Re: [xmca] Development of development

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Hi Andy
I think I get the difference but as you point out we can engage in a conversation on the characteristics of lifeworlds.
Eric
Yes this topic goes back to Weber, but it still seems to have relevance to the current article being discussed .

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Date: Friday, May 14, 2010 8:16 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] Development of development
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Hello Larry:
> 
> Thank you for reintroducing this topic, it has a long life and 
> glad to see 
> it continue.  I can't really comment greatly on Habermas, 
> lifeworlds or 
> the like.
> 
> Martin:
> 
> the reason for this post is to inquire about the dialectic in 
> Habermas' 
> writing.  I have just briefly read a few critiques and am 
> seeing 
> dichotomies between social and individual and am lacking enough 
> knowledge 
> about Habermas to find the dialectic.  Could you perhaps 
> enlighten me on 
> this for I have read enough of your writing to know you value 
> the 
> dialectic.
> 
> Just want to mention this has been a bountiful year of morels 
> and wild 
> asparagas;  yum!
> 
> eric
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 05/14/2010 10:09 AM
> Please respond to ablunden; Please respond to "eXtended Mind, 
> Culture, 
> Activity"
> 
>  
>         
> To:     "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" 
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>        cc: 
>         
> Subject:        Re: [xmca] 
> Development of development
> 
> 
> Larry,
> 
> This doubtless seems exceptionally pedantic, but in my view 
> "socially situated development" is something quite different 
> from "the social situation of development."
> 
> As I see it, when Vygotsky emphasises the importance of 
> identifying and understanding the *situation* which drives 
> development he is requiring us to form a concept of the 
> situation, whatever it may be in a given case. He makes a 
> contrast between this approach and a description of the (let 
> us say for the sake of contrast) the context or environment 
> in which the child happens to find themself. This context or 
> environment is characterized in terms of its various 
> attributes, such as the ethnic background of parents, 
> socioeconomic status, values, and so on. This way of 
> characterising the relation is really complexive (to use 
> Vygotsky's word) and not conceptual as such.
> 
> You correctly point out the need for a conceptual grasp of 
> the lifeworld's character, but I think "situation" is 
> different from situating something, Larry. Do you see what I 
> mean? If we have the characteristics of the surrounding 
> world on one hand and the development on the other, then we 
> have situated the development but we don't know the situation.
> 
> Andy
> 
> Larry Purss wrote:
> > Hi everyone
> > I thought I would log on and reflect on social situations of 
> development 
> [Fleer and Hedegaard article.]
> > I want to bring in Martin's ideas from his edited book 
> "Cultural and 
> Critical Perspectives on Human Development" (2001)  On page 
> 142, 143 he 
> elaborates on Habermas's notion of the "lifeworld" to explore 
> the 
> development of development [innovations in the institutions that 
> define 
> specific developmental pathways]
> > Martin, following Habermas, contrasts lifeworlds with 
> RATIONALIZED 
> SYSTEMS [institutional structures that develop particular "kinds 
> of 
> persons". I believe this distinction of institutions as existing 
> within a 
> tension between different ways to structure relational practices 
> is 
> critical to our reflection on socially situated development.
> > Martin offers a key insight when he states "The 
> rationalization efforts 
> depended for their effect on the CONTINUED OPERATION OF THE 
> LIFEWORLD of 
> the school, without having an adequately CONCEPTUAL grasp of the 
> lifeworlds character.
> > As we go forward in describing socially situated development I 
> believe 
> this recognition of the foundational requirement for 
> implementing 
> rationalized systems depends on maintaining lifeworlds.
> > However the contradictions involved in this statement are 
> obvious as the 
> more "successful" the implementation of rationalized systems of 
> institutional practices, the more fragmented the lifeworlds become.
> > The "project" [Andy's term] that I see Fleer & Hedegaard 
> engaged in in 
> their explication of socially situated development can be 
> enriched by 
> including the notion of the lifeworld's character [and the 
> VALUES this 
> notion implies]. 
> > Martin also brings in Latour's notion of classrooms and 
> families 
> existing as institutions as NODES within a wide ranging NETWORK 
> of distal 
> rationalized SYSTEMS that exert "a relationist ontology" 
> (Latour, 1997 as 
> cited in Packer p. 143) that threatens the "bursting of the 
> capacity of 
> the lifeworld" Habermas (as cited in Packer p.143).
> > 
> > The development of development  trajectory of our current 
> institutional 
> structures needs to explore the historically continuing 
> destruction  of 
> schools as lifeworlds.  The 5th dimension, and Golden key 
> schools are 
> particular examples of responding to this rationalizing process 
> but 
> philosophically I believe we need to engage in asking how we can 
> maintain 
> lifeworlds within our current public schools.
> > 
> > Larry
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
> Skype andy.blunden
> An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity: 
> http://www.brill.nl/scss
> 
> 
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