[Xmca-l] Activity Setting

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Roland, as you can see from Lubomir's response, "activity setting" is 
ambiguous. Lubomir takes "setting" to be significantly indicative of the 
physical space forming the setting. Words like "environment" and "space" 
tend to be used in psychology, especially educational psychology, in the 
mathematical or metaphorical sense, as in "social space." Lubomir did 
not get her concept of activity setting from Wertsch, but by 
appropriating "behaviour setting". My contact with the concept was with 
Hedegaard, where, so far as I know, physical space is not involved.

Could you perhaps share your 1988 paper or an excerpt explaining this 
concept, or alternatively an excerpt from Wertsch's paper which was your 
source?
Andy

Roland Tharp wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I did not mean to imply that activity settings is attributable to 
> Vygotsky himself.  I know of no evidence for
> that.  My first discussion of AS was in Rousing Minds to Life in 1988; 
> my citation for the concept was
> Wertsch, 1985. He was writing a lot during that period, and may have 
> discussed the concept elsewhere as well.
> Mike Cole would certainly know more than I about what Jim Wertsch was 
> reading and writing then.
> Roland Tharp