Thanks A LOT, Phil, for the useful review of the book! It is now on my
reading list..
I agree with Vladimir Ageyev's claim that some US translations of Vygotsky
de-emphasized his poetic and metaphorical style that deeply embedded in his
paradigm and research program (e.g., what Vygotsky considered as a
psychological phenomenon and evidence and what mainstream American
psychology considers as a psychological phenomenon and evidence). I think
Mike wrote about that several months ago about his own difficulties to
introduce poetry in his academic writing and research. I'm glad that
Vladimir brought that to public debate (I'm unaware about any other
publication discussing this issue - but I can be wrong). In general I think
psychology should learn from anthropology how to become sensitive to own
scientific writing and narratives. I think that this is especially true for
psychologists with sociocultural (or whatever you call it) orientation like
ours (xmca-ish). It is time to develop cross-cultural "psycholo-logy?" (a
science comparing how psychology practice is defined and viewed in different
cultures) and specifically "cross-cultural and cross-historical
Vygotskiology" (a field of cross cultural psycholology comparing how
Vygotsky's writings treated in different national psychology sciences and
across time).
Phil wrote,
> Several students I have worked with recently, in the context of
> learning theory for developing abilities in using another language,
> have posed questions such as "How do we know when a learner is in the
> zpd?", How can we measure progress through the zpd?" and "When learners
> are interacting, whose zpd is it?". Similar questions from US students
> are outlined by Ageyev. I have always had difficulties myself in
> answering these questions, and have replied with vacuous statements
> such as, "Think of the zpd metaphorically", etc. Ageyev provides some
> good fodder to think over, notably for me...
Although I did not read Vladimir's chapter and judge only from Phil's
summary, I disagree a bit with portraying an inquiry of "measuring ZPD" as a
specifically American inquiry (here I'm going again - judging a text without
reading it! :-). In my view, Vygotsky himself really believed that ZPD can
be operationalized and become a psychological measurement like IQ tests. It
is true that he had several different definitions of ZPD (at least two)
probably referring to different psychological phenomena: 1) ZPD as a
distance between child's solo and joint performance and 2) ZPD as a leading
activity where child demonstrates most advanced psychological functions. But
I do not have doubts that Vygotsky badly wanted to operationalize the ZPD to
measure proximal development. I privately discussed this issue with Jaan
Valsiner (who is very knowledgeable about the historical context of
Vygotsky's writings) and he seemed to think similarly. In my view, we are
moving he notion of ZPD to more exciting directions that Vygotsky himself
did not envision (e.g., ZPD in areas of diversity and multiculturalism).
Now, I wrote "I disagree *a bit*" because, in my view, it is true that there
is not any other country where desire to develop a ZPD test has not been
taken so seriously and with such a zest as in US. According to Jaan, the
first American attempts to design "ZPD test" were undertaken in the end of
30s. The attempts failed because of lack of reliability
(surprise-surprise!).
It is funny (but not for everybody) that a few days ago, graduates students
at my school told me that my colleague assigned my article on Vygotsky where
I discuss the issue of "ZPD test" and asked the students to operationalize
the notion of ZPD (that was a question of the final exam)! He seems to argue
that if a notion can't be reliably operationalize, it does not exist (or not
scientific).
What do you think?
Eugene
PS The article I referred to is
Matusov, E. (2001). Vygotskij's theory of human development and new
approaches to
<http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/Articles/Matusov,%20Vygotsky%20and%20new%
20approaches%20to%20education,%20IESBS,%202001.pdf> education. In N. J.
Smelser and P. B. Baltes (Eds), International Encyclopedia of the Social and
Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier Science Ltd, Oxford.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Chappell [mailto:phil_chappell@access.inet.co.th]
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 7:04 AM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Cultural biases in understanding Vygotsky
>
> I just received a copy of "Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural
> Context" (Ed's Kozulin, Gindis, Ageyev and Miller) Cambridge 2003, and
> while flicking through the volume, I was drawn to the final chapter by
> Vladimir Ageyev, entitled, "Vygotsky in the Mirror of Cultural
> Interpretations". Ageyev has taught courses on LSV's work both in
> Russia and the US, and his aim in the chapter is to outline some of the
> cultural biases that he has noticed in the US context of students'
> understandings of Vygotsky's ideas. Ageyev begins by claiming that
> LSV's ideas underwent a strong Americanisation through filtering out
> most "poetic, philosophical and historical images", especially from the
> first edition of "Thought and Language" (1962)....I do recall this was
> a point of discussion during the xmca on-line course earlier this year.
>
> Several students I have worked with recently, in the context of
> learning theory for developing abilities in using another language,
> have posed questions such as "How do we know when a learner is in the
> zpd?", How can we measure progress through the zpd?" and "When learners
> are interacting, whose zpd is it?". Similar questions from US students
> are outlined by Ageyev. I have always had difficulties myself in
> answering these questions, and have replied with vacuous statements
> such as, "Think of the zpd metaphorically", etc. Ageyev provides some
> good fodder to think over, notably for me...
>
> 1. Doing some critical self-reflection on how I myself interpret LSV's
> work, as he claims that 100 years of positivism and behavioursim can't
> be shrugged off too readily, especially considering my own
> socio-historical background as a privileged middle class, white male
> from Australia (although Ageyev is referring to US contexts)
> 2. Revisiting the relationship between LSV's work and Marxism. LSV's
> work is usually held by new students in a positive light, and Marx is
> usually associated with "negatives", such as communism. Some of the
> more powerful metaphors that Marx created and which were appropriated
> by LSV (e.g. tools) could do with a critical historical overview.
> 3. Gain a better understanding of the context within which LSV was
> working, and which was shaping his ideas and "experiments". As Ageyev
> notes, we need to move beyond good linguistic translations of LSV's
> works (he seems to assume that we have these available - I can't make a
> comment there) to better cultural interpretations of his ideas. This
> final point rings loudly to me, as the zpd becomes a popularised
> metaphor for successful transmission or acquisition of knowledge and
> skills. I can't help thinking of homogenised fat-free milk!!!
>
> Just some thoughts on a chapter that I skimmed.
>
> Phil
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