Educational Psychologist
ISSN: 0046-1520 (Print) 1532-6985 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hedp20
Constructivisms, modern and postmodern Richard S. Prawat To cite this article: Richard S. Prawat (1996) Constructivisms, modern and postmodern, Educational Psychologist, 31:3-4, 215-225, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.1996.9653268 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00461520.1996.9653268
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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 31(3/4),215-225 Copyright O 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Constructivisms, Modern and Postmodem Richard S. Prawat Michigan State University
This article attempts to "situate" the various versions of iconstructivist theory by tracing their philosophical origins. Two of the constructivisms,schema and information-processingtheory, represent traditional epistemologies and thus, by definition, are modernist in orientation. The remaining four constructivisms adopt a postmodern stancei-which is to say they refute the assumptions that knowledge is primarily the property of individuals and that, if it is lo have any claim on our allegiance, it must be the product of a foolproof inferential system. Each of these social constructivisms evidences a unique approach to the mind-world dilemma. Each also evidences a unique stance toward the ideal teaching-learning environment. As is obvious from the articles included in this special issue of Educational Psychologist, there are many different versions of constructivism.Given the sheer number of alternative perspectives-six by my count, with one instance of withincategory variation-the task of trying to sort out who believes what and why is daunting to say the least. Nevertheless, this kind of analysis is important if we are to move beyond the "let a thousand different flowers grow" type of mentality as regards these new, potentially important ways of thinking about learning and teaching. For this reason, I am venturing such an analysis. I am aided in this effort by several earlier attempts to do the same thing. Pepper's (1942) classic treatise on world views may be the best example. Two of the four world views identified by Pepper (1942), the organismic and the mechanistic, map nicely onto two of the six constructivisms talked about in this special issue. The organismic world view, as described by Pepper, takes the living organism as its metaphor. As such, it fits with the Piagetian or schema-drivenbrand of constructivismdiscussed by Deny (this issue). According to this view, self-organization is an inherent feature of the organism-a tendency most evident in the activity of the human mind. This clearly rationalist notion is a mainstay of schema-driven constructivism. The mechanistic world view, not surprisingly, was tailormade for information processing (or vice versa). This world view brand of constructivism, being realist in orientation, is the philosophical antithesis of Piagetian (i.e., schema-driven) constructivism.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard Prawat, College of Education, 449 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824. E-mail:
[email protected]
The remaining constmcfivi,sms discussed in this issue-the sociocultural, the syrnbolic interactionalist (i.e., Cobb & Yackel's emergent perspective), and a third variant on the "mind in society" the~metermed social constructionism-all represent alternatives to traditional rationalist and realist epistemologies. This is an important point to keep in mind. Tlhese social constructivisms, I argue, represent a break with the modernist tradition in philosophy and psychology. This is true as well of the fourth s ~ ~ c iconstructivism al I briefly touch on, which is based on Dewey's creative solution to the mind-world dilemma. This approach, termed idea-based social conrtructivism, enjoys certam advantages over the other, more lpo~pularsocial constructivisms (cf. Prawat, 1995). First, however, a word needs to be said about why the sort of analysis I have in mind matters. As several commentators ]pointed out, psychologists have been noticeably reluctant to examine the philosophical roots that underlie pet theories (cf. Overton, 1991). This antipathy toward philosophy, if that is not too strong a term, seems inconsistent with the current emphasis on "situated" cognition and knowledge, especially if one takes an expansive view of what it means to situate something. Thus, according to the dictionary, the word situated has two meanings: Psychologists have embraced the first, locational meaning ("The town is situared on a hill"), ignoring a second, broader meaning, which roughly translates as "circ~umstanced"(as in, "comfortably situated'). TO situate constructivist learning theory in this second sense is to attempt to describe the: philosophical and, in the case of socioculltural theory, political circumstances that gave rise to the tlhec~ry.This is what I attempt to do, contrasting the two conslruc:tivisms that represent traditional epistemologies with those that appear to be striking out in a new, postmodern direction.
THE "MODERN" CONSTRUCTlVlSMS
Radical Constructivism Schema-based, or radical, constructivism, associated with scholars like von Glasersfeld, Steffe, and Confrey, owes an invaluable debt to Kant who, in turn, had an enormous influence on Piaget. Kant's intent, Dewey (192911988) explained, was not to evolve a brand new theory; rather, his intent was to "edit" a new and improved version of the prevailing rationalist doctrine. His approach broke new ground, assigning a role to sense experience but reserving to reason the more important role of providing form or structure to this matter. One grasps the permanency of matter, Kant believed, not because of the way objects are perceived but because of certain a priori judgments arrived at through the logical process of synthetic deduction. Kant's version of rationalism was adopted by Piaget. Both approaches adopted a rationalist, internal coherence test for the validity of ideas. Valid or correct ideas cohere. They fit together like piecles of a puzzle, fitting %to such space as is left unencumbered by constraints" (van Glasersfeld, 1987, p. 321). This coherence reflects the tendency toward greater integrativeness cbaractleristic of more m m r e levels of understanding in d l disciplinary domains. Learning, following this notion, represents a prooess of sslf-organization.It follows an unvarying sequence, ending En tbe construction of a scheme: perturbation, action, mflebtive abstraction,scheme. Schemes, as Dew's article (this issue) indicates, are the units of ai-ialysis in radical, or pwycholagical, constructivism. Schemes, constructed in the hiead, mediate between mind and world, subject and object. In a rationalist epistemology, mind and world go their separate ways-with far reaching effects. Piaget's distinction between the operative, or logical, aspect of thought and the real-world "stuff' that provides grist for the rational mill, termed the figurative element df thought, is a textbook example of dualist thinking. This sort of thinking, Dewey (1952J1989) argued, carries with it a host of insidious contrasts almost too nhmerous to itemize: that between experience and nature; subject and object; mind and matter; cognition and affect; "higher'l and '"lower" forms of knowledge; process and contant; logic and methodology; the universal and the particular; analysis and synthesis; and, a closely reldted notion, the proaess of jwtification and the prooess of discovery in science, The effects of the mind-world split have been pmiculat.ly probleniatic in education. Indeed, it is not too much of a stretch to Say that the persistence of this dualist problam accohnts for the vexing cycles of educational reform-wherein reaction and a rbturn to basics has followed every reform with great regularity since the turo of the century (Prawat, 1995). I hope I have aroused sufficientconcern about mind-world dualism and its relation to rational and realist constructivisms
that the reader is eager to know more about the four postmodem constructivistsolutions mentioned earlier. Before moving on, however, a few words need to be said about information processing, the epistemological antithesis of rational or MIND-world constructivism.
