James Wertsch
Washington University in St. Louis, Anthropology, Department Member
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> .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i RMATION P F MIND • I /• At; H •( ^ i" / • IES V. WERTSCH ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind ... Vygotsky and the Social... more
> .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i RMATION P F MIND • I /• At; H •( ^ i" / • IES V. WERTSCH ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind James V. Wertsch Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, ...
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The remediation of learning—disabled children can often be viewed as providing them with strategies which they can use to direct their own behavior. Insight into why such strategic assistance is effective can be obtained from viewing... more
The remediation of learning—disabled children can often be viewed as providing them with strategies which they can use to direct their own behavior. Insight into why such strategic assistance is effective can be obtained from viewing remediation as a social/communicative setting. This perspective is illustrated with an analysis of an annotated transcript of a remediation session. The analysis makes use of Vygotsky's (1978) notions of “other regulation” and “self regulation” and Rommetveit's (1979) notion of communication as the creation of presuppositions in the listener. The implications of the perspective for our understanding of the remediation process and its differential efficacy are discussed.
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... ERIC #: EJ523348. Title: Vygotsky on Learning and Development. Authors: Wertsch, James V.; Sohmer, Richard. Descriptors: Cognitive Processes; Developmental Psychology; Learning Processes; Learning Theories; Teacher Student... more
... ERIC #: EJ523348. Title: Vygotsky on Learning and Development. Authors: Wertsch, James V.; Sohmer, Richard. Descriptors: Cognitive Processes; Developmental Psychology; Learning Processes; Learning Theories; Teacher Student Relationship. ...
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While on a trip to Moscow in 1997, I spent a day at a high school known for its strong students and excellent instruction. In addition to observing several classes, I had the opportunity to engage some eleventh grade students in a... more
While on a trip to Moscow in 1997, I spent a day at a high school known for its strong students and excellent instruction. In addition to observing several classes, I had the opportunity to engage some eleventh grade students in a discussion about World War II, and in this context I asked about the role that the United States had played in this conflict. In response, “Sasha,” a sixteen-year-old boy, turned to me and said something like the following: The United States made a lot of money from selling arms and other things to countries during the early years of the war, but it did not really contribute as an ally. In fact, along with Great Britain it refused to open a second front in 1942 and again in 1943. It was only after the U.S. and Britain began to think that the Soviet Union might win the war by itself and dominate post-war Europe that they became concerned enough to enter the war in earnest by opening a second front in 1944. Sasha's comments left me with an impression as well as a question. The impression had to do with the way he spoke about these events. He made his presentation in a straightforward, confident manner, displaying little doubt or hesitation. It was almost as if he was providing an eye-witness account of what had happened. The idea that a competing account might exist seemed not to have been an option in his mind. Furthermore, based on the nods of Sasha's classmates and other evidence to be outlined in later chapters, it is an account that has some currency among his generation in Russia.
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Acknowledgments List of Contributors Foreword Introduction: Communication, Meaning and Development: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Part I. The Organization of Communication: Intersubjectivity and Alterity in Human Communication Emotion... more
Acknowledgments List of Contributors Foreword Introduction: Communication, Meaning and Development: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Part I. The Organization of Communication: Intersubjectivity and Alterity in Human Communication Emotion Within Situated Activity Language and Communication--What Develops? Determining the Role of Language Practices for a Theory of Development Part II. The Origins of Communication: Preverbal Communication: Emergence of Representative Symbols Infant into Conversant: Language and Nonlanguage Processes in Developing Early Communication Words Don't Tell All: Some Thoughts On Early Communication Development Verbal and Nonverbal Contributions to Early Representation: Evidence from African American Toddlers Part III. The Emergence of Self in Communication: Groundwork for a Holistic View of the Ontogenesis of Representation Language and the Construction of Self Adolescents' Public Discussion and Collective Identity Author Index Subject Index
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13 Struggling with the Past: Some Dynamics of Historical Representation James V. Wertsch Clark University The ideas that a citizenry has about its history play an essential role—for better or worse—in shaping its political discourse and... more
13 Struggling with the Past: Some Dynamics of Historical Representation James V. Wertsch Clark University The ideas that a citizenry has about its history play an essential role—for better or worse—in shaping its political discourse and action. Historical accounts may be invoked ...
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... The Authority of Cultural Tools in a Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Agency James V. Wertsch and Leslie J. Rupert Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology Clark University ... It motivated his analyses of the internalization of speech... more
... The Authority of Cultural Tools in a Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Agency James V. Wertsch and Leslie J. Rupert Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology Clark University ... It motivated his analyses of the internalization of speech (1934/1987; see also Wertsch, 1985), ...
