Sunday, July 30, 2006
Communities of Practice
Last week was really good, I read Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity by E. Wenger (1998). I spend more than 22 hours reading, taking notes, reflecting, and connecting ideas from Wenger to my research project.
This is a long book, that makes reference to a community of practice in the business world, but that transfers its findings to education, and in general to any community of practice. One thing that will help me in my work is the way Wenger defines negotiation and how she relates it to the domains of a community. The domains of a community of practice presented by Wenger are compromise (participation), imagination (taking the past and present and creating the future), and alienation (becoming part of, knowing about, being part of).
Although I am not working with the concept of identity in my research, this book will give those interested in it a good background. According to Wenger, learning transforms who we are, and that is in itself an experience of identity (p. 260).
I definitely have found many connections between this work and my research!
Wenger, E. (1998). Comunidades de Práctica: Aprendizaje, significado e identidad. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidós. [Spanish translation by Genís Sánchez Barberán. Original title: Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity]
This is a long book, that makes reference to a community of practice in the business world, but that transfers its findings to education, and in general to any community of practice. One thing that will help me in my work is the way Wenger defines negotiation and how she relates it to the domains of a community. The domains of a community of practice presented by Wenger are compromise (participation), imagination (taking the past and present and creating the future), and alienation (becoming part of, knowing about, being part of).
Although I am not working with the concept of identity in my research, this book will give those interested in it a good background. According to Wenger, learning transforms who we are, and that is in itself an experience of identity (p. 260).
I definitely have found many connections between this work and my research!
Wenger, E. (1998). Comunidades de Práctica: Aprendizaje, significado e identidad. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidós. [Spanish translation by Genís Sánchez Barberán. Original title: Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity]
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Formal vs. Informal Learning
Two weeks ago I read Everyday Cognition, a book edited by Barbara Rogoff and Jean Lave (1984).
Three chapters that explored formal and informal learning and captured my attention where: “Adult Guidance of Cognitive Development” by B. Rogoff and W. Gardner [Ch. 4], “A theory of the Teacher in the Learning Activities of Everyday Life” by P. M. Greenfield [Ch. 5], and “The Creation of Context in Joint Problem-Solving” by J. V. Wertsch, N. Minick, & F. J. Arns [Ch. 7].
In this book I found references to the concept of cheating, working with others to construct knowledge. The idea that “cooperation among pupils in schools is called cheating” (p. 137) is something that I need to explore further, if not in my dissertation, sometime soon.
The Vygotskian concept of the “zone of proximal development” is also present in this work, as well as Piaget’s idea of scaffolding. Greenfield pointed out that formal learning as it occurs in schools emphasizes on independent learning, trial an error, and less scaffolding. Interaction between novice and expert in the school setting is accomplished through “explicit explanation or watching demonstration by an adult” (Rogoff & Gardner, p. 116). Wertsch, Minick, and Arns added “errors are expected and sometimes encouraged” (p. 155) in formal education. In contrast, on informal learning settings scaffolding is always present, the expert provides “exactly what was required from the very beginning” (Greenfield, p. 134) resulting in few errors on the novice’s side. Wertsch, Minick, and Arns further noted “learner’s performance is monitored closely and that independent functioning is not encouraged until it is likely to be error free” (p. 155). They also make the connection between informal learning and apprenticeship.
Another interesting point presented by Greenfield is the Vygotskian concept of interaction and how people masters an activity interindividually first and then intraindividually (p. 135-136). This idea is also present in Wertsch, Minick, and Arns work, according to which learning starts a the 'social plane', between people, and then after schooling, repetive practice, trial-and-error, and apprenticeship, learning is internalized.
Rogoff, B. & Lave, J. (1984). Everyday Cognition: Its development in social context. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Three chapters that explored formal and informal learning and captured my attention where: “Adult Guidance of Cognitive Development” by B. Rogoff and W. Gardner [Ch. 4], “A theory of the Teacher in the Learning Activities of Everyday Life” by P. M. Greenfield [Ch. 5], and “The Creation of Context in Joint Problem-Solving” by J. V. Wertsch, N. Minick, & F. J. Arns [Ch. 7].