Information Processing Information-processing (IP) theory, it should be clear by now, represents dualism in a different guise: Information processors turn the "Eye of the Mind" outward, to use Rorty's (1979, p. 159) expression, toward the real world of objects and events. IP theory represents a mind-WORLD approach. Structures built up in the head are judged valid to the extent to which they map onto whatever structures are present in and extractable from the world. The constructivist aspect of IP theory rests on this last assumption: Individuals extract structure through a painstaking process of accumulating and analyzing raw data. It is only through this labor-intense process that we come to understand the true essence of an event or an object. As Mayer (this issue) points out, the thinking-strategies approach spawned by IP theory has been applied to many domains and, thus, has its fair share of advocates. One feature that chara~terizesall of these approaches is worth emphasizing: the distinction betweeh process and content, the most vexing agpect of the realist epistemology that underlies IP theory. Few dvocates of the thinking-strategies approach view process-content dualism as a problem, however. Beyer (1987), a leader in this movement, represented the opposite extreme when he urged teachers to honor the general skill versus specific content distinction: Lessons that keep the focus on subject matter-history, science, the content of a short story, a particular kind of math problem-so obscure the nature of the thinking processes involved in manipulating the information that most fail to understand or learn these processes. (pp. 5-6) Beyer honored an assumption-the so-called separability assumption-that is so basic to IP theory that it is seldom even discussed. Miller (1989) made avirtue out of this assumption, distancing himself in the process from Dewey and virtually all of the postmodern philosophers: "Information processing by computer," he argued, "assumes a principled distinction and a physical separation between the system that does the processing and the information that is processed" (p. 147). The problem with this assumption is that it suits a "head fitting7'approach to meaning-one that places a premium on assimilation-but does not account for the more important process of accommodation. IP theory, with its separation of form and meaning, worh well enough in tightly constrained situations in which the information to be extracted more or less fits the frames that are to do the extracting. It does not do
CONSTRUCTIVISMS, MODERN AND POSTMODERN
well in less constrained environments in which the information is not prespecified.
THE POSTMODERN CONSTRUCTIVISMS According to Toulmin (1995), postmodernists challenged traditional views of knowiedge by taking on three key assumptionsthat lie at the heart of the modernist argument: first, the assumption that knowledge is primarily the property of individuals; second, the assumptioin that science will eventually "solve" one version of the mind-world prloblem, that between the mental and physical; and third, the assurnption that knowledge, if it is to have any claim on our allegiance, has to be the product of a foolproof inferential system.For the rationalist, deduction was the system of choice. Those of a realist persuasion, not surprisingly, thought that induction also met this third inferential requirement. (The foolproof inferential assumption,Toulmin argued, was a logical necessity given the fact that mind, for the modernists, was housed at the inner end of the sensory network.) The three assumptionsidentified by Toulmin (199511figure prominently in a negative sense in each of the postnnodern constructivisms discussed in this part of the article. One caveat has to be kept in mind, however: The relative emphasis any one perspective assigns to countering an assumption varies as a function of time and place. Symbolic interactionalisin, for example, developed as it was by George Herbert Mead during a time of transition between modern and postmodern philosophy, is the most forgiving as reg,ards the first of the three assumptions, the all-important individual versus social assumption. Symbolic interactionalists (cf. Cobb & Yackel, this issue) argue that it is possible to pay homage to both the social and the individual, albeit not in equal measure. Socioculturalists, building on the time-and-place argument, have been uniquely concerned about the second assumption: the notion that the distinction between mental and physical states will, to use EIornsby's (1990, p. 53) language, "vanish over time." Because Marxism is a materialist ideology, Soviet psychologists had a hard time justifying their interest in meaning. Vygotsky, ha~dhe lived, almost certainly would have run afoul of the authorities on the meaning issue. As it was, his disciples were under heavy pressure to relpudiate Vygotsky's interest in signs (Kozulin, 1990). ,4s B,akhurst (1995) so cogently argued, it was politically incorrect during the Stalinistera to treat meaning as anything other than a brain state. The solution to this Marxist dilemma was simple but dramatic: off-load meaning onto the environment, !specifically, onto artifacts in the environment. Social constructivists in this country, I submit, have not felt the naed to engage modernists around the mental versus material assumption. Taking their cue from philosophers like Rorty, one group of U.S. theorists, the social constructionists, have felt free to go off in a new direction--dispensing almost entirely with the individual. Unlike their colleagues,the sym-
217
bolic interactionalists and the socioculturalists,this group of theorists is less inclined to entertain the popular mixed model, which defines mind as a distribute:d construct, part individual and part social-artifactual. Social constructionrsts reject this solution, turning their back on what Gergen (1994a) characterized as the "individualist tradition" in psychology. "Rather than cornm~encingwith individual subjectivity and working toward an account of human understanding through language," (Gergen argued, "we may begin our analysis at the level of the human relationship as it generates lboth language and understanding" (p. 27). The dlifferences in social constructivist theory alluded to a e important. They are worth exploring and elaborating on in the interest of further situating these views alf learning and teaching.
