Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?

[Ron Lubensky <rlubensky@deliberations.com.au>]

Hi Andy,

I too thought the ISCAR newsletter interview article was very good. I 
especially liked your comparison of CHAT to interactionist approaches, 
which you and I have discussed before. One area that continues to be 
messy, as you suggest, is the relationship of CHAT to social 
constructIVism and social constructIONism.

Since CHAT's first home is developmental psychology, it is out of the 
work of Piaget and Papert that these terms are usually defined, and so 
closely that they are often conflated. While these theories acknowledge 
the social and perhaps cultural influences on learning and 
interpretation, they centre on a cognitivist, mental model view of 
knowledge. There is also the normative aspect of giving control to the 
learner to construct his or her individual world-view.

The other social constructIONism comes out of communications and 
sociology (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 
1966), that challenges the inevitability of categorisations that are 
taken for granted in common discourse, and which form the bases for many 
institutions. This post-modern constructIONism generally places 
knowledge in discourse and interaction, but in more recent scholarship 
focuses on the cultural situation of the individual. This isn't a 
learning theory but rather a critical, meta-theoretical stance. To 
complicate matters, there are different strands with various accounts of 
what should be treated as real, true, essential, scientific, etc. and 
how communication should relate to action. It also challenges academic 
research standards with advocacy for interventionist approaches to 
practice. For an interdisciplinary expansion of CHAT, I think this 
constructIONism offers a rich field for comparison.

--
Ron Lubensky
http://www.deliberations.com.au/
0411 412 626
Melbourne Australia
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