Vygotsky Education

1. Vygotsky & Education 07 September 2006 Karen Spear Ellinwood

2. AGENDA questions about and discussion of last week's readings intro to the concept of mediation study groups to meet to discuss this week's readings whole class discussion of same demonstrate D2L site chat feature, take questions on using that technology

3. Readings on Vygotsky The man in context From 08.31.06 class

4. Rosa and MonteroHistorical context of Vygotsky�s work Cultural-historical Crisis in psychology as a discipline Personal

5. Marx & EngelsConsciousness �Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness� (7) They produce their own means of subsistence Who humans are �coincides with production, both with what they produce and with how they produce [it]� (7) Humans, �developing their material production and their material intercourse after, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined y consciousness, but consciousness by life.� (14-15) When people satisfy their needs, new needs are identified. In remaking their own lives, humans make the lives of others as part of an historical development beginning with the social institution of the family and moving to macro levels of society.

6. History & consciousness �Language is as old as consciousness� and �Consciousness is � from the very beginning a social product and remain so as long as men exist at all� (19) �Consciousness takes the place of extinct� what Ingold views as Marx�s belief that humans evolve �out of nature� �world-historical� concept: �the existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history� (26) Rejects the idea of the self-made �man�

7. History �a sum of productive forces, a historically related relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces, different forms of capital, and conditions which, indeed, is modified by the new generation on the one hand, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.� (29)

8. BlanckThe man and his cause Critical assimilation �human essence is constituted by social processes� (Blanck, 45) Social relations and culture are the sources of the mind The working brain is its organ The unique social activity of each subject is how the mind originates Blanck (49), Social cultural evolution occurs through ontogenetic development , which is: Not a straight trajectory of accumulated knowledge (cf. Pavlov�s theory of reflexive learning) �a series of qualitative, dialectic transformations� �elementary processes are superseded by cultural ones� (Hegel; then Marx, Engels, and Lenin) (Blanck, 46)

9. ColePhylogeny & and Cultural History Vygosky�s levels of development: ontogenesis and cultural history Genetic domains (i.e., phylo- and ontogenetic) Biological and cultural inheritances �culture creates special forms of behavior� (quoting Vygotsky, p. 152) Complex relation between biology and culture - �A fusion with the processes of organic maturation� An artifact can cause a �fitness-increasing� or fitness-decreasing outcome in the long term (165) Cultural mediation does not imply �the total independence of human development from phylogenetic constraints.� the issue is to what degree do phylogenetics influence development at any given �stage� Tomasello (see Ch. 3) � uniquely human quality of voluntary attention Cultural mediation is a shift away from �natural� or unmediated thought or activity (becoming increasingly complex) Commentary on Luria�s cultural differences of thinking (172)

10. Mediation Karen Spear Ellinwood

11. Mediation

12. VygotskyTool & symbol in child development Critique of competing paradigms of learning and development Botanical � e.g., Piaget, Stumpf (maturation, determinant) Zoological � comparative studies of other primate and child behavior, elementary processes; biological bases; preverbal period (pp. 22-23) Kohler, practical intelligence, apes and children K. Buhler, �technical thinking� - use of tools; precedes speech & independence of speech/language and intelligent action; equates practical intelligence in children with that of apes Ch. Buhler, practical intelligence at 6 months old Shapiro & Gerke � dominant role of social experience; adaptation and mechanical repetition (akin to Pavlov); speech replaces real adaptation, does not account for development of new structures for practical activity Guillaume and Meyerson, speech plays role in uniquely human behavior (studies in aphasia) � supports Vygotsky�s idea that, �Speech plays an important role in the organization of higher psychological functions� (23) Innatist view � all structures/processes exist fully developed waiting for the right moment to arrive

13. What are we talking about? Transformation of elementary psychological processes into higher psychological functions Elementary psychological processes � biological origin Higher psychological functions � sociocultural origin Learning and development as the interweaving of these is the nature of child development Mediation as the determinant of learning and development (in whatever form it takes)

