Dear Ana-
I did not have time to read Gredler and Shields' article (I'm still in San
Diego) but the quotes that you nicely put together make me agree with the
authors. It seems to me (and I can be wrong) that one of the issues is a
POLITICAL Soviet context. The rhetoric about "upbringing the New Soviet
person" (ridiculed later by dissidents as "homo Soveticus") was used in the
early 1930s by Stalinist propaganda. It seems to me that Glassman
dangerously aligned Vygotsky and Luria with the Stalinist propaganda
machine. I'm personally much more comfortable with Gredler and Shields'
formulation (as presented in your quote) than with Glassman's one. Although
it is well-documented (see Rogoff, 1990) that Luria overlooked the political
context of his Uzbekistan experiments (i.e., Stalinist collectivization
terror), there is no evidence that Vygotsky and Luria accepted the Stalinist
call for "upbringing the New Soviet person" as Glassman seems to suggest.
Knowing Soviet history, Glassman's statements cited below about Vygotsky and
Luria make me VERY uncomfortable. In contrast, I'm very comfortable with
Gredler and Shields' statement that
> Particularly important is that the study was a golden opportunity
> to test the long-standing and widespread debate among
> ethnopsychologists, sociologists, and others as to whether categories
> of thinking are universal (the Gestalt view) or whether
> primitive and advanced technological cultures produced different
> levels of intellectual development (see Luria, 1979; van
> der Veer & Valsiner, 1991).
Sorry if my comments do not make sense because I did not read the articles
but react only to the short quotes.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ana [mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org]
> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 3:54 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Does no one read [between] Vygotsky's words?
>
> Peter, Bill
>
> I went and read the article. One thing is that it is definitively writen
> in a very negative tone, almost angry and very agressive.
> The other thing is that they give a lot of referrences one would have to
> check in order to figure out if they have a point they claim to have.
> However, in one instance at least, I could see that they don't seem to
> understand exactly what they are criticizing. This is the case of the
> famous Luria/Vygtsky research on changes introduced by soviet literacy
> programs. Here is a quote from their article
>
> ****
> Glassman (2001, p. 6) cites Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) as
> the source for his statements that (a) Vygotsky would agree with
> Dewey that society has "a vested interest in the development and
> maintenance of these [psychological] tools" and (b) Vygotsky
> wanted "to use the educational process to teach new members
> of the social community how to 'use' important, culturally developed
> tools in an effective manner (a top-down/determinate
> approach)." In contrast, Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) neither
> stated nor alluded to such an agenda. The text, which addresses
> cognitive development, discusses important landmarks
> in the three different paths that account for human behavior-
> evolutionary (phylogenetic), historical, and ontogenetic (p. 36).
> For example, numeric operations and other early psychological
> tools transformed the memory and thinking of primitive peoples.
> Also discussed were the authors' experiments on the development
> of children's cognitive processes and the cognitive development
> of mentally retarded, physically impaired, and gifted
> children.
> Glassman (2001) then states that the cross-cultural research of
> Luria and Vygotsky "hypothesized that the introduction of new
> tools by a strong social organization (i.e., the Soviet Union)
> would lead to the development of a 'new' type of citizen" (p. 6).
> Instead, the hypothesis the researchers actually tested was that
> "the structure of psychological processes changes as a function of
> history; consciousness does not have a constant, unchanging
> structure" [italics added] (Luria, 1971, p. 160). More specifi-
> cally, Luria (1976) clearly stated,
> We hypothesized that people with a primarily graphic/functional
> reflection of reality would show a different mental process from
> people with a system of predominantly abstract, verbal, and logical
> approach to reality. (p. 18)
> Particularly important is that the study was a golden opportunity
> to test the long-standing and widespread debate among
> ethnopsychologists, sociologists, and others as to whether categories
> of thinking are universal (the Gestalt view) or whether
> primitive and advanced technological cultures produced different
> levels of intellectual development (see Luria, 1979; van
> der Veer & Valsiner, 1991).5 Conducted in the remote parts of
> the Soviet Union (villages in Uzbekistan and Kirghizia) that
> were undergoing rapid socioeconomic change, the study included
> two isolated and illiterate groups and three groups with
> varying literacy levels and some exposure to technological
> change. The 600 interview protocols (van der Veer & Valsiner,
> 1991, p. 248) indicated that practical activity and concrete situations
> dominated the perception, classification, and reasoning
> skills of the nonliterate subjects whereas the others engaged
> in categorical, abstract thinking (Luria, 1976, pp. 117-134;
> ***
> It seems to me that what they criticize is something that is not at all
> opposed to what they say "researchers actually tested [...]". And, that
> was their hypothesis that:
> "the structure of psychological processes changes as a function of
> history; consciousness does not have a constant, unchanging
> structure" .
>
> Either they don't understand that the Soviet Imposed literacy program is
> at the same time a historical, social process" or I don't know what they
> want to say.
>
> That is my first impression. No doubt that the article was written in a
> hostile tone, and I am surprised that it was published as such in the
> educatinal researcher. Good game is a game where we all build upon each
> other's thinking and research instead of bashing each other. If they had
> very important fine points about the differences between Dewey and
> Vygotsky, why not just point that out in a friendly manner??
>
> And of course, I agree with Bill: No one's thinking ought to become a
> dogma - Einsten's, Vygotsky's or anyone elses. The point is to keep
> moving ahead.
>
> Ana
>
>
> Bill Barowy wrote:
>
> >Wow. Thanks Peter for provoking my interest in this article. I had
noted it
> >when it arrived, but I'll make sure to read it asap.
> >
> >I have to say that i am uncomfortable with the kind of thinking and
writing
> >that you described. For example, while Vygotsky could be held as the
kind of
> >genius Einstein was, one does not find folks saying so much they know
what
> >Einstein "said and believed" to the condescension of others. Quite to
the
> >contrary, it is expected to go beyond Einstein in our understanding -- he
may
> >have been a genius, but he was still only a human. And there are now
better
> >reformulations of Einstein's core ideas than what Einstein developed. We
can
> >and do still admire Einstein for his contributions.
> >
> >But so, is this kind of publication the result of making Vygotsky into
such an
> >untouchable icon? Are we suffering the slings and arrows of a
codeveloping
> >hegemonic discourse that attribute legitimacy more to replicating exactly
an
> >individual's ideas than to the problems and the work? If so, it is such
a
> >strange and ironic twist for activity theory research.
> >
> >bb
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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