Sociocultural Theory 14s suggested, each of the postmodern social constructivisms discussed in this article-the sociocultural (Jlohn-Steiner & Mahn, this issue), the symbolic interactionalist (Cobb & Yackel, this issue), the social psychological (not represented but associated with theorists like Gergen), and the Deweyan, which I elucidated elsewhere (Prawat, 1995)--reject the notion that the locus of knowledge is in the individual. Before proceeding, a word should be said about my decision to place socioculturaP theory in the postmodern camp. At first blush, it may seem strange to label Vygotsky's theory postmodern. I do this with some trepidatio~n,encouraged in this regard by two thoughtful recent treatments of the postrnodern turn in psychology (Morss, 1996; Shatter, 1993), both of which highlighted Vygotsky's pivotal role in this important event. Harre (1986), a social constructivist, also supported the contention that Vygotsky was a key player in the postmodern transif cm; Vygotsky's ideas were central in his thinking, Harre claimed, as were those of Wittgenstein. It is not too great a stretch, then, to regard r;ociocultural theory as postmodeirn-or, at least, prepostmodern-in orientation. Sodoculthlraltheorists were among the first to embrace a key tenet of postmodern thought: the notion that lknowledge is a social construct, "aproperty of organized collectives" (Toulmin, 1995, p. xiv). It should be pointed out, however, that within the organized collective of those who subscribe to Soviet sociocultural theory, there has been some disagreement about the exact nature of the social constructionprocess. There is a group-consisting mostly of the U.S. interpreters of Wygotsky-that focus~eson dyadic interaction In this approach, a more knowledgeable "other" structures tlhe llearning experience in a way that allows the novice to overcome whatever limitations in skill might impede his or her attainmentof adesired goal. This version of Vygotskyian theory, which might be termed strategy-based constructivism, is similar to IP theory in its realist epistemology (Prawat, 1993). Wertsch and Rupert (1993) recently questioned the iegitimacy of this interpretation of Vygotsky's theory. Those
218
PRAWAT
who subscribe to adyadic interpretation, they wrote, are not taking seriously enough Vygotsky's claim about the importance of the social dimension in cognition: "The result is a kind of individualistic reductionism" (p, 229). "Instead of beginning with an analysis of social processes and seeking to determine how they might give rise to individual mental functioning," Wertsch and his colleague wrote, they "tend to treat social processes as if they were a copy of individual functioning." Wertsch and Rupert (1993) suggested some remedies that might address the criticisms raised previously. They argued that Vygotskyians should shift the focus of their research away from strategies and scripts, which are individualistic in nature, emphasizinginstead the key role of socially developed cultural tools as mediators of intra- and intermental functioning. The cultural tool$ they have in mind are considered psychological as opposed to technical in nature, the most prominent example baing language, the tool of all tools. All tools change the nature ofthe actions humans perform within and beyond the boundzkies ofthe skin. This is particularly true of psychological t ~ o l s They . help man master the internal world of psychological,processes as well as the external world of objects and events. As van der Veer and Valsiner (1991) put it, "Man masters himself as he mastered nature-that is, from outside" (p. 220). The origin of all higher psychological processes, a c c d i n g to this hard-won interpretation of Vygotskyian theory, is to be found "in the 'extra cerebral' sign systems a culture provides" (p. 222). Use of the term hard-won in the previous paragraph was deliberate. It was intended to signal the fact that the interpretation of Vygotskyian theory offered was the product of intense and protractbd social negotiation within Soviet society itself. As Mewman and Holzrnan (1993) pointed out, "Vygotsky is identified closaly with two related but not identical Soviet psychological traditions-activity theory and sociohistorical or socioaultural psychology" (p. 200). Kozulin (1990) traced the origins of this dual interpretation in his fascinating account of the difficulties encountered by Vygotsky % disciples in the period immediately following his death. Kozulin (1990) argukd that Vygotsky, who, near the end of his life, placed emphasis on the problem of sign-mediated activity, created a dilpmma for his fallowers. In Stalinist Russia, too groat an emphasis on mehtalistic constructs like meaning was politically dmgerous. This trend in Vygotsky's work was regarded as an-oaeous.The solution, Kozulin made clear, was for Vygotsky's followers, most notably Leontiev, to quickly establish some distance between themselves and their teacher. They did this by stressing the role of practical activity as the s o m e of all m~diationbetween individuals and reality. Semiotic mt?diation, tainted by its mentalism, took a back seat to the collective's concrete relations with reality. "The notion of ~ y m b o lpsychological i~ tools, and the role of culture embodied in them, became underrepresented in Soviet psycholagy starting in tHe mid-1930s'' (p. 247), Kozulin explained with some diplomacy.
