Thanks for re-posting the navigational info, Steve. I'll try to explain the
purpose. Thanks Andy, for asking the question. The community changes rapidly
enough and we are all so busy it is easy to forget some of what we have,
potentially, in common.
MCA is an official JOURNAL. Its relatively cheap, especially electronically,
but still beyond the economic reach of some and on the margins of academic
viability for others owing to its particular interdisciplinary/intellectual/
ideological hybridity.
MCA was started at the suggestion of Yrjo Engestrom who noted that its
predecessor, the Newsletter of LCHC, was not an archival journal and so
could not provide a publishing outlet for the growing number of people
interested in the concatination of of research/theory, from Vygotsky to Dewey
to Lave to McDermott to Rogoff to ....... all which had as one of its
central features the role of culture in human nature. I resisted the idea.
Too much work, too much formality, who needs it?
Yrjo and I were both right. Too much work, too much formality, but many
young people DID and DO need it. It provides legitimacy of a kind not easy
to come by in contemporary academia.
Thanks to the understanding good will of many people, we have been able to
send a good part of MCA offshore. At present, Harry Daniels and Anne Edwards
at Birmingham are lead editors and we at lchc provide backup support. In
some year to come I hope we can move the editorial center yet again and
further de-center it from the U.S. and (god grant us the good luck!) decrease
the level of local support we need to provide. This is not laziness speaking,
it is the firm conviction that what we refer to as cultural historical
activity theory (CHAT), which assumes the genuine connectedness of cultural
historical approaches inspired by Vygotsky and activity centered approaches
which are attributed by some to Leontiev, are not, in principle, in conflict,
but rather, are complementary and were brought into conflict owing to
inhuman conditions that existed in the then-USSR in the 1930's. Of course,
CHAT also describes our practices here on xmca, as you may have noted.....
or should I say, have gained some notion of? :-)
Our publisher, Erlbaum, allows us to designate one free to anyone anywhere
with WWW access a free article for discussion. Thanks to local volunteer
help, we have managed to have xmca members vote on what article they want
to discuss collectively.
The article this time is by Carol Lee. It is part of a special issue put
together by Xiadong Liu (currently at Columbia, Teacher's College) and
Giyoo Hatano, currently professor of University of the Air in Tokyo as
a tribute to the work of Jan Hawkins, onetime member of LCHC's precursor
in New York who died of cancer not long ago. The overall theme is "Culture,
Technology, and Development."
Carol's article describes her cultural modelling approach to pedagogy and
its relationship to design of computer environments. It was chosen in
a squeeker election over other, equally worthy articles.
Each time an article is selected, a different member of the editorial
board shepards the discussion, often with help from a colleague or student.
This time, Jim wertsch and his graduate student, Shawn (sorry I do not
remember your last name, John!) are the moderators.
Shawn has tried to post, but the xmca gremlin, perhaps blinded by fires
in our area, would not let him pass, so a note is forthcoming.
And so it goes, Spirit willing.
mike
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