14. Tools & Signs Signs Graphic Script Numbers Iconic Tools Material: Could be signs used to mediate, solve a problem Ideal: Could be psychological in nature

15. Tool use and speech Speech and tool use are interwoven: �the dialectical unity of these systems in the human adult is the very essence of complex human behavior� Symbolic activity has a" specific organizing function that penetrates the process of tool use and produces fundamentally new forms of behavior� (24) New relations with environment & New organization of behavior Egocentric speech = Thinking out loud through speech as a social phenomenon; �external form � embedded in communicative speech� (27) not mere accompaniment to practical activity; essential to figuring it out. Basis of �inner speech� or socialized speech (used for communication) turned inward

16. Basic tenets �Alloy of speech and action� Speech + action = thinking (unity of perception, speech and acting) Planning; Practical operations combined with speech, less impulsive Increased egocentric speech in relation to the difficulty of the task Close connection between egocentric and socialized speech Speech as guide to planned activity Visual fields (concrete) Psychological fields (mind) Children can think about the future Auxiliary tools to attend to a task Master behavior

17. Works well with others Children use people to mediate their experiences, address challenging tasks (Moll, Through the mediation of others) Cannot solve a problem alone �children confronted with a problem that is slightly too complicated for them exhibit a complex variety of responses including direct attempts at tatting the goal, the use of tools, speech directed toward [another], and direct, verbal appeals to the object of the attention itself� (30) Enlists an adult to help by asking direct questions Collaboration emerges as a necessary response

18. Perception and attention Tool use and speech affects Perception Sensory-motor operations Attention Form and relation of functions Practical activity in other primates centers on perception (visual field) Perceiving separate objects Perceiving complex relations among objects Perceptual skills � language development ? verbalized perception, Perception through speech Speech requires �sequential processing�, thinking, speech is analytical Inevitable interdependence of language and thinking: language is a tool for thinking, not just uttering. Lack of verbalized egocentric speech does not indicate lack of language use as tool Taxonomy (also, see Luria�s Cultural differences in thinking) See Tomasello, Ch. 3 (now available online D2l and course page)

19. Voluntary AttentionChildren are not little adults Adults: Preliminary decision ? subsequent action Children: more tentative, play with their options while thinking it through Attention, movement, perception Focusing attention on one thing or another changes perception Transformation into higher psychological operation (beyond practical activity or instinctive action) Attention & Sign use � keyboard study (34-35) Selecting keys associated with pictures vs. Selecting keys labeled with �sign� Attending to the sign, children can do the task without hesitation (not an issue of only hand/eye coordination) Task requires thinking � connecting sign with the key; restructures the process, child can master her movement; choice is reconstructed. Movement in selection is controlled by sign functions, not by perception alone Voluntary Attention: ability to direct one�s attention deliberately Opens new possibilities Voluntary activity: �product of the historical-cultural devolvement of behavior and as a unique feature of human psychology� (37)

20. Impact of Voluntary Attention Uniquely human: Focusing attention vs. chance focus of attention in visual field Use of speech to verbalize memory Connecting tool with goals Taxonomy for thinking Reorganizing the field (time � a fourth dimension) Selective perception ? Altering field�s center of gravity Visual field ? time field ? reliance upon memory Past and present visual fields merge into a temporal field ? Memory Future activity represented by signs, connected with ongoing activity Tool use ? �intentional and symbolic representation of purposeful action.� (37) Motivation: wanting to solve the problem Reaching a goal: to solve the problem

21. Memory & thinking Sign-using activity Drawing Writing Reading Number systems Other symbol systems Memory � use of signs indicate changes in the way children or adults remember things