In this book I found references to the concept of cheating, working with others to construct knowledge. The idea that “cooperation among pupils in schools is called cheating” (p. 137) is something that I need to explore further, if not in my dissertation, sometime soon.
The Vygotskian concept of the “zone of proximal development” is also present in this work, as well as Piaget’s idea of scaffolding. Greenfield pointed out that formal learning as it occurs in schools emphasizes on independent learning, trial an error, and less scaffolding. Interaction between novice and expert in the school setting is accomplished through “explicit explanation or watching demonstration by an adult” (Rogoff & Gardner, p. 116). Wertsch, Minick, and Arns added “errors are expected and sometimes encouraged” (p. 155) in formal education. In contrast, on informal learning settings scaffolding is always present, the expert provides “exactly what was required from the very beginning” (Greenfield, p. 134) resulting in few errors on the novice’s side. Wertsch, Minick, and Arns further noted “learner’s performance is monitored closely and that independent functioning is not encouraged until it is likely to be error free” (p. 155). They also make the connection between informal learning and apprenticeship.
Another interesting point presented by Greenfield is the Vygotskian concept of interaction and how people masters an activity interindividually first and then intraindividually (p. 135-136). This idea is also present in Wertsch, Minick, and Arns work, according to which learning starts a the 'social plane', between people, and then after schooling, repetive practice, trial-and-error, and apprenticeship, learning is internalized.
Rogoff, B. & Lave, J. (1984). Everyday Cognition: Its development in social context. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
More on Discourse Analysis
My first notes …
Gee, Fairclough, and Van Dijk
Fairclough’s analysis tries to describe, interpret, and explain social practices; and up to a certain point Gee does the same. Nevertheless, the way they look at/consider the “critical” component in CDA/cda is their main difference. For Fairclough, critical is related “to uncover[ing] power relationships and demonstrat[ing] inequities embedded in society” (Rogers, 2004, p. 3).
However, Gee’s analysis is more closely related to language form, with its grammatical components and its implications to matters of politics – “status, solidarity, distribution of goods, and power” (Gee, 2004, p. 33). According to Gee, language-in-use and its function or meaning, is always political (Gee, 2004, p. 34). These are identified by Gee with lowercase d and uppercase D, that is ‘d’iscourse and ‘D’iscourse, respectively. Lowercase discourse is more attuned with language form, “language-in-use” (Gee, 2005, p. 7). Uppercase discourse is more about social practices … and culture.
(July 3rd, 2006)
But then ...
Trying to find similarities and differences between these researchers’ work about discourse analysis made me realize I was not ready. And so, I went back to researching, reading, summarizing, comparing, reflecting, … Please, do not take this as a bad thing, somehow it is a job I enjoy. It reminds me of myself, many years ago, as a young girl, trying to find the right piece in order to complete a section of a puzzle. I went to the references of the articles and books I’ve read lately and used the Internet to find more about discourse analysis.
I identified a set of articles by J. Potter alone and with different co-authors (published from 2002 to 2004), and a few others that seemed to complement his work in one way or another (Burman, 2003; Parker, 2002). What a great feeling was reading these articles! I read about a general overview of discourse analysis and its relationship with discourse psychology, a historical perspective, theoretical strands of discourse analysis, analytic materials including naturalistic data, the meaning of analysis and its shortcomings, and validation. I also found information about Foucauldian discourse analysis and his relationship with language and knowledge as power (Parker, 2002). I found references to N. Fairclough and T. A. van Dijk, but there was none to J. P. Gee; I also found references to K. J. Gergen and references to social constructionism. Finally, the example of discourse analysis, “a bit concerned” was very helpful in showing how a piece of text is chosen to be analyzed and analyzed through discourse analysis (Hepburn & Potter, 2003).
Still, there is more. The connection between social constructionism and discourse analysis is something I need to read more about. So, the search continues … :-)
The only thing is that I am getting a little behind schedule. I am working a lot less than what I though I would do, but at the same time we are still on summer vacation. Once the semester starts things will go back to the routine and it will be easier to follow a 'work' schedule.
Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2002). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-paper.html
Burman, E. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: Some comments on Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter ‘Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/open/2003/003/burman2003003-paper.html
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analytic practice. In C. Seale, D. Silverman, J. Gubrium & G. Gobo (Eds.). Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 180-196. London, Sage. [Uncorrected proofs.]
