I'm going to do some digging around for the resources that you mention,
Mike. The cultural implications for the context in which I'm a part of
- helping develop the abilities to use whatever strains of English
Thais need to communicate with non-Thai speakers - is very interesting,
considering the sociocultural history of approaches to education here.
I wonder what the implications of having Thai translations of
Vygotsky's works would be for educators in this part of the world, just
as David ponders over the Spanish versions in C&S America? After a
quick trip to Japan last month, I felt a little queazy about how
Vygotsky's central notions were being supplanted into more
cognitive/individualistic and less sociocultural/interactionist
approaches to language teaching and learning.
Phil
On Dec 19, 2003, at 8:28 AM, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> 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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