The revisionist version of sociocultural theory developed by Leontiev downplayed the role of psychological tools as mediators between the child and reality, preferring instead to highlight the importance of the child's actual relations with reality as a source of cognitive mastery. This revisionist version underwent further change in the early 1960s (Bakhurst, 1995). During the thaw of the Khrushchev years, Ilyenkov was able to relax a kit the focus on praotical activity, advancing a version of activity theory that allowed for the teintroducltion of norxmatmial pbenomenalike meaning and value. Ilyenkov was able to get aro~md the materialist tendency to reduce all nlental phenomena to physiological states bi.e., brain states) by off-laqding hemtng onto artifact. Meanitlg can be in the mind if the mind is not in the head, if it is distdbuM batween boad rurd artifmt. Tilth anis elegant: solutiotx, activity -0hmr.v moved clamr to Yyf10&k3t9$ sign-mdiatian th$xy. Socioculturaltheory, in its current instantiation,advanccs a version of dllstribubd cognition-one that locate8 aognitim or knowledgle in a cqmplex construct that might be de$crib& as individual with artifact. As Colt? and Wertsah (19196) put it, cultural artifacts constitute. "the two poles of the individual-social antimony" (p. 51; through the process of shared meaning, cultlsrd artifacts cannect individuals to society and society to individuals. Wertsch, Tulvisb, and Magstram (1998) wrote, "Instaad of the individual in ioolibtian,tha agent is vicwed a being an irreducible aggregfite of individual ... together with mediation maans" (p. 341). Accoa4ing to Wer'boh et al., it took Vygotslky some time to accept the idea. that stifacts am situatbd in socil)c~llm;alpra~tice,but be embraced this notion near the end of his life. The apcboriqg of artifacts in socieity is impoWnt bhcausm a-tihctl serve $is conduits for the impprtation: df "foreign structures and p w esses" (p. 352) into indiyidW mental functionirrg, The artifact-as-conduit notion is guestianad by John-Steiner and M&n (this issue). This inmrpk@taXiuonaflsig~sfar too passive a role to the individual^, they argue. Et is bmer ta view the individual-mifat relatimi as a dialeotic on@;"The individual constructsthe sor;ilal,'' *ey write, "an,il at the same time . Nawmm mind Malmm is constructed by the sacid" ( ~196). (1993) agreed, pohti~goat t h t Vyg~,uJlts&ty &%tt a ~ o d ~ o the ed dialectic notion in cionnsotian with I h l r ~ ~ mathiodlolagical r issue. v y g o ~ k ywm very criliicral of tbm~aiaidornd,ifixpprimental sspprciach to stcldyir)ig bhaviw. In am in$tmm@~turd variant af this &ppx'
[email protected], &a resear@h@r inclucas chm$m in children, exposing them to c@rtaintools (a& a mmernonic strategy for momory) and ohen studying @&il~ resigonaaa in ah effort to learn som%rihg abaqt the prim%%of dswddprnant. Vygotsky rejected this "too! fpr tesdt" apprgadl in flavor of the more didectic '"itaol #+ndrt$wlt" ;apipiromEx. In thi3lis sdoand t &p_plbi"l~~i%%vdy and lac* approach, it is assumed t h ~ahildren tively seek out tools of vqious sorts that w i l l eza4Ikt them to bootstrap their wqy toward nww psyillhalagical functions. According to Newman and Wolzman (1993), Vygotsky argued against the notion that the tool "uses9%e child: child
UINSTRUCTIVISMS, MODERN AND POSTMOIDERN
and tool exert mutual influence on olne another. Apsychological tool, which is what Vygotsky was interested in, is not like a hammer. Hammers are identified with certain, predetermined functions. Psychological tools, like the toolmaker's tools, are incomplete; they are part and parcel of the results they help produce: "They are inseparable from results in that their essential character (their defining attribute) is the activity of their development rather than function" (pp. 30-39). Nawman and Holzman's (1993) interpretation of Vygotsky represents an attempt to offset the instrumental, tool-forresults spin that Leontiev and the revisionists put on the theory. (Newman & Holzman argued that Wertsch, in his mediational analysis of tool use, was strongly influenced by revisionist theory [cf. p. 21 11.) Regardless of how one comes down on this issue, the relation between psychologicall tools and real-world objects and events remains obscure in sociocultural theory: Technical, nonpsychologicaltools provide a means of acting directly on the external world, Vygotsky (1978) argued; they stimulate change in object and events in the real world, not so the psychological tool: The [technical] tool's function is to serve as the conductor of human influence on the object of activity; it is externally oriented, it must lead to changes in objects. It is a means by which human external activity is aimed at mastering, and triumphing aver, nature. The sign [psychological tool], on the other hand, changes nothmg in the object of a psychological operation. It is amaans of internal activity aimed at mastering oneself; the sign is internally oriented. These activities we so different from each other that the nature of the means they use cannot be the same in both cases. (p. 55) Exen when tools are aimed at stimulating changes in real-world objects and events, there is no indication that a strong counterinfluence occurs. Real-world objec1.s and events do not directly influence tools. Certain kinds of shovels are more or less effective in moving dirt; certain ways of talking to oneself when engaged in an activity like chess are more or less effective when it comes to winning a match. There is nothing about either dirt.-moving or chess-winning events that leads directly to a change in the nature of the tool or artifact. Objects and events in the real woirld exert an indirect effect on tools or artifacts. When the unexpected occurs, it is a signal to individuals and to the collective to which they belong to reexamine the tools typically used to carry out a paicular activity. Over time, repeated surprises on the part of a number of individuals may force the development of new, more effective tools. The important point to keep in mind in sociocultural theory is that the real world exerts, at best, an indirect influence on aggregates of individuals and artifacts. Figure 1 rqpresents an attempt to capture the: salient features of the sociocultural brand of constructivism. This figure depicts individuals and artifacts as aggregatels embedded within particular sociocultural activities. Real-world objects
219
FIGURE 1 Sociocultural constructivism
and events are depicted as beiing ~~utside the direct influence of the collective, which is represented by the smaller circle. This is not to suggest, however, that real-world outcomes are unimpodant. Sociocultural activity is goal directed; instrumental data are vital in helping individuals structure and restructure this activity.
