Re: [xmca] Dexter et al on schooling

[LARRY PURSS <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Andy
 
Your comment that modernity is a society of decontextualized communication and formal schooling that inducts people into this kind of decontextualized activity seems to be a central topic to elaborate.
 
At the end you say that decontextualization is an ESSENTIAL skill BUT is also a contributor to the ills of modernity.
 
The current post is exploring how this essential but troubling dynamic generates accounts of the development of word meaning.  Luria's notion of a developmental process from affective, to concrete, to abstract is one particular example of viewing this process as a hierarchical process of stages from lower to higher psychological functions. 
 
I have just read an article by Mark Tappan which is exploring accounts of moral development.  He is looking at Lawrence Kolberg's and Carol Gilligan's work in moral development as stages of development. The article is
 
"Moral Functioning as Mediated Action" in the Journal of Moral Education Vol. 35, No.1, March 2006, pp1-18.
 
Mark reinterprets Kolberg and Gilligan's  moral stage theories as particular sociocultural discourses or traditions.  Kolberg is writing in the tradition [genre] of accounts of justice and rights while Gilligan is writing from a tradition [genre] of  "care" as reflecting an ideal of attachment and  responding & being responded to.  The negation of justice leads to oppression, domination, and inequality in moral accounts of the justice tradition.  The negation of care leads to detachment, abandonment, and a lack of responsiveness in the care tradition of moral development. 
 
Andy, I have given this example to highlight the hermeneutical notion that ALL traditions or genres or accounts are BIASED. All theories privilege some accounts over others.  Stage theories of development are biased and privilege the decontextualized processes within modernity that are very effective psychological tools but as you mention also contribute to the ills of our society.
 
Mark Tappan suggests that in America, "Justice", traditionally, has been a more powerful, more PUBLIC moral language in the contemporary US culture., while "care" has been less powerful, less public.  Thus moral functioning mediated by justice has been more seen as more legitimate than moral functioning mediated by care..." (p.8)  Mark emphasizes that these particular forms of moral discourse are socio-culturally situated accounts that have emerged in the US culture in the last 30 years. 
 
Andy, the relevance of Mark's article to your comment on the trajectory toward increasing decontextualization [framed as higher psychological functions] is that Kolberg's account of stages of moral development also has a trajectory of increasing decontextualization.  Kolberg's stage 2 [characterized by a social perspective dominated by RULES external to the self ] the person's reasoning entails avoiding punishment. The phrases "its not good to steal" "It's against the law" "someone will call the police" are representative examples.  What Mark points out is that this "stage" can also be explained as the typical phrases 10 year olds in the US hear over and over and could reflect the situational discourse of elementary schools.  When Mark looks at a person in Kolberg's stage 4 [social system and conscience] phrases such as "protecting property", "society will get out of kilter" are typical of the reasoning of a 17 year old.  Mark points out once again that another way to understand this stage is as the type of  discourse that 17 year olds are typically exposed to in high school.  Stage 6 [Kolberg's final stage of "universal ethical principles" is an account of an abstract decontextualized principle characterized by "standards on which a good or just society must be based" (Kolberg)  This moral discourse focuses on "a sense of obligation to law for the welfare of all and to protect people's rights." To reach stage 6 the person must enter in to particular forms or genres of moral discourse.  Mark points out that this stage is seldom reached.  He suggests the reason this stage is seldom reached is because this form or genre of moral discourse is seldom encountered in day to day social life in the USA or anywhere else.  Where this type of discourse is encountered is in institutions of higher education.  Not surprisingly Mark suggests most of the subjects who reach stage 6 and use these forms of moral discourse have been found to have attended university.  Mark's critique of Kolberg's  stage theory suggests that traditions of justice and rights and the forms of discourse encountered in the situational lives of 10year olds, 17 year olds, and university students, can give an alternative explanation of Kolberg's stages as developing  from concrete to universal moral discourses.  Mark suggests the person develops morally within historically situated traditions of moral discourse.  The genre of "justice and fairness" is a particular tradition but whether this developmental process follows invariant stages or is socioculturally situated can be debated.  The genre of justice and fairness is a particular set of psychological tools mediating a particular discourse tradition.  Mark Tappan suggests that Kolberg's theory of moral development  is an historically constituted theory and Mark offers an alternative theory of mediated action that questions moral development as a process of universal [decontextualized] developmental stages.  
The question of why the tradition of justice and equality is dominant in the public realm while the tradition of "care"  is relegated to the private sphere is another topic which should be explored further.  I believe this bias also has unintended consequences.
 