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Abstract Traducción de: Voices of the Mind. Esta obra sobre psicología evolutiva, específicamente de desarrollo cognoscitivo, parte de las contribuciones de Vigotski, y sobre todo de los aportes del psicólogo, estudioso de la literatura y... more
Abstract Traducción de: Voices of the Mind. Esta obra sobre psicología evolutiva, específicamente de desarrollo cognoscitivo, parte de las contribuciones de Vigotski, y sobre todo de los aportes del psicólogo, estudioso de la literatura y semiólogo ruso MM Bajtín
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... 1 / 1 Seleccione referencia / Select reference. Signatura : 150 W4. Autor : Wertsch, James V. Aut. Analit.: Zanón, Javier tr. Cortés, Montserrat. cotr. Título : Vygotsky y la formación social de la mente. P.imprenta : Barcelona,... more
... 1 / 1 Seleccione referencia / Select reference. Signatura : 150 W4. Autor : Wertsch, James V. Aut. Analit.: Zanón, Javier tr. Cortés, Montserrat. cotr. Título : Vygotsky y la formación social de la mente. P.imprenta : Barcelona, España. Ediciones Paidós Ibérica. c1988. 264 p. 22 cm. ...
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Sociocultural studies: history, action, and mediation James V. If'ertsch, Pablo del Rio, and Amelia Alvarez Perhaps it is the fate of every generation to believe it experiences a period of crisis, or at least rapid social change.... more
Sociocultural studies: history, action, and mediation James V. If'ertsch, Pablo del Rio, and Amelia Alvarez Perhaps it is the fate of every generation to believe it experiences a period of crisis, or at least rapid social change. In the twentieth century alone, several events have been ...
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This chapter explores how mnemonic disputes can be managed. It begins by noting that simply transcending or erasing differences in national memory is unrealistic and hence not an option, leaving us with the goal of managing them instead.... more
This chapter explores how mnemonic disputes can be managed. It begins by noting that simply transcending or erasing differences in national memory is unrealistic and hence not an option, leaving us with the goal of managing them instead. Special attention is paid to efforts of diplomats and other professional negotiators as they seek to address disputes grounded in national memory. This is done with an eye to showing that even such professionals have difficulty resisting the mental habits grounded in national narrative templates. One strategy they emply is keeping national memory out of the discussion, and this is outlined by using an illustration involving Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to work with Stalin in 1943. But this strategy is often not a viable option, and hence negotiators emply other strategies for managing mnemonic disputes. In outlining these strategies, I use an illustration involving Chinese and American accounts of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. One of America’s most respected negotiators was sent to Beijing after this event to discuss it, but the two sides remain deeply divided to this day, raising the question of the power of narrative templates to shape “strategic trust and distrust.” In a discussion of the role of irony some surprising twists in narrative dialogism come to light that make managing differences in national memory all the more difficult. The chapter concludes with a short list of concrete strategies for managing national memory.
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This chapter by Professor L. A. Venger touches on most of the high points of Soviet developmental theory over the past seven decades. Given the richness of this tradition, his chapter is quite an accomplishment. Venger has managed to... more
This chapter by Professor L. A. Venger touches on most of the high points of Soviet developmental theory over the past seven decades. Given the richness of this tradition, his chapter is quite an accomplishment. Venger has managed to summarize a set of major ideas in such a way that readers are not short changed of anything; instead, they are encouraged to read more of the writings cited (several of which are now translated from Russian into other languages). Of particular importance in my opinion is the fact that Venger has gone into some detail on the contributions of psychologists such as Zaporozhets, Elkonin, Poddiakov, and Venger himself. These are authors whose names are familiar to Western audiences, but their work is not as well known as that of figures such as Vygotsky, Leontiev, and Luria. This lacuna in our knowledge is clearly our loss.
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Abstract The McDonnell International Scholars Academy was founded in 2005 to bring together future leaders during their time at Washington University as master’s or doctoral students. The Academy recruits Scholars from partner... more
Abstract The McDonnell International Scholars Academy was founded in 2005 to bring together future leaders during their time at Washington University as master’s or doctoral students. The Academy recruits Scholars from partner universities around the world and a few from the United States, and it provides tuition and a living stipend for their time to degree. The annual cohorts of 15–20 Scholars represent all seven schools at Washington University and to the extent possible all 31 partner institutions. The Academy currently has 72 alumni and 67 in-residence Scholars. A basic assumption of the McDonnell Academy is that diversity does not just happen when we put a diverse group of people together; it has to be fostered. In addition to recruiting students who say they want to be part of a diverse community, we need to encourage productive forms of interaction. To do this, the Academy strives to build trust, encourage networking, and foster friendships and professional relationships that yield “McDonnell Academy Scholars for Life.” Through the Academy’s experience, we have learned that some useful ingredients for “doing diversity” are bring together a wide mix of people who would not normally meet; build trust among this group by creating a “safe place for unsafe topics”; discuss topics that divide as well as unite the group and find the common threads that lead to productive engagement; organize initiatives and events that are part of the institutional structure of the university so as to foster involvement from all constituents; and create living communities that encourage interaction and deepen connections among a wide variety of individuals. The Academy experiences and structure can serve as a possible model to expand the idea of “doing diversity” across graduate schools, across disciplines, and across cultures and backgrounds.