Parker, I. (2002). Discourse resources in the discourse unit. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a2/parker2002001-paper.html
Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes and L. Yardley (Eds.). Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design, pp. 73-94. WA: APA.
Potter, J. (2004a). Discourse analysis. In M. Hardy & A. Bogman (Eds.). Handbook of Data Analysis, pp. 607-624. London, Sage.
Potter, J. (2004b). Discourse analysis as a way of analyzing naturally occurring talk. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, method and practice, pp. ##-## (2nd. ed). London: SAGE.
A special thanks to professor J. Potter, from Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, for sending me copies of some of these articles.
Gee, Fairclough, and Van Dijk
Fairclough’s analysis tries to describe, interpret, and explain social practices; and up to a certain point Gee does the same. Nevertheless, the way they look at/consider the “critical” component in CDA/cda is their main difference. For Fairclough, critical is related “to uncover[ing] power relationships and demonstrat[ing] inequities embedded in society” (Rogers, 2004, p. 3).
However, Gee’s analysis is more closely related to language form, with its grammatical components and its implications to matters of politics – “status, solidarity, distribution of goods, and power” (Gee, 2004, p. 33). According to Gee, language-in-use and its function or meaning, is always political (Gee, 2004, p. 34). These are identified by Gee with lowercase d and uppercase D, that is ‘d’iscourse and ‘D’iscourse, respectively. Lowercase discourse is more attuned with language form, “language-in-use” (Gee, 2005, p. 7). Uppercase discourse is more about social practices … and culture.
(July 3rd, 2006)
But then ...
Trying to find similarities and differences between these researchers’ work about discourse analysis made me realize I was not ready. And so, I went back to researching, reading, summarizing, comparing, reflecting, … Please, do not take this as a bad thing, somehow it is a job I enjoy. It reminds me of myself, many years ago, as a young girl, trying to find the right piece in order to complete a section of a puzzle. I went to the references of the articles and books I’ve read lately and used the Internet to find more about discourse analysis.
I identified a set of articles by J. Potter alone and with different co-authors (published from 2002 to 2004), and a few others that seemed to complement his work in one way or another (Burman, 2003; Parker, 2002). What a great feeling was reading these articles! I read about a general overview of discourse analysis and its relationship with discourse psychology, a historical perspective, theoretical strands of discourse analysis, analytic materials including naturalistic data, the meaning of analysis and its shortcomings, and validation. I also found information about Foucauldian discourse analysis and his relationship with language and knowledge as power (Parker, 2002). I found references to N. Fairclough and T. A. van Dijk, but there was none to J. P. Gee; I also found references to K. J. Gergen and references to social constructionism. Finally, the example of discourse analysis, “a bit concerned” was very helpful in showing how a piece of text is chosen to be analyzed and analyzed through discourse analysis (Hepburn & Potter, 2003).
Still, there is more. The connection between social constructionism and discourse analysis is something I need to read more about. So, the search continues … :-)
The only thing is that I am getting a little behind schedule. I am working a lot less than what I though I would do, but at the same time we are still on summer vacation. Once the semester starts things will go back to the routine and it will be easier to follow a 'work' schedule.
Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2002). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-paper.html
Burman, E. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: Some comments on Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter ‘Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/open/2003/003/burman2003003-paper.html
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analytic practice. In C. Seale, D. Silverman, J. Gubrium & G. Gobo (Eds.). Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 180-196. London, Sage. [Uncorrected proofs.]
Parker, I. (2002). Discourse resources in the discourse unit. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a2/parker2002001-paper.html
Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes and L. Yardley (Eds.). Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design, pp. 73-94. WA: APA.
Potter, J. (2004a). Discourse analysis. In M. Hardy & A. Bogman (Eds.). Handbook of Data Analysis, pp. 607-624. London, Sage.
Potter, J. (2004b). Discourse analysis as a way of analyzing naturally occurring talk. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, method and practice, pp. ##-## (2nd. ed). London: SAGE.
A special thanks to professor J. Potter, from Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, for sending me copies of some of these articles.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
CDA in Education according to Rogers
Rebecca Rogers (2004) edited the book, An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education, taking the work and words of two main researchers in this area and presenting examples of such. From James Paul Gee to Norman Fairclough, each chapter of this book presents their voice, as well as research that have focused on the methodology of one or both of them.
