Re: [xmca] Re: microgenesis?

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

OK, what I see from the Wertsch paper is a study of how parents guide 
their children in forming a fruitful attention strategy for solving 
puzzles. And that by 4 years old, these children were doing voluntarily 
what the 2 year olds were doing only with assistance, but no instances 
were observed of the transition from other-regulation to self-regulation 
in the course of the experiment itself. The parents were instructed to 
assist their children and the children knew that their parents had been 
told to help them. The children appeared to not need any special 
motivation to tackle the puzzle, being attracted to it without any 
special measures by the researchers or parents.

Other than a kind of exhibition of Vygotsky's conception of 
interpersonal functions and division-of-labour being appropriated by 
children so as to reappear as internal psychological functions, I don't 
know what to get from this. Little ones needed parental guidance, older 
ones didn't. I found the Question Answer Reading paper much richer.

As I understand your question it is this, Mike: What principles of 
change apply to micro-level change (of an individual? or do you mean 
during the space of a few minutes or hour?), as compared to the 
principles which apply to the change of whole cultural groups (such as 
the development of writing from the times of Ancient Egypt until now)? 
Is that the question? it is not at all clear to me what you are asking, 
Mike. Did you skip over ontogenesis somewhere in there? Are you talking 
about time-scales or what is being changed (eg human biologiy, artefacts 
and institutions, the individual person or the situation?)

Andy

mike cole wrote:
> well we are sure agreed about the context dependent part. I argue for 
> different principles of change in what Huw refers to as sociogenesis 
> and I refer to as cultural-historical genesis. I am just real 
> uncertain about how to characterize more micro levels of 
> development/context/historical..... change.


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