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The chapter begins with observations about national narratives and conflict between Serbians and Bosnian Muslims and between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. It then turns to a section that distinguishes between national memory and “analytic... more
The chapter begins with observations about national narratives and conflict between Serbians and Bosnian Muslims and between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. It then turns to a section that distinguishes between national memory and “analytic history” that builds on narrative analysis to present the opposition between two ways of relating to the past. After reviewing various discussions of this opposition, the section concludes with a summary in the form of two columns and the general statement that in analytic history evidence is preserved at the expense of a narrative, whereas in national memory a narrative is preserved at the expense of evidence. The next section goes into some detail about a particular narrative template for Russia, the “Expulsion of Alien Enemies” schema. This provides an in-depth illustration of the notion of narrative template introduced in earlier chapters and shows how this pattern of emplotment is used by members of the Russian national community to make sense o...
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The chapter begins with an illustration of a “mnemonic standoff” between the author and Vitya, a Soviet friend from the 1970s, over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The two are stunned that they had such different accounts of “what really... more
The chapter begins with an illustration of a “mnemonic standoff” between the author and Vitya, a Soviet friend from the 1970s, over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The two are stunned that they had such different accounts of “what really happened,” and this leads to three general questions: 1. How is it that there can be such strong disagreement between entire national communities about the past? 2. Why were Vitya and I so certain that our accounts of the events in 1945 were true? 3. What deeper, more general commitments of a national community led to the tenacity with which we held our views? The remaining sections of the chapter address why national memory, as opposed to other forms of collective memory, deserves special attention, what a “narrative approach” to national memory is, and how disciplinary collaboration is required to deal with such questions. It then turns to three illustrations that help clarify the conceptual claims. The first involves American and Russian nationa...
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Over a long professional lifetime, Ragnar Rommetveit contributed to numerous disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, reflecting discussions in global social science and his own unending quest to understand social and individual... more
Over a long professional lifetime, Ragnar Rommetveit contributed to numerous disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, reflecting discussions in global social science and his own unending quest to understand social and individual life. His remarkable career and impact can be outlined in terms of four main phases. The first involved general social psychology in the 1950s and was reflected in Social Norms and Roles (1953/1955). In the second phase during the 1960s and 1970s, he focused on language-related psycholinguistic research leading to publications such as his 1968 volume Words, Meanings and Messages. The third phase came in the 1970s and 1980s and was motivated by his critique of formal linguistics and resulted in his short, magisterial 1974 volume On Message Structure. The fourth phase between 1980 and 2010 focused on “dialogism,” giving rise to works such as his 1992 article “Outlines of a dialogically based social-cognitive approach to human cognition and communicat...
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The aim of this chapter is to present observations on the role of literacy in adult education, with special emphasis on the cognitive and discursive transformations that represent the appropriation of a new communicative technology such... more
The aim of this chapter is to present observations on the role of literacy in adult education, with special emphasis on the cognitive and discursive transformations that represent the appropriation of a new communicative technology such as writing (Goody, 1977; Ong, 1982). Starting with the contributions of rhetorics of this century (Burke, 1969; Billig, 1989), we have studied an activity frequently promoted by teachers inspired in the main ideas of Paulo Freire: classroom debates. Through the study of this kind of adult classroom activity, we have analyzed the following aspects involved in them: types of semiotic means (e.g., contextualized vs. decontextualized signs, speech genres, social languages; Bakhtin, 1986a; Wertsch, 1985, 1991) used in debates and similar forms of conversation by students (all of them women of several adult centers situated in southern Spain); modes of argumentation and ways for persuading the audience displayed by participants in debates; motives that emerge in the course of this form of dialogue.
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As is the case in the United States, psycholinguistics in the Soviet Union is a new and growing science. In both countries it is often difficult to identify a common theoretical or methodological denominator that characterizes all the... more
As is the case in the United States, psycholinguistics in the Soviet Union is a new and growing science. In both countries it is often difficult to identify a common theoretical or methodological denominator that characterizes all the research being conducted. However, it is possible to point to a few factors that have greatly influencedthe development of the science. These factors may be concerned with the political system under which research is conducted, or with the intellectual heritage of the investigators. In either case they account for many of the ways in which Soviet and American approaches to psycholinguistics differ.