MCA 5(2)

["Peter Smagorinsky" <smago@coe.uga.edu>]

I'm using some of my summer time to catch up on my reading...today I was
reading MCA 5(2) from 1998, a special theme issue on Concepts, contexts,
and transformation: Scientific and everyday concepts revisited, edited by
John-Steiner, Wardekker, and Mahn.  Concept development has been central
to my writing of late so this issue was especially interesting to me.  A
fine collection.

A couple of the articles could inform some recent threads on xmca:

Bert van Oers: The Fallacy of Decontextualization.
The title aptly describes Bert's emphasis in the paper. In the course of
his essay he makes the following point:

Vygotsky's analysis of human behavior is predominantly formulated in terms
of activities, or rather "shared activities."  When, for example, he
characterized the zpd in terms of "imitation," he was most certainly
referring to meaningful reconstruction of cultural activities and not to
some process of copying individual actions. p. 137

A nice contribution, I think, to our discussion of "copy theories" and
imitation in Vygotsky's account of the zpd.

Willem L. Wardekker: Scientific Concepts and Reflection
Wim's paper could contribute much to the thread on reflection that Ann
Feldman introduced.  I could quote at length, but will focus on his
insight that reflection is a function of scientific (academic) concepts:
"The teaching of scholarly concepts only leads to genuine reflection, and
to the development of personal identity, if the dialogical quality of
concepts is preserved" (p. 148). Wim further ties reflection to
responsibility and ultimately morality.

I single out these articles not because they're the best papers in this
collection but because I think they speak well to current discussions on
xmca.  I'm thankful I've had the time to catch up on this important
reading.

Peter