Symbolic Interactionalisrn
Symbolic interactionalism, represented in this issue by Cobb and Yackel's article, can be traced back to Blumer (1969). Blumer, in a 1937 article, first coined the term "symbolic interactionalism" (1969, p. 1). He credited George Herbert Mead with the origin of many of the ideas associated with this "constructivist" approach to social psychology-pointing out, however, that he developed a number of ideas that were only hinted at in Mead's work. Symbolic interactionalismwas given a new breath of life recently thanks to several mathematics educators, including Voigt (1995) and Bauersfeld (1988) in Germany, and, of course, Cobb and Yackel, in the U.S. Bauersfeld (1988) explained how he and his colleagues came to embrace symbolic in~teractionalismover the course of their 20-year-long program of research in mathematics education. His research team tried on a number of theoretical lenses during this time. He was fortunate to work in an institute that encouraged researchers to approach difficult problems from varied theoretical perspectives. The approach his group settled on was an eclectic one that looked at interaction and discourse from a sociological, symbolic interactionist perspective, but which assumed a more traditional educational and psychological stance toward mathematics learning. The sociological perspective was strongly influenced by Blumer. The symbolic interactionalist sociological approach enjoys several advantages. It is ideally suited for a finegrained examination of classroom learning-one that takes into consideration, in equal measure, individual learning and social dynamics. It does this by moving the spotlight back and forth from the group to the individual and back to the group:
220
PRAWAT
The strength of this approach lies in its ability to account for how a group of individuals interactively constitutes and stabilizes meaning at the classroom level while taking into account the fact that individuals within the group have their own unique take on aspects of this meaning. Cobb (1989, p. 34) used the term "institutionalized knowledge" to describe the sorts of understanding that seem to emerge among a group of students at the classroom level. He cited as an example the taken-for-grmted mathematical practice of operating with units of 10, which he tracked over time in a second-grade class: "'It became taken-for-granted in that a point was reached after which a child who engaged in this practice was rarely asked to juptify his or her mathematical activity" (p. 34). However, he added, interviews with individual children showed significant differences in how they construed this common practice-which amphasizes the importance of individud mrt%mings being compatible with institutionalized knowledge, it not fully consistent with it. Consensual dornlzins em@rgbthrrrdgh a process of scrcial interaction and negotiation-there is no shortcut, amording to Bauershld (15)88), Cobb (1989), Yackel(1995), and others. Consensual domains allow for communication. They represent a necessary fction that people are dealing with a stable reality of objwts when in fact each participant makes i act acceptably his or her own con~tmal:As long a ~ individuals with the o b j e c ~the , "smenes~'~ciction is maintained. Being able to cloordinat;rtone9$sadrivities with others, therefore, is of central importanat; from a symbolic intaractionalist perspective. When peaple ~~oordin$h t b i r actions smoothly, each assumes that the others share hiis ar her meaning. Like George Herbert Mead before him, Blumer (1969) took a pragmatic stance toward rsrhmed aotivity. The need for people to mobilize actions effectively when faced with problems or needs holds commurlities together-not vhared values per se. The need for effective social action drives the rest of the system: Pwple have to fit their actions together; to do this, they must define and ilxterpret one another's actions-which is the source of the notion of symbolic interactionism. As Blumer explained,symbolic interaaticmdism sees meaning as a social product that arises in the prwess d interaction between people. There is an individual component in symbolic interactionalism, although it is strongly constrained by the social. In fact, it is symbolic interactionalism's treatment of the inherent tension betwm the sotsial md the individualthataccountsfor its uniqueness vis-ii-vis the othw social constmctivisms discussed in this article. Thus, the individual i$ granted more autonomy in Blumer's (1969) system. than in the sociocultural or social psychological approach. Individuals wno are engaged in social activity do not just internalize tho meaning that was socially constructed; they communicate with themselves about the activity as well-mplicatirrg at a ptmond level what has accurred and is occurring on the social level. Blumer wrote, "People are prepared to acit toward their objects on the basis of the meaning these objects have for them" (p. 49).
The process of personal meaning-making takes a backseat to socially agreed upon ways of carving up reality, however. The community is the prime source of meaning for objects and events in the world, as George Herbert Mead emphasized many years ago: Thus, while providing for the fact that "each individual has a world that differs in some degree from that of any other member of the same community," Mead insisted that the individual "slices the events" from the perspective of the community, adding that this carving our of objects "is social to the very core" (as cited in Shalin, 1986). The community provides the reference frame-the dotred lines, so to speak-for individuals in their attempts to make sense of the world. As Blumer (1969) explained, a key prenlise of symbolic interactionalism is that the meanings assigned to objects in the world arise out of "the social interaction one has with one's fellows" (p. 2). Individuals engaged in joint action cannot help but amnd to the ways coparticipants-especially more knowledgeable coparticipants-~alk aboul and interact with objects in the environment. This jointly produced language and action becomes the basis for the takenfor-granted knowledge and practice referred to earlier. Figure 2 represents an attempt to capture the salient features of the symbolic interactionalist approach adopted by Cobb and Yackel and a number of other prominent scholars in the mathematics education zommuni1:y (cf. Cobb & Bauersfeld, 1995). Artifacts play rn important role in this representation,just as they did in the representation of socioculttiral theory. In both cases, artifacts--especially linguistic mifacts-are viewed as socially constructed products. d e ~ ~ l oped in the course of individuals carrying out goal-directed, joint activity. In the case of s;ymbolic interactionallsm, however, these artifacts are not extensior~sof the individual; rather, they become part oj the object world to which the individual responds. This is an imporrant point. Symbolic interactionalists grant individuals a certain amount of autonomy-which is why the individual is depicted as lying GUIside the circle labeled Socially Shared Activiq in Figure 2 They also insist that individuals, in their role as copmicipants in local activities, develop certain common perspzc~iveswith regard to objects and events in the world. Groups of indiwduals carve the world up-using language to record and inscantiate the results of the process.
Individuals
-
FIGURE 2 Symbolic interactionalist constructivism.
