Mike,
The Vygotsky quote we've been discussing concerns pedagogy, whereas your
question concerns research. I don't know what Vygotsky would say about the
research methods questions. But his enculturationist pedagogy, as I am
elaborating it (see way way below), has at least the beginnings of a point
of view on diversity. I generally take the reference culture for
enculturationist pedagogies to be disciplinary cultures (e.g., mathematical
cultural, historiographical culture, etc.) that are presumed to be
specialized cultures remote from the varied ethnic and racial cultures in
which students' identities are vested. In practicing an enculturationist
pedagogy, one's responsibility is to work with the cultural resources
available within the classroom community to fashion a classroom
microculture that progresses toward the disciplinary culture with respect
to specified cultural dispositions. For instance, supposing one is
interested in teaching mathematical proof, conceived as a form of logical
argumentation specific to the mathematical community. Then one works with
the forms of argumentation that are native to the classroom microculture to
shape them in the appropriate directions. Now the native forms of
argumentation one finds in the classroom community are partly a reflection
of the cultural backgrounds of the students. However, these various
resources are simply the resources from which one begins. Because students'
racial and ethnic cultures are conceived as remote from the target
disciplinary culture is one need not deal with them directly or
systematically.
All this is for what I call "learning pedagogies" aimed at individual
learning. For critical pedagogies that aim at broader social
transformation, one cannot suppress the specificity of cultural background
of the students. Often this distinction can be rather subtle. For instance,
the scientific method is conceived as a disposition of scientific culture,
to be addressed through an enculturationist learning pedagogy, whereas
"critical thinking"--a frequent enculturationist target--doesn't have an
overt reference culture, but probably is located within a certain social
class. Thus teaching for critical thinking does have to deal, explicitly,
with students' cultural locations.
Hope this helps.
David Kirshner
PS. In your note, you characterize psychological-constructivist pedagogy as
an instance of "transmission teaching," but I would disagree. There is no
direct communication conceived within a psychologcial-constructivist
perspective.
_____________________________________
Mike Cole said:
I happen to be online as your note on the Vygotsky quote comes across and
it is amazing aposite to the questions that Juanita was posing, David.
This quote, of course, also speaks to the issue of transmission teaching
versus environmental arrangement teaching.
Do you think that Vygotksy would approve of Carol Lee's approach? That is,
as we have discussed here before, cultural variation seems to get short
shrift, or a history-as-progress-shrift, in his writing and that of his
students. Is this a small and bridgable gap, or a major issue?
mike
______________________
There are several complex issues in Juanita's note that we are very anxious
for feedbac on.
Try this one on. In order to gain insight into (lets say) ethic variations
in optimal learning conditions, is it necessary to donconduct research with
people of more than one ethnicity?
Carol Lee et al in their article argue that treating ethnic groups as
homogenous is pernicious and misleading. Why not focus on intra-group
variations and their susceptibility to modification through environmental
design?
I argue the comparative work is necessary BOTH between and WITHIN ethnic
groups (using differing instructional arrangments) to arrive at conclusions
concering a particular "eth". Juanita is unconvinced.
Et vous?
mike
________________________
Juanita Cole said:
I would like to invite the XMCA community to engage
in a discussion regarding the important themes raised
in the current issue of Educational Researcher:
http://www.aera.net/pubs/er/eronline.htm
It would be extremely helpful for my research
project, which seeks to enrich the basic literacy
skills of African American children through
culturally responsive instruction, to dissucs these
questions specifically:
1. What terminologies are best to characterize
cultural variations in approaches to learning that
reflect an individual's cultural background?
2. How does one avoid the traps of using
Europeans/European-Americans as the reference point
when making comparisons in learning? Why is it even
necessary to make these comparisons when study
individuals from a specific cultural group?
3. How can researchers design effective educational
interventions that build upon the fundamental
cultural experienes of learners; yet still take
into consideration the shared common practices across
ethnic/racial groups as a result of access to public
media, symbols and practices?
______________________________
David Kirshner said:
Mile Cole asks:
What about the Vygotsky quote caught your attention/memory David?
Thanks for asking, Mike.
I've appended the quote, below. In it, Vygotsky articulates what I refer to
as an "enculturationist pedagogy" in which the agenda is to enhance
students' cultural forms of participation. I conceive forms of
participation broadly to include tendencies to relate to others, oneself,
problems, and artifacts in culturally specific ways. In such a pedagogy,
one focuses on supporting the development of the classroom microculture so
that it comes to resemble the target culture with respect to the targetted
forms of participation. Thus individual students "learn" by becoming
enculturated into the evolving classroom microculture, not directly from
the teacher.
I distinguish this enculturationist agenda from a
psychological-constructivist agenda in which the goal is to help students
develop stronger, more viable conceptual structures. This kind of pedagogy
involves making conjectures about students' current understanding and
developing tasks designed to stress the students' current conceptual in
ways that are intended to produce cognitive perturbations leading to
conceptual restructuring. The problem I'm attending to is that the
contemporary discourse of pedagogical reform tends to be integrative,
trying to marry together what I see as quite distinct pedagogical
orientations. The result is that the pedagogical guidance we offer to
teachers has a tendency to be more labored and equivocal than I think it
needs to be. I treasure quotes like this one from Vygotsky because it
speaks clearly, and presses a strong pedagogical agenda.
David Kirshner
____________________
from Vygotsky's Educational Psychology:
From the psychological point of view, the teacher is the director of the
social environment in the classroom, the governor and guide of the
interaction between the educational process and the student. [?] Though the
teacher is powerless to produce immediate effects in the student, he is
all-powerful when it comes to producing direct effects in him through the
social environment. The social environment is the true lever of the
educational process, and the teacher's overall role reduces to adjusting
this lever. [?] Thus, it is that the teacher educates the student by
varying the environment (Vygotsky, 1926/1999, p.49).
--
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 01 2003 - 01:00:08 PDT