Re: [xmca] Soft Power and Collective Sense Making

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Mike, you have paused to hear others questions.

I would like to ask how central to development are "values for a good life?"

I extracted this phrase from Mariane Hedegaard's article which you
reference. On page 66 she writes, "A diversity of traditions and values for
a good life is central for outlining a cultural-historical approach to
development and important for the conceptualization of children's
development THROUGH their participation IN a variety of institutional
practices".

Do others share Mariane's understanding that  locating contrasting values
of the good life is a central key question for cultural historical theory
of child development? [as a general question].

Different practice TRADITIONS with different demands and expectations seen
AS different understandings of "values of the good life". These contrasting
values INFLUENCE [not constitute] a preschool child's activity and social
situation of development as well as create crisis in the child's social
situation.

I will now pause and wait to hear others questions.

Larry


On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 10:01 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear David ES-
>
> I hope you will join in the discussion of your interesting paper on soft
> power and sense making that has appeared
> in MCA. It has been chosen not only by members of xmca for discussion, but
> by Taylor and Francis as something
> like "article of the week" for their current marketing through new media.
> Congratulations, that is a first of some sort.
>
> I was intrigued from the very opening sentence and by the great potential
> of your article to help build a deeper
> understanding of the Bernstein/Vygotsky/Daniels relationship.
>
> First, I was intrigued by your assertion that "Post-Vygotskian theorists
> have long wrestled with the apparent
> opposition between the sign-mediated nature of collective meanting
> making.... and a focus on the object-oriented
> activity and practical action in cultural-historical perspectives. (my
> emphasis).
>
> Whose apparent? Who are the people who study sign mediation or
> cultural-historical processes with this opposition?
> The Russians for sure. For them it was a political, life, necessity, and
> many of those who espoused ideas argued
> bitterly during their life times.
>
> But a couple of decades ago, people in Europe, the US, South America, and
> elsewhere, argued that there is no
> mediation without activity and vice versa, at least where human beings are
> concerned. This is emblematized nicely on the cover of Luis Moll's book on
> Vygotsky and Education, where there is a mediational triangle in a
> context/situation/
> behavior setting/activty. People like Arne Raithel, Yrjo Engestrom, and
> others insisted that cultural-historical (Vygotskian, sign mediated) and
> activity (Leontievan, production/activity grounded approaches were
> complementary, and that the opposition as binary was a product of the
> political context. The people involved in the discussion were, at the time,
> engaged in emailing each other about ideas and holding conferences, in the
> course of which it seemed
> natural to refer to the combined position as CHAT..... so here we are
> chatting!
>
> -----------
> I am really interested in the way in which you distinguish kinds of frames
> and their relation to the dynamics of
> discourse as they are related to power. Harry long ago sought to combine
> Vygotsky's psychology with Bernstein's
> sociology, and your work continues that tradition.
>
> I want to wait and see what other's find interesting and what questions
> they ask, but it strikes me as potentially
> useful to pause to find out what questions people have and the perspective
> of others. For those who do not
> have access to the Hedegaard (2013) article from MCA, complain and if my
> suggestion of including that
> article in the discussion is useful, perhaps we can arrange it.
>
> mike
>
> This connection appears very clear in the fine article that Marianne
> published to which you refer in your
> article. We did not get to discuss that article at the time, but it is well
> worth revisiting.
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