Andy, this is a round about way of supporting your statement on modernity as an historical situation that continues to bias the decontextualized, abstract, [and I agree very powerful tool] that has resulted in other aspects of our human needs being delegitimized.
 
Larry
 
 
 
  

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010 9:16 pm
Subject: [xmca] Dexter et al on schooling
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> 'nother good paper, Mike.
> 
> What I gatherered was that modernity is a society of 
> decontextualised communication, and that formal schooling 
> inducts people into this kind of activity.
> 
> So reading "Mary threw a stick. Fido chased it," makes no 
> sense to someone who doesn't know anyone called Mary or a 
> dog called Fido, etc., until they have been accustomed to 
> this kind of decontextualised and impersonal communication. 
> Hearing a radio broadcast of "Boiling baby's water kills 
> germs," is an experience of the same kind. It would be 
> unlikely to be trusted or understood by an unschooled person.
> 
> So learning to read and write is not just about written 
> speech as opposed to verbal speech. Teacher getting the 
> class to chant a list of food types is just as much 
> decontextualised communication as reading about Mary and 
> Fido. Interestingly the writers say it is "not surprising" 
> that reading ability to not well correlated to schooling, 
> though understanding decpontexualised verbal communication is!
> 
> And nor is the development of "conscious awarenss" implied 
> in writing an issue for these writers. It is 
> decontextualised and impersonal communication - an essential 
> skill for living in the modern world, but also a contributor 
> to the ills of modernity.
> 
> Very interesting.
> 
> Andy
> mike cole wrote:
> > Cool summary of the article, Steve.
> > A variety of issues ensue, but which are of interest to people?
> > 
> > mike
> > 
> > On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Steve Gabosch 
> <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> I like this article Mike just posted - Focus on Women's 
> Empowerment in
> >> Latin America Maternal Schooling and Health-Related Language 
> and Literacy
> >> Skills in Rural Mexico
> >> by EMILY R. DEXTER, SARAH E. LEVINE, AND PATRICIA M. VELASCO.
> >>
> >> Here are some extracts that stand out for me.  
> <Bracketed comments> are
> >> mine, the rest is quoted from the article.  Interesting 
> connections to
> >> recent discussions.  I find doing this kind of summary 
> helpful for me to
> >> absorb this kind of writing, so here goes.
> >>
> >>
> >> ***********
> >> <1. One of the measurements used in this study of rural 
> Mexican women
> >> regarding how they responded to health interviews and 
> information was to
> >> measure how they defined the meanings of common nouns in a 
> noun definition
> >> task.>
> >>
> >> Following Snow in her research with schoolchildren, we 
> employed a noun
> >> definition task to assess women's decontextualized language 
> skills. Women
> >> were asked the meaning of 10 simple nouns such as "knife," 
> "thief," and
> >> "dog" with the question, "What is a ?" Their responses are 
> scored on a
> >> continuum from highly contextualized to highly 
> decontextualized. A
> >> contextualized definition of "thief" would be "One stole my 
> television,">> while a decontextualized response would refer to 
> abstract properties: "A
> >> person who steals from others." A highly contextualized 
> description of "cat"
> >> might be to point to a cat in the room, while a 
> decontextualized description
> >> would describe it in terms of its superordinate category 
> membership ("a cat
> >> is an animal...") and specific properties ("that is 
> domesticated, nocturnal,
> >> and has fur and whiskers").
> >>
> >>
> >> <2. The noun definition task employed in this study is 
> similar to aspects
> >> of Luria's study.>
> >>
> >> The noun definition is the verbal equivalent of the object 
> classification>> task that A. R. Luria used when investigating 
> the reasoning strategies of
> >> Soviet peasants.  Luria found that nonliterates with no 
> schooling were more
> >> likely to classify objects according to function rather than 
> superordinate>> category: a scythe would be grouped with wheat 
> rather than with other tools,
> >> for example. Luria proposed that schooling and literacy promote
> >> classification systems that are abstracted from everyday life.
> >>
> >>
> >> <3. Socioeconomic status tends to predict the length of 
> answers to
> >> questions in a health interview.>
> >>
> >> While the noun definition, listening comprehension, and reading
> >> comprehension scores were predicted by length of schooling, adult
> >> socioeconomic status is the only variable that predicts how 