One thing that weaves the chapters of this book together is the concept of learning and how it is seen and defined through the eyes of CDA, cda, or CDA/cda (please see the posting titled critical discourse analysis according to Gee below, on June 21st, 2006 for details). My research is based on Gee’s critical discourse analysis, but after reading Fairclough’s “Semiotic Aspects of Social Transformation and Learning” I can see how my data set could also be analyzed using this methodology. According to Fairclough:
This made me think about the discussion forum data that I am about to analyze. Texturing a problem, asking a question, or asking for clarification, can make the learner reformulate an idea. The answers s/he get can induce/provoke some kind of change on her/him. Just being part of the discussion, even if nothing else happens, could be what the learner needed. However, the data set that I will look at was archived, and at this moment I will not be making interviews. For this reason it is not learning but knowledge construction, that is the process that people go through to learn something, what I will be studying.
There seems to be many similarities between Fairclough’s and Gee’s work. They both work with discourse analysis, and both try to explain “the relationship between language and social structure” (Rogers, 2004, p. 242). The main difference seems to be on how they define the critical component, something that impacts the way they conduct research.
A comparison of discourse analyists will follow soon. Note that we have looked at Van Dijk (2003) as well, and that these three researchers are not the only ones conducting critical discourse analysis.
Fairclough, N. (2004). Semiotic Aspects of Social Transformation and Learning. In Rebecca Rogers, An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education, pp. 225-235. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Rogers, R. (2004). (Ed.). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2003). Critical Discourse Analysis. In Schiffrin, D. S., Tahnen, D., and Hamilton, H. E. (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis, pp. 352-371.
One thing that weaves the chapters of this book together is the concept of learning and how it is seen and defined through the eyes of CDA, cda, or CDA/cda (please see the posting titled critical discourse analysis according to Gee below, on June 21st, 2006 for details). My research is based on Gee’s critical discourse analysis, but after reading Fairclough’s “Semiotic Aspects of Social Transformation and Learning” I can see how my data set could also be analyzed using this methodology. According to Fairclough:
“Texts are the situated interactional accomplishments of social agents whose agency is enabled and constrained by social structures [possibilities made possible through language] and social practices [orders of discourse, social organization and control that include genres, discourses, and styles].” (Fairclough, 2004, p. 229)
“… texts are involved in processes of meaning making and … have causal effects (i.e., they bring about changes) that are mediated by meaning making” (Fairclough, 2004, p. 229).
“What people learn in and through text and talk, in and through the process of texturing as we might put it (making text and talk within making meaning), is not merely (new) ways of texturing, but also ways of acting, relating, being, and intervening in the material world, which are not purely semiotic in character. A theory of individual or organizational learning needs to address the questions (sic) of retention – of the capacity to recontextualize what is learned, to enact it, inculcate it, and materialize it” (Fairclough, 2004, p. 231).
This made me think about the discussion forum data that I am about to analyze. Texturing a problem, asking a question, or asking for clarification, can make the learner reformulate an idea. The answers s/he get can induce/provoke some kind of change on her/him. Just being part of the discussion, even if nothing else happens, could be what the learner needed. However, the data set that I will look at was archived, and at this moment I will not be making interviews. For this reason it is not learning but knowledge construction, that is the process that people go through to learn something, what I will be studying.
There seems to be many similarities between Fairclough’s and Gee’s work. They both work with discourse analysis, and both try to explain “the relationship between language and social structure” (Rogers, 2004, p. 242). The main difference seems to be on how they define the critical component, something that impacts the way they conduct research.
A comparison of discourse analyists will follow soon. Note that we have looked at Van Dijk (2003) as well, and that these three researchers are not the only ones conducting critical discourse analysis.
Fairclough, N. (2004). Semiotic Aspects of Social Transformation and Learning. In Rebecca Rogers, An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education, pp. 225-235. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Rogers, R. (2004). (Ed.). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2003). Critical Discourse Analysis. In Schiffrin, D. S., Tahnen, D., and Hamilton, H. E. (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis, pp. 352-371.