COPISTRUCTIVISMS,MODERN AND POSTMODERN
Cobb (1995) agreed with several of the distinctionsdrawn between sociocultural and symbolic interactionadist tlheory. The former, he argued, emphasizes the role of cultural tools as mechanisms for enculturating individuals into society. Tools become extensions of the individuals who learn to use them. Because most individuals do master the use of c~ultural tools, socioculturaltheorists emphasize commonalties within social groupings, whereas symbolic interactionalists"emphasize the diversity of group member's activity" (p. 123). This emphasis on commonality may represent a Marxist imperative, Cobb added, reflecting the Soviet desire to create amodel "socialist man" (p. 123). Symbolic interactionalistsalso tend to adopt a more limited pumiew as regards context, taking as a reference point "the practices of the local community rather than those of the wider society" @p. 123-124). One difference that Cobb did not mention has important educational implications, as I argue in the final section: Artifacts are part of the object side of the equation in the symbolic interactionalist version of constructivism and part of the subject side in sociocultura~theory. Symbolic interactionalism relies upon socially constructed artifacts to define (objects andevents in the world; socioculturaltheory relies on socially constructed artifacts to define individuals within a culture. A third social constructivist, or canstructionist, approach must be included in this discussion even though it is not represented in the set of articles inlcluded in this special issue. This view, arguably, is the one that is most consistent vvith the tenets of pastmodernism as defined by philosophers :such as Habermas, Wittengenstein, and, otf course, Rorty.
Social Psychological Constructionism Gergen (1994b) is the social psychologist most associated with this third variant on social constructivism (or social con~tructionism,as Gergen called it). This perspective, as Gergen described it (p, vii), is grounded less in the social and political dilemmas that gave rise to Soviet sociocultural theory and more in the postmodern "linguistic turn" heralded by modern day philosophers like those already named. I talk about it here even though it is not represented in the articles included in this special issue because it is the most prominent current alternative to the two social constructivisms discussed. Rorty is the philosopher most associated with social constructionism. According to Rorty (1989, p. 9), everything is "essentially linguistic," all experience and behavior. The world, like a literary text, is open to multiple interpretations. It is the responsibility of members of particular discourse communities to define the nature of that text; the language they agree on is reality. As Rorty is fond of saying, "Truth is a property of linguistic entities, of sentences" (p. 7). There is nothing outside of language to which individuals may refer to validate the truthfulness of the language the community has chosen to use. Tmth, in a sense, is a successful move in the
221
language game; an assertion that others in the community let one get away with saying. adopted lir~guisticdeterRorty and other postmode~nis~ts minism ins the way out of a far worse dilemma that has plagued philosophy since Descartes's time: the mistaken hope, akin to a religious longing, that one can identify the basis for true belief. This search for the foimdations of true: belief, Rorty (1979) argued, is akin to the search for "privih:ged" ways of representing reality-ways that ixe so self-evidently correct as to be beyond doubt. The: st:arch for privileged representations quite naturally led to a preoccupation on the part of philosophers with the mental device that contains those repres~entations. This device, a great mirror, was what philosophers spent their time inspecting, repairing, ;and polishing, accorclirmg to Rorty. Different views about the direction of the mirror are what distinguishedrationalists like Descartes from realists like Locke: For Descartes, it was a matter of turning the Eye: of the Mind from the corafused inner relpresientations to the clear and distinct ones. With Locke, it wa:)a matter of reversing Descartes' directions and seeing "singularpresentations to sense" as wh~atshould "grip" us. (Rorty, 1979, p. 159)
To break out of the endless round of rationalist versus realist, or mind versus worldl, disputes, Rorty and the other postrnodernists decided to terminate epistemology,to leave it behind once anid for all by moving mind into the world. Mind is in language, according to this argument, a view that a growing number of psychologists find compelling. Gergen (1994a) thus wrote, "So severe are the problems of dualist epistemology that materialists, phenomenologists, and Wittgensteinians alike have since opted (albeit on differing grounds) for an abandonment of dualist metaphysics" (p. 22). As suggested, Gergen is one of the most prominent advocates for a version of constructivism known as social constructionism. Like Rorty, Gergen (1995) located knowledge in language-or, rather, in what he termed "temporary locations in dialogic space" @. 30). According to his "radical" version of social constructiorkm, the starting point for social constnvctionisrn is not the individual or the external world, it is language. Language, a by-product of communal relation, is the c'arrier of truth. Be:cause Gergen's claims are similar to Rorty's, many of the critiques leveled at the latter apply to social constructionism. Before exploring these criticisms, it might be helpful to look at how Gergen's approach to learning handles the formversus-content dualism that plagues individual Piagetian constructivism~and IP theory. This solution, borrowed from Rorty, ns simple in the extreme: It involves giving up the battle all together. Traditionally, Ge~rgenwrote, scholars-especially scientistsdraw a sharp distinction betvveen the substance of a message and its mode of presentation. It is the former-the content-that it; s~lpposedto cany the day, not the way that content is "packnged." This distinction no longer
222
PRAWAT
