Re: [xmca] 1982 paper on schooling

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Hi Luisa-- The nouns test is of some particular interest in this case
because of the link to Shif work described in Ch 6
of Thinking and Speech.

actual samples of mothers talking to doctors for discourse analysis would of
course be wonderful!
mike

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 2:40 AM, Luisa Aires <laires11@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Mike, Steve and All
>
>
>
> I like your summary, Steve. This is a vygotskian and bakhtinian article
> with a set of topics that are of interest to us: literacy practices, oral
> and written language, schooling, critical feminism and research methodology.
>
> I would like to privilege and discuss the last topic. In fact, to study  *
> "*everyday/scientific" knowledge as a function of years of schooling” and
> measuring it with a “nouns”* *test may be a reductionist perspective.
> Despite this, the article may be interpreted as an exploratory step of a
> larger research; and its subject is a promising refreshment for me.
>
> Discourse analysis methodologies may be a central issue to study literacy
> practices. From a cultural historical perspective (to analyse discourse
> practices in literacy research), what kind of methodological choices do we
> need to make? Interviews? Natural observation? How to analyse multiple data
> we collect with all this methods?
>
>
>
> Best,
> Luísa A
>
>
> On 28 June 2010 00:56, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> 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/><
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>  Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
>> >>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>>  <Velasco.Schooling.pdf>_______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Luísa Aires
> Universidade Aberta/Cetac.Media
> R.Ameal, nº 752
> 4200-055 Porto
> laires@univ-ab.pt
>
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