Fwd: [xmca] praise and criticism: chinese-American comparison

[yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike,
Don't know what happened that the message was only sent to you. I clicked on
"reply" as I usually do. This time I typed in the addresses.

That's a good question. I would think that deciding on a topic, choosing a
theoretical framework, and designing research tasks create some constraint
to what kind of data is collected; once the data are collected, especially
if they are qualitative in nature, they probably resist being confined. If
the framework is chosen after data collection, as Miller et a.'s study, it
would not unnecessarily constrain data collection.

Sorry for not making it clear: my study is not a comparison study. It's a
group of children who are bilingual and who also take on the role of
language interpreters in community settings. I use Robbie Case's theory of
central conceptual structure as the framework and his central social
structure to assign scores. I follow basically Marini and Case (1994,
Development of abstract reasoning about the physical and social world, in
Child Development). I am now analyzing the interview data from bottom up to
look for patterns. I hope this time the description is not confusing.

It is going to be a busy term.
Yuan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:25 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] praise and criticism: chinese-American comparison
To: yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com>


Hi Yuan-- I think the note came only to me. That is fine.
I asked the question because i find that often data we (I include myself)
collect
can be interpreted through various theoretical lenses with equal effect, so
why
name the theories differently?

I do not well understand how your comparison of Chinese of English speakers
in a social activity is related to your theoretical perspective. Who do you
cite for references? Where in Piagetian or neo-piagetian literature is there
an account of differences between Chinese and American culture/language (or
any other language/culture relation) and social activity? I would be really
interested. No need to spend any time on this now, you must be really busy
too.

Lets see where XMCA heads for the new year. And thanks for your
thoughtfulness..
mike



On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com> wrote:

> These are not easy questions to answer, Mike. I'll try. I think my data are
> shaped by the theoretical perspective. The interviews (the participants'
> inference of the stories shown to them) are a bit dry. The participants are
> a group selected for their ability to speak Chinese and English and for
> their participation in a social activity. The theoretical perspective
> applies to one aspect of the data, and the other aspect I would find
> interpretive lenses. My data do show some degree of latched turns,
> repetition of what the other has said to show active listening, and calling
> on, and attempting to achieve, understanding nonverbally, between the
> participants and me (to link to the article on tacit communication style).
> As far as I can tell today, I'd probably act more freely as a participant
> besides being a research instrument, if I were to apply CHAT for this
> research. I'm afraid all this is not specific and you have to take my words
> for it! (Maybe I'd share my half-cooked data sometime.) I'm afraid I'm not
> able to answer well, at this point, the important questions you have asked.
>
> I appreciate a lot the forum of xmca; lively conversations. From what I can
> tell, the recent discussion on emotion is at the research frontier. And
> there are many resources. Could you post your work on film literacy?
>
> Happy new year, Mike and all!
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 7:03 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Yuan--
>>
>> How does adopting neo-Piagetian perspective account for the role of
>> culture in children's understanding of the social world differently than a
>> culural-historical
>> perspective? How does adopting this alternative approach shape the kind of
>> data
>> you collect?  These seem like really important questions that should, if
>> the approaches are actually different, lead to different theoretical claims
>> and different types of data collection.
>>
>> Seems like is right at this juncture that talk about theory and talk about
>> "methodology" (the ensemble of methods that link theory and data and each
>> other) stop being idle chat (small c!) and become of practical significance.
>>
>> Warmest new year greetings.
>> mike
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 11:05 PM, yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Mike, I just checked my emails since I posted my wild idea on what the
>>> equivalent of meta-analysis in qualitative data would look like, and other
>>> ramblings. My new year's resolution is do lots of listening in.
>>>
>>>  Thanks for the article of Miller et al. I like it very much. Narrative
>>> is a powerful socializing tool. I take it that children's telling
>>> autobiographical stories with what audience and co-narrators and in what
>>> situations, and how the stories evolve, has much potential for researching
>>> child development. It seems to me that conformity to group norms versus
>>> nurturing of individuality explains well the roles of criticism and
>>> praise/self-esteem, as you suggested in the thread title.
>>>
>>> Yuan
>>>
>>> p.s. I'm here not to learn the discourse of xmca per se (just in case it
>>> may sound alarming), but that of socio-historical approaches. My
>>> dissertation is about children's understanding of the social world and
>>> applies a neo-Piagetian perspective.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 9:09 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> More on the issue of the discourse patterns in Chinese & American
>>>> socialization attached for them who
>>>> cares.
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca