Helen,
Just to put in my two cents. Constructivism itself is an
epistemological stance. I had always thought the term was coined by
Kohlberg, but googling around it seems to come from Piaget in 1967
(so it is doubtful Vygtosky would have thought of himself at least
as a constructivist). It suggests that the way in which knowledge
comes into existence is through an individual's construction based
on experience in the world around them, rather than being given
(some interpretations of behaviorism) or realized based on
experience unlocking some warehouse of the mind (Chomsky). The
learning paradox which was recently mentioned actually came out of a
debate between Piaget and Vygotsky (although the actual terms
emerged out of a later discussion of the debate) - with the
Chomskyites arguing about whether you can know if something should
be recognized as something that should go into the construction of
knowledge if you do not already have some knowledge that it is
important.
Social constructivism is not quite as well developed, but it
suggests the same constructivist epistemological stance, but instead
of focusing on how the individual constructs knowledge out of their
experience in the world they construct their knowledge of the world
through their experience in social relationships. The social
relationships tend to take some type of precedence so that the
construction of knowledge is not universal but delineated and
defined by social experience. I myself tend to take this view of
Vygotsky but not everybody does (and it is also a little hard to
square with scientific concepts which have been discussed recently).
Constructionism in my experience has been more reserved for more
immediate, process oriented knowledge building or the process of
knowing, many times variations of off shoots from Dewey's
Instrumental Pragmatism by people such as Gergen, Harre and Rorty.
But other people use constructivism and constructionism
interchangably. Again, from my perspective there is a difference in
an epistemological stance of constructivism and constructionism.
Possibly the dividing factor is the constructivism assume a
metaphysics while constructionsim seems to more often argue against
one.
CHAT - cultural historical activity theory - well that's a lot. My
own view is that within this sort of umbrella of ideas there is no
single epistemological stance or a definite view of a metaphysic.
Meaning I think you can find social constructivists,
constructionists, and perhaps even the odd constructivist hiding in
a corner somehwere.
Anyway, I hope that is some help.
Michael
________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Sent: Wed 4/7/2010 8:57 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu; eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
Subject: [xmca] (ism) v (ist)
In the xmca archive there is much discussion about the differences
between
just these two modifiers. Never settled, perhaps never will. From a
linguist standpoint one is active and one is passive.
Helen; from my own experience when I wrote my master's thesis ( A
Vygotskian perspective on Special Education Transition Services) my
supervisor kept asking if I wouldn't be better off making the argument
from an Ericson point of view so I believe mainstream acadamia is
still
confused about what cultural-historical theory is; however, I
believe I am
safe in saying it is not social constructivism. Has your supervisor
specifically stated where they are finding the descrepancies in your
argument? In my thesis I wanted to use more Valsiner and Van der Veer
references but found they did not coexist very well with the Vygotsky,
Luria, Scribner, and Cole cross cultural studies I was referencing.
Maybe this helps, maybe this muddies the water?
eric
Helen Grimmett <helen.grimmett@education.monash.edu.au>
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
04/06/2010 09:38 PM
Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture,
Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
cc:
Subject: Re: [xmca] Book review ol talk and texts
Can I please ask a (probably extremely naive) question? What are the
differences between social constructivism (as referred to in this book
review) and cultural-historical theory? My supervisor keeps telling
me I
am confusing my arguments by using references from both paradigms,
but I
still haven't managed to grasp what the difference is.
Thanks,
Helen
----- Original Message -----
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 11:59 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] Book review ol talk and texts
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: Roy Pea <roypea@stanford.edu>
Thanks for the review, Larry.
So many important issue intersect there.
Gotta find out what Joe Polman and Roy Pea have to offer on the
learningparadox. Thought Newman et al. set that one to rest back in
the last
millennium!! And to think that it involves a revival of the idea of
a zoped
in transformative communication! Super.
:-)
mike
Roy-- Can you send us the text? Really sounds interesting.
On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca> wrote:
I just read this review of a new book that I thought may be
interesting to
some of the CHAT community so I''ve attached the review. David
Olson wrote
one of the chapters.
Larry
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