22. Mediated or non-mediated Memory Non-mediated or natural or direct memory � close to perception, �direct influence of external stimuli upon human beings� E.g., see a brick and recall it�s a brick Mediated or Indirect memory Product of social, cultural-historical development Memory aids � think of these as once removed from the actual object Going beyond the visual field, introducing a sign to stand in for the object (uniquely human) Elementary ? Higher psychological processes Structure of stimulus=-response relations of mediated and non-mediated memory Higher psychological processes involved in �the creation and use of artificial stimuli which become the immediate causes of behavior� as opposed to elementary psychological functions involved in practical behavior motivated by perception of (not necessarily voluntary attention to) visual field

23. Signs as second order stimuli

24. Active engagementAssigning the role of signs Actively drawn into the operation (39) People have to do something to use the sign to mediate memory; they have to assign the sign the function of memory or stimulation of memory Reverse action: Signs then act upon the individual, not just the individual acting upon the sign ? Movement toward higher psychological processes Levels of development & Rivi�re's scheme: Looking back to phylogeny � lesser role Looking forward to ontogeny � greater role

25. Leontiev: Playing 18 questions The color game Simply answer the questions Complicate the game by adding rules � make it more difficult to win E.g., no color name could be used twice Using same rules � use color cards to play the game Repeat for children who had trouble succeeding Ages: 5 � 27 years Youngest children � using cards did not help (hindered some) School age children � cards helped significantly Adults � not much difference, though they made less errors

26. Mediated (indirect) memory Preschool children not capable of mastering his behavior using organizing stimuli (signs as memory aids) No instrumental function assigned to signs School-aged children Signs are an auxiliary system of external stimuli that increase effectiveness of memory Signs, here cards, become �psychological instruments� or psychological tools (Cole) Adults �emancipated� from needing external stimuli to aid memory Succeed without second order signs �the external sign that school children require has been transformed into an internal sign produced by the adult as a means of remembering� (45)

27. Sign operationsA natural history Emphasis on cultural forms of human behavior: Speech Specific use of tools Natural history of the sign: Transition marked by virtual region �between the biological given and the culturally acquired� (46). E.g, infancy is the �prehistory of cultural development� Signs are not spontaneously invented by children or merely passed down Sign operations developed through a dialectical process Creating conditions for the next stage in development E.g., Morozova�s and Zankov�s studies with second order symbols Elementary processes � biological origin Higher psychological functions � sociocultural origin Interweaving of these is the nature of child development

28. Mediated memory E.g., Morozova�s and Zankov�s studies with second order symbols Transition in development toward using arbitrary signs to represent meaning (finding something about the second order symbol that directly represents the object of recall) �active mnemonic activity� Leontiev 20-word recall Spoken word Twenty pictures associated with word meaning to help recall the word Twenty pictures having no relation to the meaning of the words

29. Memory & Thinking Memory is core of developing other functions, e.g., moving from concrete to abstract analysis Change in developmental level accompanied by change in the character of functions (51) To think is to recall Later, to recall is to think Tying a knot to remember to do something Actively remembering with the deliberate help of signs

30. ColeCulture in the middle Cultural artifacts Ideal Material Levels Primary � objects produced Secondary � representations of artifacts Tertiary � imagined worlds (video gaming) Nothing occurs in a vacuum Situations and contexts That which surrounds That which weaves together Concept of culturally mediated behavior Culture as helping things grow � nurturing development

31. ColeCultural approach to ontogeny Adults create conditions culturally for mediation of learning and development � but the activities are jointly mediated, jointly engaged and culturally organized Emergence of culturally organized activities, of �novel forms and functions of interaction among people and their worlds� Tomasello � people as intentional agents, children�s awareness ? voluntary attention Intersubjectivity and joint mediated activity Language acquisition ? culturally mediated interaction between children and adults supports language acquisition Studies with deaf children � world infused with meaning, issues of access and communication (�cultural medium too thin�) Modularity and context � LAD � the basic equipment (naturally) plus cultural mediation

32. Two Intermingling Multistranded Ropes Cultural and phylogenetic lines of development - criticizes Vygotsky places phylogenetic ahead of cultural development Fails to account for infants� incorporation of cultural constraining as basic �constituents� of developing personalities, or adults as �their cultural futures� Underestimate extend to which cultural and natural lines of development (cultural history and phylogeny, are embedded in one another to bfig about at the acquisition of language.

