snip>=20
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> I wonder how much of the focus on the ZPD is a product of the cultural
> environment in which Vygotsky's work was re-discovered; the Cold War
> and the "market economies" of the West which is always happy to co-opt
> ideas and concepts as long as it improves the bottom line (students as
> widgets...)=20
> snip
A few people have written on this - Joe Glick (I think in his intro to the
4th volume of Vygotsky's Collected Works) does a good job of summarizing
Vygotsky's positioning as an alternative to Piaget. =20
But I am curious how you connect the adoption of a Russian's work during
the Cold War (and McCarthyism)?
snip
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> Agree, I don't think a "coaching environment" is always appropriate,
> indeed that is one of the reasons why I'd dismiss much of the Home
> schooling rhetoric because they ignore the importance of the social
> environment in schools.
>=20
=09Are you equating dyads with "coaching environments"? I don't
understand. Also - home schoolers do build in socialization with other
home schoolers and in some home schooling, I understand that the
"teachers" will often divide the curriculum to correspond with what they
are better able to teach and a group of home schoolers then go together to
each other's homes for specialized instruction. It isn't a topic I know
alot about, but there has to be some empirical work out there and not just
rhetoric.=20
> >
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> >The SIM model sounds more promising. I am not familiar with it and
> would
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> >like to know more. Do you have any sources or diagrams available on
> the
>=20
> >web or in print?
>=20
>=20
> Not yet. Yes the dialectical character does seem to have been "removed"
> from western versions or readings of Vygotsky's work. There was an
> excellent article by an English researcher on "Reading Vygotsky" that
> basically points out the Cold War affected understanding of Vygotsky, I
> don't have the reference on me and I'm trying to track down my copy of
> the book, I'll send it along as soon as I get it.
>=20
Thanks.
>=20
> The SIM model is just the term I've coined to reconcile, partially, the
> simplified/Westernized view of the ZPD and Vygotsky
> in<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param> his "Development of Scientific
> Concepts":
>=20
>=20
> =8Awe can say that the child=B9s spontaneous concepts develop from below =
to
> above, from the more elementary and lower characteristic to the higher,
> while his scientific concepts develop from above to below, from the
> more complex and higher characteristics to the more elementary.
> (Vygotsky 1978 p. 219)
>=20
>=20
> </fontfamily>Your "informationally rich environment" is certainly a
> broader environment than I discussed and I think you are correct in
> highlighting it. I'm still waiting for my copy of Volume III, now with
> even greater anticipation! You raise the issue that "the "other" is
> not an agent..." but in a formal school setting we are infact setting
> ourselves up as "agents" and that a unique aspect of the "new" social
> environment of formal education that teachers are trying to grasp and
> optimize.=20
>=20
>=20
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> >The main point I was trying to make seems to hold true of your ZPD
> model
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> >too (I don't know enough about SIM to say) -- conflict is the
> critical
>=20
> >process in Vygotsky's writings. The ZPD is a reorganization through
>=20
> >conflict to create new meaning. The ZPD works by creating a tension
>=20
> >between present and future capabilities; the intersection of external
>=20
> >needs and internal possibilities. The dialectical character of the
>=20
> >process has been neutralized in the West where its conflictual
> aspects, so
>=20
> >critical to VygotskyUs conceptualization, are glossed over, leaving
> no
>=20
> >room for concepts like agency and resistance. Western psychologists
> have
>=20
> >shifted Vygotsky's notion by an emphasis on the interaction between a
>=20
> >child and adult through the process of negotiating meaning, assuming
>=20
> >reciprocity and positive, cooperative interaction. =20
>=20
> >In Vygotsky's ZPD (1935/94), there is no active agent encouraging or
>=20
> >"teaching" or "helping" the child. The "other" is not an agent but a
> part
>=20
> >of an informationally rich environment that holds the potential for
> the
>=20
> >child to appropriate (like the 5th dimension??). Vygotsky's ZPD is
> closer
>=20
> >in meaning to Winnicott's potential
>=20
> >space (1953) or Lewin's life space (Lewin, 1943; 1951/76). It
> assumes
>=20
> >meaning is neither socially based nor reducible to the social. It is
> a
>=20
> >social condition of society itself. Vygotsky clearly recognized the
>=20
> >complexity of this relationship. It is not so clear that all of his
>=20
> >intellectual descendants do.
>=20
> >
>=20
> >
>=20
> >
>=20
> >refs
>=20
> >Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline.
>=20
> >Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
>=20
> >
>=20
> >Lewin, K. (1943). Defining Rthe field at a given time.S Psychological
>=20
> >Review, 50, 292 - 310.
>=20
> >=09Lewin, K. (1951/76). Field theory in social science. Chicago:
>=20
> >University of Chicago Press.
>=20
> >Vygotsky, L. S. (1935/94). The problem of the environment. In R. van
> der
>=20
> >Veer & J. Valsiner=20
>=20
> >(Eds.) The Vygotsky Reader. (pp. 338 - 354). Oxford: Blackwell.
>=20
> >=20
>=20
> >Vygotsky, L. S. (1926/97). The historical meaning of the crisis in
>=20
> >psychology. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), R. Van der veer,
> trans.=20
>=20
> >The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. III: Problems of the
> theory
>=20
> >and history of psychology (pp. 233 - 370). New York: Plenum Press. >
> >
>=20
> >
>=20
> >Werner, H. (1948/61). Comparative psychology of mental development.=20
> NY:
>=20
> >Science Editions.
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> >>=20
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> >> >
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> >>=20
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> >> >Stephanie Urso Spina
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> >>=20
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> >> >City University of New York
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> >>=20
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> >> >sspina who-is-at email.gc.cuny.edu
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> >> <</fontfamily>
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> >>
> *************************************************************************=
******
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> >> The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways;
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> >>=20
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> >> the point, however, is to change it.
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> >> Karl Marx Theses on Feuerbach, no. 11
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> >>
> *************************************************************************=
******
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> >>=20
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> >>=20
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> *****************************
>=20
> George McKinlay
>=20
> mckinlay who-is-at unr.edu
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> *****************************
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