical
> theory and NOT be a
> contextualist?
>
> And now much of this is from LSV and not from either
> one of his Russian
> students or non-Russian interpreters?
>
> More later. Time to teach a class with Kris
> Guitterez at UCLA and finish
> up our joint class for the year. The quarter system
> sure drags things
> out.
>
> mike
>
=====
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