holds if one takes a postmodernist position. Gergen (1994b) explained: As the truth-bearing capacity of language is threatened by poststructural literary theory, the presumption of content-a true and objective portrayal of an independent object-gives way. All that was content stands open to critical analysis as persuasive form. In effect,developments in rhetorical study parallel those in literary criticism: both displace attention from the object of representation (the 'Yacts," the "rationality of the argument") to the vehicle of representation. (p. 41). The distinction between form and content fades. Success in the language game is a function of persuasibility, a notion that implicatespower and gender. Theories and ideas thus lose their innocence. The problem with the social corrstructionist, languagebased approach to learning, as I argued elsewhere, is that it leaves no room for reality. Many philosophers raised doubts about the Rortyian-Gergenian solution, A sampling of these criticisms provides a sanse for the extent of the problem the so-called radical social constructionists left for themselves. Caputo is one of the sharpest critics. Of Rorty's proposed solution to the mind-world dilemma, Caputo (1983) wrote, "If philosophy has abandoned the mirror of nature, it appears to have ended up with a mirror play of words in which words lead to more words but never to the matter itself' (pp. 662-663). He charactewized Rorty's approach as saying that, "since we cmnot 'repwent raality' we must be content with propositions which mc only propositions"(p. 669). In avoiding one kind of nrehphysicd trap--believing that our propositions samehaw miaar the world-Rorty and Gergen, I submit, fell into another trap, which was to assume that we are confined enti$eIy to, words, which Caputo termed a kind of "linguistic house mast" (p, 672). The social canatmotionist perspective faces another difficulty as well: It leaves unexplained the problem of how one bridges the gap between the aocial world of language and the private realm of autonomous cognition. Rorty was explicit about this problem, adnlitting that his approach did not account for how indkidual$ m a g e to operate simultaneously Momn, 1493). Although R o w viewed this on both levels (d. problem as pmiculaly vming in the moral and political domain, it has import for education as well, as I explain in the final section af this article, Row then 'to &pior this third version of constructivism? As I show in Figure 3, everything, according to social constructionists, is wt$ppr!d up in language. Individuals as well as objects and events in the world exist within a cocoon of language. Gergen (19b4b) wrote that adults within a culture compose narratives abiaur prototypic individuals that function as "ready made intelligibilities" (p. 199) for youngsters being socialized into the culturn. Each discourse community has its own ways of talking about subject and object, therefore. This is as true of clmsraom communities as it is of scholarly discourse communities; both, Gergen (1994a) wrote, "acquire
Discourse Community
FIGURE 3 Psychological social constructivism.
their status as communities by virtue of their shared languages of description and explanation" (p. 8).
MORE ON THE POSTMODERN CONSTRUCTIVISMS Differences in philosophical orientation between the three versions of social constructivism, although subtle, are not without educational import. Sociocultural theorists, as Figure 1 suggests, place their primary emphasis on the individual with artifact piece of the puzzle (Cole & Wertsch, 1996). They tend to evaluate educational environments in terms of their "tool learning" capacity. Apprenticeship learning is ideally suited in this regard; in this kind of instructional arrangement, experts model tool use for novices, highlighting the verbal and physical moves that constitute mastery of the process. The instructional focus shifts subtly for the symbolic interactionalists: At issue is the question of how members of the classroom community can reach consensus about the nature of subject matter objects and events. Included under the subject-matter-objects-and-events rubric are a range of things that sociocultural theorists regard as tools: story problems and number lines in mathematics, for example; or different genres of literature in the language arts domain. Symbolic interactionists evidencea heightened sensitivity to qualitativedifferences in individual students' understanding of these phenomena. The focus in this approach, as Cobb (1989) explained, is on a kind of acculturation, one that reflects a dialectical relationship between the group, which seeks to coordinate its understanding, and individuals in the group, each of whom is struggling to come to terms with what is happening in his or her own right. These two examples of social constructivist thinking, although sharing several postmodern assumptions, have different historical and philosophical roots and subtly different visions of an ideal teaching and learning environment. Sociocultural theory, like IP theory, represents an "outside-in"
CONSTRUCTIVISMS,MODBRN AND POSTMODERN
approach to learning. Symbolic interactionalist theory, on the other hand, is more compatible with the radical constructivist "inside-out" view of learning, at least in its treatment (of the individual. Both approaches attempt to resolve the mind-world dilemma by assigning a prominent rnediational role to society: The latter shapes mind in the case of sociocultural theory and creates the world that mind must respond to in the case of symbolic interactionalist theory. Social constructionist theory takes a more radical stance toward the mind-world dilemma. It abolishes both mind and world: Mind, as an individual entity that accounts for understanding, is superfluous; all understanding is linguistic. There is no such thing as a concept independent of language. Because language is a communal enterprise,mind is a communal enterprise. World, if by that one means a realxty existing outside of language, is also superfluous. It may exist, but there is no way to get at it other than through the community's way of talking about it. The educational focus in social constructionism is thus on the uses and abuses of discourse: Examples of questions falling under these categories include:, How does one go about interrogating knowledge claims in particular disciplines like mathematics or histo~y?What constitutes a persuasive argument for or against such claims? Who plarticipates in the discourse? and Who remains silent? These are important questions. The problem with this approach is that it offers no way out of the language game-no way for the individual student to carry on a dialogue with the real world of objects and events. A s I suggested early on in this article, there is a fourth version of social constructivism, which can be traced back to Peirce (1931-1935) and Deway (192511981; cf. Figure 4) The advantage of this approach is that it assigns a prominent role to the social and to the individual, in the development of meaning (cf. Prawat, 1995). Ideas, in a sense, serve as mediators in blpth the public and private arenas. Ideas originate through a metaphoric process known as abduction. They are socially "authored" Dewey emphwized, in the sense that they must undergo verbal exegesis by a p u p intent on understanding them. Despite this, ideas retain-as group and individual "anticipations"-a strong element of what Dewey (192511981) termed "sentiency'"i.e., a perceptual or imaginal quality).
