While I have a momement, I will comment on Phil's reflections reading Kozulin
et al (which I have not yet seen, so cannot comment on directly).
First, its great that (mostly) Russians have put together a book on this
topic. I do not particularly like the term "bias" because of its negative
overtones, but if we are talking in terms of, say, "bias filters" or just
"filters" the notion that ideas change when they change cultural-historical
contexts ought to be taken for granted. For a long time, owing to obvious
political factors of a bi-directional sort, examination of Vygotsky in
context was not doable.
Second, there is a pretty large literature out there now on the very questions
you ask, Phil. I note that none of my recent writings on the subject are on
my web page, which needs updating in any event. But you can start pretty
far back.
Alex Kozulin wrote a fine book called "Psychology in Utopia" which I strongly
recommend. It contains a lot of information relevant to your concerns. Valsiner's
Developmental Psychology in the USSR, also 15-20 years old is worth re-
reading any time you have the time.
Jim Wertsch has written about Vyogtsky in context in several of his
publications.
Concerns about the trivialization of the notion of a zoped have been expressed
from a number of sources including Bonnie Litowitz in the collection on
activity theory (obtainable free in the lchc newsletter archives), Valisner's
attempts to deal with the metaphor of zones, Chaiklin's (post on xmca)
fine critical discussion from last year, discussed here, Griffin and Cole's
critical discussion in Rogoff and Wertsch (1984) little edited book
on the zone of proximal development (where Ann Brown and a student report
on efforts to make the zoped measurable), critical writings in work by
Harry Daniels.........
The attempts to distance Vygotsky from marxism strike me as unfortunate, but
so do efforts to romanticize him and Soviet communism, which he supported
for a good deal of his short life.
I could not agree more that "we need to move beyond good linguistic
translations" of LSV" to better cultural implications of his ideas. Do
we have good translations? Of various kinds, yes. After more labor by more
people than I care to try to remember.
And as to discovering the cultural implications, isn't that one formulation
of the goals of xmca?
How well is it being done? Well, I am not satisfied. But I have long been
enjoying the collective labor such work entails.
Great, important, questions to move us toward the new year.
mike
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