> much a woman
> >> speaks in an interview. Women with more socioeconomic 
> resources, on average,
> >> gave longer responses than women with fewer resources, 
> regardless of
> >> education level. We have not found evidence, then, that women 
> learned this
> >> skill in school. It should be noted, however, that adult 
> socioeconomic>> status explains only 25 percent of the variance 
> in this measure, showing
> >> that at each level of socioeconomic status considerable 
> variation exists in
> >> the length of responses.
> >>
> >>
> >> <4. Schooling and literacy help women understand oral 
> public health
> >> messages.>
> >>
> >> The oral language skills effective for local, face-to-face 
> communication,>> we argue, are not a sufficient foundation for 
> the bureaucratic literacy
> >> required to understand public-health messages. In our study, 
> the women able
> >> to provide the most decontextualized, impersonal definitions 
> of common words
> >> were also, on average, the most skilled at understanding 
> spoken health
> >> messages, and those with the greatest listening comprehension 
> skills were
> >> best able to understand printed health information.
> >>
> >> ... we argue that the ability to understand public, 
> bureaucratic language -
> >> spoken and written - requires an orientation to language 
> emphasized in
> >> schools but not necessarily in other family and community settings.
> >>
> >>
> >> <5.  Women's literacy classes should expand oral 
> language abilities, not
> >> just reading skills.  This point seems relevant to some 
> of Shirley's remarks
> >> the other day.>
> >>
> >> ... a major goal of women's literacy classes should be to 
> expand oral
> >> language abilities. Not only will these skills serve as a 
> foundation for
> >> literacy, but they also will give women greater access to the 
> information>> provided by the increasingly ubiquitous radio and 
> television.>>
> >>
> >> <6. Just as this study relied, in part, on correlating the 
> ability to
> >> define nouns in decontextualized ways with the ability to 
> interact with
> >> public health systems, the ability to articulate and 
> challenge the
> >> definitions of words is important in general, including in feminist
> >> consciousness.>
> >>
> >> The act of defining words, however, is also a fundamental and 
> powerful way
> >> of participating in the public sphere of meaning-making. A 
> formal definition
> >> is an assertion that a word has a standardized-or shared-
> meaning that
> >> conveys not only one's own experience but also the experience 
> of a
> >> collective, or an implied "we." Definitions are agreements 
> about what words
> >> mean, and those agreements can be challenged. It is through 
> the act of
> >> redefining words that new meanings can be created in the 
> public sphere, and
> >> social change for women occurs, in part, when they 
> successfully challenge
> >> the public definitions of words such as "marriage," 
> "motherhood," "home,"
> >> "work," "economy," "sexuality," "politics," and 
> "equality."  A critical
> >> feminist consciousness requires an ability to understand the 
> way the world
> >> is currently defined and an ability to become an active 
> participant in
> >> defining the public world.
> >>
> >> *******
> >> - Steve
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Jun 27, 2010, at 3:10 PM, mike cole wrote:
> >>
> >>  Attached is a paper on years of schooling and the 
> formality of definitions
> >>> given by Mexican women. Part of a much larger set of papers 
> but directly
> >>> related to earlier paper by Snow and ulvi's dissertation 
> topic. Not sure
> >>> where/how best to respond to Andy's note because i am unsure 
> if people
> >>> regard it as peripheral or central to Vygotskian and other 
> theories of
> >>> culture and development.
> >>>
> >>> I see this "nouns" test as well as the paper with D'Andrade 
> as relevant,
> >>> but
> >>> also as leaving plenty of room for a study that uses the 
> "everyday/>>> scientific" distinction and studies it as a 
> function of years of
> >>> schooling.
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 9:02 AM, ulvi icil 
> <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>  I am interested on the effect of schooling on concept 
> formation, the
> >>>> relationswhip between everyday and scientific concetps as a 
> candidate>>>> research topic for my master thesis that I will 
> start to work October
> >>>> 2010
> >>>> onwards !
> >>>>
> >>>> Ulvi
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> 2010/6/26, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>:
> >>>>
> >>>>> That article connects to several ongoing threads, Andy. 
> But lets see if
