Transcript Cultural-historical and discursive tools for analyzing critical conflicts in students’ development Annalisa Sannino

Cultural-historical and discursive tools
for analyzing critical conflicts
in students’ development
Annalisa Sannino
University of Salerno, Italy
16º InPLA - Intercâmbio de Pesquisas em Lingüística Aplicada
Minicourse 2nd-5th of May 2007, São Paulo
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1.Introduction:
a journey
through my teaching experience at the
University of Salerno
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Two starting points:
• The meeting for welcoming students to the
2003-2004 academic year
• My class on Psychology of Learning and
Memory
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Two modes of involvement:
• passionate
• vs rational approach to studies
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A contradiction rises and
hits the instructor:
students wanting to make their life as easy
as possible, and then choosing the hardest
evaluation mode
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The contradiction is recognized as
an opportunity for change:
The instructor becomes
a teacher-interventionist-researcher
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2. Theoretical framework:
Cultural-historical activity theory
(CHAT)
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CHAT…
• …brings subjective human experience into
connection with the external material world
• …promotes transformation in the subject
and in her way to operate in the world
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In this inquiry CHAT is used for…
• …exploring the developmental potential of
the identified contradiction for both my
students and myself as a teacher
• …promoting transformation in my students
and myself as a teacher
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What is the nature of the
transformation in the subject
I aimed at as
a teacher-interventionist-researcher?
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Transformation aimed at:
• Learning how to deal with critical situations, i.e.,
situations in which the subject faces the impossibility of
realizing internal necessities that would fulfill her
expectations in life
Using Vasilyuk’s (1988) terminology and key concept…
• …promoting the process of experiencing, i.e. promoting
or reinforcing engagement in struggling against
impossibility, in order to realize internal necessities
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Transformation aimed at:
• Learning how to deal with critical situations, i.e.,
situations in which the subject faces the impossibility of
realizing internal necessities that would fulfill her
expectations in life
Using Vasilyuk’s (1988) terminology and key concept…
• …promoting the process of experiencing, i.e. promoting
or reinforcing engagement in struggling against
impossibility, in order to realize internal necessities
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Contradiction (Ilyenkov, 1977):
a key concept used in CHAT to
interpret critical situations
Mismatches
through which activities
renew themselves
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Conflict (Vasilyuk, 1988) :
a key concept used in psychology to
describe critical situations
The individual surrendering in face of
contradictory motives that, in the given
form, can’t be subjectively solved
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An example of
the individual surrendering in the face of
contradictory motives
Student
University teacher
Nourishing
intellectual interests
Being a productive
academic
Being a successful
student
Being a caring
teacher
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Difference between
conflict experiences and contradictions
Level of analysis
Conflict
Short-time actions
Contradiction
Activity and inter-activity, which
has a much longer life cycle
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Difference between
conflict experiences and contradictions
Level of analysis
Conflict
Contradiction
Short-time actions
Shift to
exploring
the roots of
conflicts
Activity and inter-activity, which
has a much longer life cycle
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Transitional object (Winnicott, 1974; Leiman, 1999) :
a key notion used here to conceptualize
the shift between
action level of conflict to activity level of contradiction
Objects to which individuals are
attached to and, at the same time,
struggle to separate from
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Learning to shift from the level of
conflict to the level of contradiction
• Individuals becoming conscious of being
transitional objects for themselves
• and internalizing their transitionality as both
a weakness and as a strength
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An example of weakness and strength of
being transitional
• Weakness: Students shaping themselves as potentially competent
professionals are also exposed to live through conflicts in the
university in a more painful way than other parties, which already
have the economic and professional security that students aim at
achieving through their studies
• Strength: Students, because they are not bound by any permanent
position or economic tie, have the potential to turn their conflicts into
developmental initiatives
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Processes of experiencing…
… as both processes of life and
processes of acting upon life
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The intrinsic autobiographical nature of
experiencing
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3. The setting of the inquiry
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• My class of Psychology of Memory and
Learning in the Faculty of Education at the
University of Salerno
• 128 students, future elementary and
kindergarten teachers
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4. Methodology
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Turning the class in an
object-oriented intervention
for understanding and re-designing
unfolding critical events in the
students’ life at the University
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Using pragmatic discourse analysis
for studying discourse as it occurs in
these specific teaching and research-intervention
situations as a pragmatic phenomenon
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Redefining autobiography
by focusing on
its transformative potential
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Main phases in the intervention
• Making introspective inquiries and autobiographical texts on the
students’ experiences of communicative critical events
• Working on common tasks to share each others’ perspectives, build
new knowledge about the critical events, and develop innovative
solutions for the future
• After experimentations with the new solutions the day normally
reserved for the final exam is spent evaluating the innovations
carried out during the intervention, and for future-oriented joint
accounting
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Students read each other’s autobiographical texts
When the conflict
experiences they wrote
about involve directly
others present in the
class, participants work
on their respective texts
during separate sessions
of the intervention
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5. Analyses
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Some conflicts and ways in which students live,
recognize and work them out individually
• conflicts stemming from difficulties in the choice of
University
ending up at the university because of the lack of work outside
• conflicts with professors during classes or oral
examination sessions
extreme representations of the professors
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Few excerpts
Antonia, February 2004 (excerpt from the interview during the final exam): (…)
When you are 32 years old you want to work. Instead of waiting outside, at least we
get here another academic degree, and all these titles may give us more chances to
work.