223
Ideas, according to James 1(1908/1975,p. 278), must be "cashed1 in" by individuals. Dewey (191611980) explained what James meant by his use of this colorful expression: 'When he said that general notions must 'cash in,' he meant that they must be translatable into verifiable specific things7' (p. 367). The notion of photosynthesis, when fully grasped, literally forces the clhild to see green, leafy plants in a new light-as the sole food producers in the universe, for examlple. Ideas borrowed from the disciplines have this potential to illuminate or open up aspects of the wodd, according to Dewey, even though that fact is not fully apprecialed by most educators: "There is no mistake more commce in schools than ignoring the self-propelling power of an idea7']Deweywrote. "Once it is aroused, an alert mind literally races with it. Of itself it carries the student into new fields; it branches out into new ideas as a plant sends forth new shoots" (1933/1986a, p. 334). Ideas are ideal instruments for dealing with the dilemmas inherent in modernist philosophy, even the biggest of them all-the so-called mind-world dilemma. Philosophers from the time of Descartes and Bacon lhave grappled with an issue that grows out of this dilemma: where to look for truth. One group of philosophers, the rationalists, decided Ion an internal, "within the mind" test of truth (i.e., coherence); a second group, the redists, rejected this solution, settling instead on an external "world" test, the extent to which structures in the head c~orrespondto those present in the world. Berttley (X954), a colleagigne and coauthor with Dewey, argued that it was a lack of i~maginationon the part of rationallists and realists that led them to adopt these inner and outer sodutions. They were brapped by what he called the 'sknn" problem: "Human skin is the one authentic criterion of the universe which philosophers recognize when they appraise knowledge under their prolfessional rubric, epistemology," (p. 195). Ideas offer a s~olutionto the mind-world problem because they-at least the way Dewey defined them--can move back and forth across the barrier that separates mind from world. Ideas, to quote Bentle:y (p. 197), are "skin-lmversable" rather than "skin-impounded": They organically engage with objects or ~events.By emlphasizing this characteristic OF ideas, Dewey ediminated the gap between mind and world. Diggins (1994) got at the heart of the
Learning Community Ideas
Individuals
FIGURE 4 Idea-based (Deweyan) social constructivism.
ObjectdEvents
argument when he wrote, "The proposal that true knowledge is tantamount to creative vision abolished the epistemological gap between thought and reality by replacing conceptual knowledge with perceptual experience" (p. 128). By emphasizing the action potential of ideas, Dewey was able to do in another dualism-the distinction between knowing and doing-which has plagued educators for years. Knowing is doing, Dewey explained. There is no theoreticaljustification for a host of knowing-doing distinctions like the one that is commonly drawn between theory and practice, or between knowledge acquisition a d knowIedge applicqtion. "Action is at the heart of ideas," (Dewey, 1929/1988, p, 134) Ideas, as possibilities, "instigate and direct" the "aperations of abservation. ... They are proposals and plans for a~titlgupon existing conditions to bring n$w fbts to lightx'(&way, 1B38/1986b, p. 116). If knowing is a process of tramaction with the environment; ideas are the instruments of that action. Because it o f f m solutioas to many modernist dilemmas, Dewey's approach i s worth ailding to the compendium of approaches dilslc~ssedin this article. One feature of this approach, evident in Figwe 4, is worth mentioning again: Deweyan, idwbased social constructivism is evenhanded in its treatment a$ the individual and the social, the private and the public, assigning equal priority to each (cf. Prawat, in press). It thus avoids the pitfalls of other constructivisms, which must come down onthe side of the individual (schema and IP theory), Oh@social (social constructionism), or try to include both by *signing a higher priority to one or the other (socioculturaland symbolic ihteracUlandist theory). REFERENCES Bakhurst, D. (1995). On the social constitution of mind: Bruner, Ilyenkov, and the defence of cultural psychology. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2, 158-171. Bauersfeld, H. (1988). Interaction, construction, and knowledge: Alternative perspectives for mathematics education. In D. A. Grouws, T J. Cooney, & D. Jones (Eds.), Perspectives on research on mathematm teaching (Vol. 1 , pp. 27-46). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Bentley, A. F. (1954).Inqutry into inquiries: Essays In soclal theory. Boston: Beacon. Beyer, B. K. (1987). Practical strategiesfor the teaching oj thinking. Boston: Allyn &Bacon Blumer, H. (1969). Symbokc ~nteractionaksm:Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of Californ~aPress. Caputo, J. D. (1983) The thought of being and the conversation of mankind The case of Heidegger and Rorty. Review oj Metaphysm, 36,661-685 Cobb, P. (1989).Experiential, cognitive, and anthropological perspectives in mathematics education. For the Learning ofMathematics, 9(2), 32-42. Cobb, P. (1995). Mathematics learning and small-group interaction: Four case stuhes. In P. Cobb & H Bauersfeld (Eds.), The emergence of mathematicul meanmg: Interuction tn classroom cultures (pp. 25-13 1) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Cobb, P., & Bauersfeld, H. (1995) Introduction: The coordination of psychological and sociolog~calperspectives in mathematm education In P Cobb & H. Bauersfeld (Eds), The emergence of mathematrcal meaning: Interaction in classroom cultures (pp. 1-16). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Voigt, J. (1995). Thematic patterns of interaction and sociomathematical norms. 11nP. Cobb & H. Bausersfeid (Eds.), The emergence of mathematical meaning: Interaction in claswoom cultures (pp. 163-202). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Pissociates, Inc. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development ojrhigherpsychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Haward University Press. von Glasersfeld, E. (1987). The comtructior~zof knowledge: Contributions to conce,ptual semantics. Seaside, CA: 1nl:ersystems. Weasch, J. V., JPL Rupert, L. J. (1993). Th'e authority of cultural tools in a socioculitural approach to mediated agency. Cognition and Instruction, 11,189-196. Wertsch, J. W., Tulviste, P., & Hagstrom~,F. (1993). A sociocultural approach to agency. In E. A. Forman, N. Minick, & C. A. Stone (Eds.), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children's development (pp. 336-356). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. mathematics classrooms. In P. Yackel, E. (1995). Children's talk in in~qui~ry Cobb & H. Bauersfeld (Eds.), The c.me,rgenceof mathematical meaning: Interaction in classroom cultures (pp. 131-162). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