33. LuriaCultural differences in thinking Study in rural areas of Soviet Union just after the Revolution of 1917 to look at cultural practices on the cusp of two historical periods, that is, this was a transhistorical study. Focus: the introduction of formal schooling and collective farming. Taxonomic tasks � Luria asked the villagers to perform taxonomic tasks using four objects, and pre-determined an appropriate taxonomy; grouping three of them as, e.g., tools, and the fourth as a natural object, e.g., piece of wood. Older villagers not formally schooled - refused to group the items this way. determined to group objects by similar functions (e.g, if natural object served a function similar to a man-made tool it was put in same category) Formally schooled villagers acted as expected: tended to taxonomically group the objects in the ways that Luria and his research team expected Critique of Luria�s study: what is taxonomy?

34. Reasoning Syllogistic reasoning � Luria provided two premises to the villagers and then asked them a question that required them to infer the answer from these two premises. Example: All the bears in the North Pole are white. Karen saw a bear in the North Pole. What color was the bear? Luria expected the answer to be �white�. The older, non schooled, villagers either didn�t know what the color of the bear was, they hadn�t seen it themselves and didn�t speak about things they had not seen. Formally schooled villagers answered in the expected way: the bear was white. Luria�s conclusion: Differences in thinking are socially and culturally constructed (mediated)

35. Compare Cole/Scribner study in Liberia working with the Kpelle and Vai peoples (see, �The psychology of literacy�) asked villagers to a Piagetian conservation tasks. The villagers �failed� these tasks, i.e., did not perform as expected. Choice to conclude the villagers were either like children who could not yet conserve, or that these tasks were too artificial to have any meaning for the villagers, i.e., observations in natural life settings would reveal more about what the villagers understood

36. References Ingold, T. (2002). On the distinction between evolution and history, Social evolution and history. Vol. 1, pp. 5-24, Uchitel Publishing House: Moscow, Russia. Marx, K. (1930). Capital, Vol. 1. London: Dent. Can access at www.marxistwriters.org Marx, K. (1964). Feuerbach: Opposition of the materialistic an idealistic outlook. In, The German Ideology. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Oyama, S. (1985). The ontogeny of information: Developmental Systems of evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

37. Roots of autopoietic theory �a system is Autopoietic if the bits and pieces of which it is composed interact with each other in such a way as to continually produce and maintain that set of bits and pieces and the relationships between them.� �Maturana is unhappy about ascribing the process of Autopoiesis to social systems. Rather, he sees social systems � emerging as a result of the ongoing Autopoiesis of the individual biological components of those systems, not as things that are themselves Autopoietic.� Source: Tom Quick, Department of Computer Science, University College London, http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/t.quick/autopoiesis.html (t.quick@cs.ucl.ac.uk) Critiquing the work of Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco J. Varela See, H. R. Maturana and F. J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1980.

38. Ingold�s interpretation of autopoiesis �Reciprocal interplay� - Nature (environment) and humans grow each other, and, in turn, history makes itself

39. Transformation of the world of world�s self-transformation Ingold�s view of Marx�s idea of history Production is what sets humans apart from other animals ? labor. There is the sense of progressive development defined as evolving out of nature �through their transformations of external nature in the process of domestication it is supposed that human beings have transformed their own inner nature, and in so doing, have built themselves a history of civilization.� Ingold�s departure from this view �the evolution of species in nature� is not the evolution out of nature Ingold suggests that history is �a process in which human beings do not so much transform the world as they play their part in the world�s transformation of itself. History, in a word, is a movement of autopoiesis.� �History is not so much a movement in which human beings make society, as one in which they grow each other.� Incorporative, not inscriptive: �Nature is not a surface of materiality upon which human history is inscribed; rather history is the process wherein both people and their environments are continually coming into being, each in relation to the other� (Ingold, p. 22).