[xmca] Call for Special Issue

Hi all,
In contrast to the past, when MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY accepted
proposals for special issues with a set cast of participants, we are
now attempting to go a different route by opening up the process so
that others with pertinent interests and papers can submit their
work. We just accepted a proposal for a special issue entitled
"Playworlds of Children and Adults: Cross Cultural Perspectives on
Play Pedagogy" edited by Sonja Baumer and Kristen Radsliff Clark.
Please contact them. We will make use of our tracking and editorial
support system, but Sonja and Kristen, in consultation with me, the
editor-in-chief, will make the decisions. Please contact them if you
are interested or have questions (as per call listed below).
Sincerely,

Michael

Wolff-Michael Roth, Editor
Mind, Culture and Activity
mroth@uvic.ca

Call for Papers

Mind, Cultural, and Activity: An International Journal

invites contributions for a special issue:

Playworlds of Children and Adults: Cross Cultural Perspectives on
Play Pedagogy

One of the core issues in developmental theories over the last two
centuries has been the role of play in both the evolutionary
development of species and the ontological development of
individuals. How might we theorize play when it does not seem to
directly lead to consequences that apparently ensure survival or
bring about other provisions affecting livelihood? While some CHAT
theorists see play as the leading developmental activity in early
childhood (e.g., El’konin, 1971), others have questioned the cultural
and historical universality of this claim (e.g., Goncu, 1999).
Vygotsky specifically discusses the role of play in human development
in an essay (published in “Mind and Society, 1978) where he argues
that play creates a zone of proximal development (ZOPED) and that “in
play a child is always above his average age, above his daily
behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than
himself” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102). Vygotsky also specifically
emphasizes, “Though the play-development relationship can be compared
to the instruction-development relationship, play provides a much
wider background for changes in needs and in consciousness” (p.
102). Despite this early work, recent empirical research has not
emerged that examines what these wider effects are and how and under
what circumstances play creates a zone of proximal development.

Gunilla Lindqvist’s work (e.g., 2001) represents one exception to
this trend. Lindqvist (1996) grounds the educational approach of
play pedagogy in a lesser known work of Vygotsky, entitled
“Imagination and creativity in childhood” (Vygotsky, 1930/2004). She
embraces Vygotsky’s cultural approach to children’s play and argues
for a play-based pedagogy – an approach in which adults actively and
jointly participate in children’s play. In a practical realization
of this approach, Lindqvist and her students worked together with 3-
to 8-year-old children to create Playworlds, an educational practice
that includes adult-child joint pretense and dramatization of a text
from children’s literature, and visual art production.

We invite proposals that examine implementations of Playworld and
other play pedagogy based educational practices across different
cultural and linguistic educational settings.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

· Playworlds as cultural-historical, and activity theoretical
objects of analysis.
· Theoretical and practical implications of cross-cultural
variations in the implementation of Playworld practice.

· How Playworlds contribute to learning and development. The role
of play in human development.

· Playworlds as productive pedagogy. How Playworlds function
differently from other interventions designed to support interactions
with literature and cultural narratives.

· Playworld practice and the zone proximal development.

· Playworlds and the relationships between fantasy and reality;
play and art.

· Playworlds and educational policy or cultural movements.

· Playworlds as research methodology. Ways to study Playworld
practice and ways to study through Playworld practice.

· Playworlds across the lifespan. Adult engagement in Playworlds.

· Playworld pedagogy for formal and informal contexts.

Deadline for submission of papers is 3 August 2007. Please send
papers via email to Sonja Baumer (sbaumer@gmail.com) AND Kristen
Radsliff Clark (kristen@webleaf.com). Queries are welcome
(sbaumer@gmail.com). Manuscripts should be 15 to 25 pages in length
and prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (5th Ed.). All text, including indented
matter, footnotes, and references, should be typed double-spaced on
8½ x 11 in. paper. The number and length of footnotes should be kept
to a minimum. Footnotes should be numbered serially and included
after the references in the text. All figures must be camera ready.
All submissions will be blind reviewed. To facilitate the blind
reviewing, a separate cover page with the title, author's name,
affiliation, electronic mail address, and telephone and fax numbers
must accompany each manuscript. This information should not appear
anywhere else on the manuscript. Mind, Culture, and Activity Journal
is published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. http://www.leaonline.com/
loi/mca

Sonja Baumer
Institute for the Study of Social Change
University of California, Berkeley,
2420 Bowditch Street #5670
Berkeley, CA 94720-5670
sbaumer@gmail.com
sbaumer@sims.berkeley.edu

Kristen Radsliff Clark
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
and Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive; La Jolla, CA 92093-0092
kristen@webleaf.com
krclark@ucsd.edu

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Received on Mon May 14 08:47 PDT 2007