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Re: [xmca] crisis at age 17

I did not mean to impute a framing of the question in those terms to you Mike, but I can't quite see why you describe the idea of what Vygotsky calls the "transitional period" ending in the "beginning of adulthood" as something passe and fraught. Is there a country in the industrialised world which does not have an age (or ages) at which the person qualifies to vote, drive cars, give informed consent, join the army, run for election, serve on juries - all those rights which characterise adult citizenship in a country? Vygotsky says these instituionalised age-levels "depend on enormous practical experience" (LSV CW 5p187) so it seems a fair conclusion to draw that there is some reality behind a hear-universally institutionalised idea, some basis in patterns of child development in the given society. Mind you, he also says "We do not include youth (i.e. the period between adolesence and adulthood) in the scheme of age periods of childhood for the reason that theoretical and empirical studies equally compel opposition to stretching child development excessively and including in it the first twenty-five years of human life. In the general sense and according to basic patterns, the age eighteen to twenty-five years more likely makes up the initial link in the chain of mature age than the concluding link in the chain of periods of child development." (LSV CW 5p196) But that is really not my concern. I am not writing a book on child development! :) It's those youth I am most interested in. The development which proceeds on the basis of a person's thinking and acting in concepts is a different kind of development than that which he or she goes through during childhood, and does not exhibit the same laws. 

Andy


mike cole wrote:
We also did not write about the transition to adulthood at what used to be called the beginning of adulthood, a frought notion indeed. There is not a large literature on that topic which is only pre-figured in the first edition of our textbook when we were allowed to include a life-span treatment of development. 
mike
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 10:42 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote: 

    Apologies Gregory. I slipped a note about Vygotsky in the middle
    of my commentary on Cole, whereas in fact, Mike did not refer to
    Vygotsky in this chapter.
    Culpa mia.
    Andy


    Gregory Allan Thompson wrote:

        Ivo and Andy,
        Also in the adolescence section of Mike's textbook is
        reference to William Damon. He has a wonderful 3-D graphic of
        the development of self-concept from infancy through adolescence.
        His writings on moral development are quite good too. The
        major point that I always appreciate is that moral development
        should not be considered separately from development of
        self-concept (Andy, you might appreciate the way in which
        development of self-understanding and development of social
        understanding are caught up with each other - the development
        of an I that is We?).
        Although I don't recall any explicit reference to Vygotsky, he
        draws on an Vygotsky's kin (according to some), the American
        pragmatists James Mark Baldwin and William James.
        Damon and Hart 1992. Self-understanding and its role in social
        and moral development. In Lamb, M. and Bornstein, M. (Eds.)
        Developmental Psychology: An advanced textbook. pp. 421-464.

        Graphic is on p. 433.
        I'm happy to share a copy directly but prefer not to
        distribute widely.
        -greg
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    MIA: http://www.marxists.org


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*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744 
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org

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