Hi King, Mike, SIG officers and members,
For those of you who have not followed the discussion, two key emails are
included below.
I'm sure I can speak for the current sig officers that we can act on this
issue. We will probably want to discuss Mike's proposed plan of action
(below) and collectively determine what kind and level of action the SIG
members wish to take. It would help if we can include some additional
perspectives so that our actions are most effective in achieving our aims.
For example, just a moment ago, Judy noted that CHSIG should be appropriately
[explicitely] identified with Scribner.
Including the founders of the award in the process would be highly beneficial,
helping to locate the original intent. It would also be great if any one of
us can post information about Silvia and the award, e.g. short bio, award
description, etc, to refresh our knowledge and introduce newcomers to this
issue. That's an invitation. IMHO we will be best served if we approach
this strategically.
Question to King: Is the divisional VP mentioned still in office?
This message is also sent to chsig for more comprehensive coverage.
bb
On Sunday 23 February 2003 05:05 pm, Mike Cole wrote to all of us:
> Thanks King,
> Maybe the Cultural-Historical Sig can create a letter, signed by all of
> its members, to be sent to the officers of AERA, and perhaps published
> in some appropriately visible venue, asking that the hijacked award be
> returned to its rightful place as a memorial to Sylvia's life and work.
> mike
---------------------------------
On Sunday 23 February 2003 06:24 pm, King Beach wrote to all of us:
> Hi Mike and Joe,
>
> Taffy Raphael, Kathy Au, and I were involved in establishing the
> Sylvia Scribner Award, which is a career award for Division C (
> Learning and Instruction). A bit of historical analysis is useful
> here. The Scribner award committee that we established consisted of
> 12-15 committee members/reviewers, half of whom would rotate off each
> year. We had a chair and and a co-chair (who would become chair the
> following year). Overlapping persons and artifacts across the years,
> and across divisional vice presidents (elected every two years) made
> good sense from the perspective of continuity. We expected the
> award to naturally broaden its scope over the years, but remain
> associated with the general issues and quality of scholarship found
> in Sylvia's work.
>
> This brings us to the perils of only doing half of the activity
> theory analysis. The half that we didn't do, had we done it, would
> have indicated that by building in continuity at one level of the
> social organization--the awards committee-- we created a
> contradiction with another level--the power of the divisional vice
> presidency. To shorten and soften the longer story, a new divisional
> VP came into office, removed my former co-chair, by then chair, and
> dismissed the entire Scribner awards committee. This was replaced
> with an entirely new group of people who have done a far better job
> of maintaining their continuity than we did, and in a rather more
> top-down manner. This is, in short, why since the first two
> recipients of the award (Barbara Rogoff and Jean Lave), there has
> been a string of recipients whose work is in many ways antithetical
> to Sylvia's. Maybe the Cultural-Historical SIG can recapture
> Sylvia's name for an award?
>
> --King
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