> >>>>> others are interested before I directly comment.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Instead, I think that the cover of the current issue of 
> the New Yorker
> >>>>> magazine provides interesting food for thought one 
> concepts and their
> >>>>> representations. It is accessible from 
> www.newyorker.com.  Try to click
> >>>>> on
> >>>>> the cover and than use control+ (on a pc) to get a larger 
> and larger
> >>>>> imaged.
> >>>>> The different layers of meaning appear to move between the 
> syntagmatic>>>>> and
> >>>>> paradigmatic dimensions of meaning making. Besides,
> >>>>> its clever.
> >>>>> mike
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Andy Blunden 
> <ablunden@mira.net>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  I just had a read of Mike's 1982 paper with Roy 
> D'Andrade on the
> >>>>> influence
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> of schooling on concept formation:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Histarch/ap82v4n2.PDF
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Great paper!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It occurred to me that Luria is in agreement with many 
> others that a
> >>>>>> hierarchical system of categories,  a taxonomy, is 
> the archetype of the
> >>>>>> "abstract" concept. Luria's conception of how this 
> relates to prior
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> forms of
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> concept (affective and concrete) is the main point of 
> interest in the
> >>>>>> article, but I would like to question whether this 
> taxonomical idea is
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> valid
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> as the archetype of the "true" concept. The article 
> claims that
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> taxonomical
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> practices ("true" or not) are archetypal school 
> practices, and this is
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> an
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> interesting and different question.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> An interesting counterpoint to this is Hegel's 
> classification of 3
> >>>>>> different components which he thinks must *all* be 
> present in the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> formation
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> of a true concept:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> The subject is (a) ascribed certain qualities; (b) seen 
> as having
> >>>>>> having
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> a
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> certain place in a system of social practice; and (c) 
> taken under its
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> genus,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> as belonging to a certain living whole.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Further, I think (c) does not actually amount to the kind 
> of Linnaean
> >>>>>> hierarchical family tree, but could also be interpreted 
> like genre and
> >>>>>> archetype without the implied underlying totality. Also, 
> there is all
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> too
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> much room for subsuming (c) under (a) as almost all of 
> present-day
> >>>>>> philosophy and natural science are wont to do.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Mike, you have done a lot of work on the role of this 
> "taxonomical>>>>>> activity" in and out of school. Davydov on 
> the other hand, emphasises
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> (b) as
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> opposed to (a). It would be interesting to investigate
> >>>>>> concept-formation
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> on
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> this wider frame.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Andy
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> >>>>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>>>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ 
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/><>>>>>> 
> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/><>>>>>>
> >>>>> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> >>>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>  _______________________________________________
> >>>>> xmca mailing list
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> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>  
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> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
> 
> 
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