ED 750 Nts 3-10-04 Background on readings: Bruner -- written from a series of talks given with Geertz. (see also Geertz "interpretation of cultures") Bruner and Cole both studied with students of Vygotsky. Why do we care? ;) - Bruner survived the paradigm shift (Cognitive Revolution) - front lines during the period of change - synthesis (why we're doing 'em last) -"from the horse's mouth" Stay tuned next week for applications. <== They always say that. internal debates about psych -> internal debates about education Bruner's Purposes for writing the book: - redefine the focus of psychology in a particular context - point out the importance of folk psychology - this point goes back to the beginning of scientific psychology and the prestige of the experimental method over the humanistic side of psychology. There were political difficulties with investigations in 'folk' domain. One of the ways that culture gets into your mind is thru folk psychology. - first cognitive revolution against behaviorists (skinner, etc, 1950s) [psychology is the study of pigeons?] the behaviorists are leaving too much out - move to humanist psychology was too far, so there was a move to bring in cultural anthropology. - cognitive psychology had gotten too computational. Incorporation of the importance of culture into psychology - redefine basic terms of psychology...to include meaning. Culture - meaning in terms of people's actions in a commmunity. (Semiotics - meaning in terms of the use of tools/symbols.) - must describe behavior as well as it what it means to the person, to other people, etc. ( bio is interesting, but not enough alone, either ) Bruner: psychology should be about how we make meaning of the worl and our interpretation of the world Biology gives you the possibilities of what you can do and constrains what you can do but that doesn't give meaning to what you do, meaning comes from culture. Meaning "gets it's hooks into you" through identity. How you commit yourself to the practices and discources of a community. Bruner feels that people define their identity through narrative. Why narrative? Generalized other - we construct our stories for an external (social) audience. Other reasons? Narratives are situated in particular cultures (there are narrative elements that are taken for granted, taboo, appropriate, expected). More emphasis than most on narrative. reification...treating something (and object, or concept) as being a real phenomenon. So a concept is necessary so that we can communicate in a reasonable way, but the limits of the concept's definition are understood by those using the concept. Reification is the process of loosing the knowledge of the limits of a concept that is supposed to 'travel' with the concept. My favorite: Pedagogical Content Knowledge. as in "is that CK or PCK?" ----------- Definition of Reification [from Hyperdictionary.com] Ê 1. [n] Êrepresenting a human being as a physical thing deprived of personal qualities or individuality; "according to Marx, treating labor as a commodity exemplified the reification of the individual" 2. [n] Êregarding something abstract as a material thing Synonyms: depersonalisation, depersonalization, hypostatisation, hypostatization See Also: objectification ------------- Ê One of the reasons transfer doesn't work, we treat something as real and when we put it "under the microscope" it doesn't actually work. point of many of these books/chapters? "we wanna change the world for the better - better basis for 'intervention'?" Bruner: There is an interpretable relationship between people's beliefs and actions. (interpretable within the frame of reference of some culture or community) Bruner Terms: -praxis: action or practice informed by theory. An attempt to overcome Decartes' mind/body dualism. -behavior vs. action: Action has purpose or meaning or goal. Behavior the bare description of what someone does (from "behaviorist" ideas). -practice: meaningful action of a particular kind, genre ( as in CoP ) -Interpretant: (you don't wanna know) related to Cole...artifact or symbol system mediating the relationship between subject and object. -Qualia: defining characteristic of a phenomenon -essentialism: 1st cousin of reification. There is some essence to phenomena -interpretivism: rejects essentialism. vs. verificationism (like positivism). "Truth" matters less than meaning. -Labovian (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/home.html) structure of narratives: look at dominant cultural narratives and recognizes governing principles. - Jerry Bruner: famous developmental psychologist. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm ----------- Part Deux: Cole. An alternative idea of what psychology should be as a science and for education -Artifact mediation: A way of mediating between you and what you're doing in the world, and a way to break down the separation b/t the subjective and objective world. Mediational artifacts do not have to be physical objects...can be practices. Stories, too. -primary, secondary, and tertiary artifacts: Primary artifacts: tools of production (agricultural tools, eg.) Secondary: symbolic tools used for interactions w/ material world around you (eg. scientific theories, mathematical tools) Tertiary: at the level of imagination...don't have to relate to the real world (fictional stories, immersive computer games, eg) Tertiary aren't really material...but are both material and ideal (symbolic or culturally meaningful.) (Monkey's chasing bananas w/ sticks...tertiary is monkey's dreaming of chasing bananas w/ sticks) meditational means, artifacts, [symbolic] tools / | \ / | \ / | \ / | \ / | \ / | \ subject/agent ------------------|--------- object/objective/target / | \ / | \ social | division rules | of norms ----------------------- | --------------------------labor (community) [many other triangles possible] This triangle is a tertiary artifact...a reification for the one that Cole actually produced.] [ this is only a test. had it been an actual triangle, it would look like one ] In order to say that meaning is situated, we need to have a working definition of context. It would also be neat to have model for how the context influences meaning making. Extension of these theories to communities: [the 4-pointed triangle... you have to love it.] -Sustainability: (and scalability) What is relationship between Bruner's inner narrative and Vygotsky's inner speech? Vygotsky's inner dialog is about planning and strategy; Bruner's inner dialog is about self description. Bruner's inner speech contains fantasy speech about yourself, ==> similar to cole's tertiary view.