Re: [xmca] 1982 paper on schooling

[Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com>]

Hi Luisa

I got my student Jaki to do an extended *ethnography* for his M Ed.  He
spent several months in two grades of a Catholic school, interviewed
teachers and children as themes seemed to start developing; also did a video
on a class theme on leadership, and analysed this. He took me very earnestly
about exact data, and after 6 weeks had 1,000 pages of data!  He used a
qualitative research computer program which was able to handle a lot of
complexity, but when we looked at the tags he had attached to the data, we
were able to move down from about 30 "meanings" to 3, since there were very
minute specifications which were not helpful in themselves. Jaki is hoping
to present a paper on this methodology at Rome, and I hope to present his
data on bullying in Rome too. Jaki is an xmca-er so you can write to him if
you want to.
*patrick.jaki@gmail.com

*Carol


On 29 June 2010 21:30, 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/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >><
> > >>>>> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/ <http://home.mira.net/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >><
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/ <http://home.mira.net/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>  Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> > >>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> _______________________________________________
> > >>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>  _______________________________________________
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> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
>  <Velasco.Schooling.pdf>_______________________________________________
> > >>
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> > >>
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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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>



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