Livia, December 2003 (excerpt form the text of her speech during the second
intervention in the classroom): When you go to the exam you see the professor as a
God, somebody to be afraid of, because you know he can harm you; that’s why one
is afraid to go to take an exam. That’s at least what happens to me. We should learn
to see the professor as a person, and be aware that he can make you pass or not.
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The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
The emergence of
an intermediate
level between the
level of conflict
and the level of
contradiction,
while the students
confront each
others’
autobiographical
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texts
A step toward
the level of contradiction
Conflict-contradictory experiences emerged
during the last phase of the intervention
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• Students articulated differences between this and
other classes
• Students recognized developmental tensions that
‘pushed them’ through the class in a stimulating
way
• Students articulated future-oriented accounts on
the basis of what they have learned
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Few excerpts
Angelica: The class developed on the basis on what actually the students
already knew, and was built on that, instead of imposing itself on the basis of
what the ideal student has learned before.
Marta: The way the class has been organized pushed us to study and motivated
us, but, also, we experienced this sparkling tension, between curiosity and fear,
when coming to the class we said “Let’s see what she will bring us today!”
Alessia: I have decided to ask other professors to do the same as you for their
classes, especially the most complex ones, because this way to carry a class has
lightened our work load without penalizing learning.
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6. Discussion
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Two main steps in the
progression of the
collective work
STEP 1
STEP 2
Cultural -historical and
discursive analyses
Discussions
in the class
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
Students’
evaluation of
teaching
Students
Community
Division
of labor
Division
of labor
Discussions in the class
Class and
teacher
Community
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
The class
The intervention
The present study
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a. Change in the nature of the tools
through the process of the intervention
STEP 1
STEP 2
Cultural -historical and
discursive analyses
Discussions
in the class
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
Students’
evaluation of
teaching
Students
Community
Division
of labor
Division
of labor
Discussions in the class
Class and
teacher
Community
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
The class
The intervention
The present study
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b. Flow in the
subject-object positioning
during the class and the intervention
STEP 1
STEP 2
Cultural -historical and
discursive analyses
Discussions
in the class
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
Students’
evaluation of
teaching
Students
Community
Division
of labor
Division
of labor
Discussions in the class
Class and
teacher
Community
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
The class
The intervention
The present study
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b. Flow in the
subject-object positioning
during the class and the intervention
STEP 1
STEP 2
Cultural -historical and
discursive analyses
Discussions
in the class
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
Students’
evaluation of
teaching
Students
Community
Division
of labor
Division
of labor
Discussions in the class
Class and
teacher
Community
Students
Teacher
The class
The intervention
The present study
Students and
teacherinterventionist
Rules
The intervention
as an historically
recursive self47
reflective event
c. Conflicts occurring as actual daily worries for
students, which justify their questions often
considered as inopportune or impertinent by
professors
d. Being transitional and amplification of the
subject sensitivity in regard to possible
developmental resources available in the
environment
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6. Conclusion
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a. The beginning of a definition of
zone of proximal development
in this setting
paraphrasing Vygotsky (1987, p.209)…
this study allowed to measure the distance between the actual level of
this students’ development, as determined by their capacity to deal alone
with the conflicts related to their university experiences, and the level of
potential development, as determined by their capacity to work on these
conflicts in collaboration with other students and the teacher
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b. The exploration and concretization
of the connection between
students conflictual experience with the
material contradictions
in the context in which
they live
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c. The challenge for faculty members to become
promoters of transformations in the subject and
in the university…
…engaging in first-person inquiries as teacher-interventionistresearcher
…becoming models of change-oriented agent for students, future
teachers who will have to deal with analogous conflictualcontradictory experiences in their future professional life
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For contacts:
Annalisa Sannino
University of Salerno
Department of Education
Via Ponte Don Melillo
84084 Fisciano (SA)
E-mail: [email protected]
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