I appreciate David Russell's kind comments; I'm pleased he enjoyed the AERA
session that King Beach organized. I'm tidying up my paper, then I'll be
happy to send it to people who've requested a copy, and/or post it at the
MCA web page.
It's not quite accurate to call the paper "a balanced ideological critique
of Lave." If there's a criticism of Jean Lave's work in the paper (and I'm
not sure there is) it's that she's not been ideological enough! I
introduced the paper as an imaginary dialogue between Jean Lave and John
Dewey. Both are critical of the 'orthodox' conception of transfer; both
are critical of the typical practices of schooling. I went on to make the
suggestion that sociocultural researchers should consider more thoroughly
the relation between communities of practice and the larger economic and
political structures of society. Doing this would both ground criticisms
of schooling, and provide direction to suggestions for how schools should
change. I know from my conversations with Jean that she has thought long
and hard about these issues, but in Cognition and Practice they remain
implicit. Still, I think Jean comes as close as any sociocultural
researcher to examining the way larger social structures and processes
influence learning and development.
I ended by proposing that we think of schools as places where children are
transformed, where ontological change takes place. I think sociocultural
work provides a basis for theorizing and analyzing these ontological
transformations.
King has suggested to the symposiasts that we look for a journal to send
our papers too--Mike's suggestion of MCA sounds great!
Martin
================
Martin Packer
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh PA 15282
(412) 396-4852
fax: (412) 396-5197
packer who-is-at duq3.cc.duq.edu
http://www.duq.edu/liberalarts/gradpsych/packer/packer.html