"nate" <schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu> on 07/13/99 09:14:37 PM
Please respond to xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
cc: (bcc: David H Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)
Subject: Re: A question about Sociogenetic Approaches
Vygotsky argues in a somewhat similar way in * Psychology of Art*
"It is obvious that we are dealing here with differential psychology in the
precise acceptance of that term. What, then, is the subject of collective
psychology as such? There is a simple answer to this question: Everything
within us is social, but this does not imply that all the properties of the
psyche of an individual are inherent in all the other members of this group
as well. Only a certain part of the individual psychology can be regarded
as belonging to a given group, and this portion of individual psychology
and its collective manifestations is studied by collective psychology when
it looks into the psychology of the army, the church, and so on."
I personally would put Leontiev more with Rogoff than appositional to her.
He did value and emphasize activity, collective, division of labor. For
me, Elkonin is useful here with his emphasis on activities "accompanied by
an intensive orientation in the fundamental meanings of human activity and
by the learning of the objectives, motives, and norms of human relations"
and those "accompanied by means of which the child acquires both socially
evolved modes of action with objects and the standards that distinguish the
various aspects of those objects". Appropriation is one of those terms
used in different ways by different people. Wertsch uses it as different
from mastering, but my impression is its use in the Soviet tradition,
Davydov for example, is either another term for internalization or one
which relates to affective/cognitive components. I would see Rogoff as
defining it in line with its affective role as in Elkonin's "intensive
orientation in the fundamental meanings of human activity" whereas the
internal plane of consciousness as incorporating both. I would assume
Leontiev accepts Vygotsky's assertion that the internal plane is a
realization of the social plane since his critique of "lower mental
processes" was the assumption they were not social.
For me, appropriation as an affective/cognitive dialectic is compatible
with an internal plane of consciousness. If we accept Vygotsky's genetic
law as I assume Leontiev did it is not only content but form that becomes
appropriated on the individual plane. I would see the sociogenetic
differentiation as two sides of the same coin depending on which side one
is valueing. If one "approriates" by extending participation that no doubt
is part of forming an internal consciousness as in Lave and Wenger's
identity formation.
Leontiev a constructivist seems strange to me. This would imply in a
Kantian sense there is knowledge that is a priori to the social world which
I am not sure Leontiev proposes. While he as Vygotsky would not negate an
internal consciousness not outwardly visable, I would assume he would see
it, as in appropriation, somewhat social formed - social consciousness
moved inward. A constructivist in a more Marxian sense as in social
consciousness that is embedded in the material world.
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: <dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 1999 5:39 PM
Subject: A question about Sociogenetic Approaches
> Lightfoot & Cox (1997), in the introduction to their edited volume,
> make a useful (for me) distinction between sociogenetic theories that
view
> the individual as "part of a larger social or cultural whole" and those
> in which the individual "is seen as an ensemble of social relations" (p.
7):
> "The first of these encourages a dissolution of boundaries, whereas the
> second insists on their centrality" (p. 7).
> In the former category, they include theories of Shotter, Rogoff, and
Packer:
>
> Those who are inclined toward a view of the child as part of a
larger
> whole deal typically with the issue of boundary management by
> avoiding all talk of inner mental life, if not dismissing it
outright, in
> favor the more material and publicly accessible plane of action. (p.
9)
>
> In the latter, they include theories of Rommetviet, Valsiner, Bruner, and
Harre:
>
> Proponents [of this latter approach] have insisted that to
> neglect intramental processes is to collapse psychological
> development onto social contingency. Instead, it is typically argued
> that individuals are separate from their environments, although
> interdependent with them, and that the intersubjective world that
> they forge together by way of transcending subjectivity, and to
> which we refer as common or collective, is in fact only partially
> shared. (p. 9)
>
> My question has to do with the classification of the notion of
appropriation.
>
> According to the authors, the latter approach is "largely sympathetic to
> Leont'ev's (1959/1981) proposal that internalization constitutes the
> process in which the internal 'plane of consciousness' is formed" (p. 9).
> In this they see Leont'ev as "following a more constructivist tradition"
(p. 9).
> Yet they find Rogoff (1990) as "motivated to locate competence in
concrete
> action" (p. 8):
>
> Her theory of "appropriation" is one for which development is
> understood as a process that tends toward extended participation
> ...placing emphasis on intersubjectivity and shared meanings. (p. 8)
>
> If I put these last two pieces together, I must conclude either that
Leont'ev's
> notion of appropriation does not quite connect up with his ideas of the
> "plane of consciousness," or that Rogoff does not use all of the
implications
> of Leont'ev's notion of appropriation in forging her own usage of the
term.
> As I read Newman, Griffin, & Cole (1989), constructivism and
appropriation
> stand in contrast with one another. The former involves continuity
(through
> transformation) of the cognitive system, whereas the latter "emphasizes
the
> productive intrusion of other people and cultural tools in the process of
> cognitive change" (p. 68). Thus I want to follow Rogoff in seeing
appropriation
> as supporting the dissolution of boundaries between the individual and
> the social context. But then, how does this reconcile with Leont'ev's
general
> contribution to establishing such boundaries? ...help appreciated.
>
> David Kirshner
> dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu
>
>
>
> Lightfoot, C., & Cox, B. D. (1997). Locating competence:
> The sociogenesis of mind and the problem of internalization.
> In B. D. Cox & C. Lightfoot (Eds.), Sociogenetic perspectives
> on internalization (pp. 1-21). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
> Associates.
>
> Newman, D., Griffin, P., & Cole, M. (1989). The construction
> zone. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
>
> Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking. New York:
> Oxford University Press.
>
>