Alberto Rosa

Cross-Cultural Dimensions of Meaning in the Evaluation of Events in World History?: Perceptions of Historical Calamities and Progress in Cross-Cultural Data From Thirty Societies

The universality versus culture specificity of quantitative evaluations (negative-positive) of 40 events in world history was addressed using World History Survey data collected from 5,800 university students in 30 countries/societies. Multidimensional scaling using generalized procrustean analysis indicated poor fit of data from the 30 countries to an overall mean configuration, indicating lack of universal agreement as to the associational meaning of events in world history. Hierarchical cluster analysis identified one Western and two non-Western country clusters for which adequate multidimensional fit was obtained after item deletions. A two-dimensional solution for the three country clusters was identified, where the primary dimension was historical calamities versus progress and a weak second dimension was modernity versus resistance to modernity. Factor analysis further reduced the item inventory to identify a single concept with structural equivalence across cultures, Historical Calamities, which included man-made and natural, intentional and unintentional, predominantly violent but also nonviolent calamities. Less robust factors were tentatively named as Historical Progress and Historical Resistance to Oppression. Historical Calamities and Historical Progress were at the individual level both significant and independent predictors of willingness to fight for one’s country in a hierarchical linear model that also identified significant country-level variation in these relationships. Consensus around calamity but disagreement as to what constitutes historical progress is discussed in relation to the political culture of nations and lay perceptions of history as catastrophe.

Bartlett's Psycho-anthropological Project

This paper focuses on the examination of the early production of F.C. Bartlett devoted to the psychological study of an anthropological question: the conventionalization of cultural materials. His early articles offer a project for a cultural psychology which also foresees a theory of activity, as well as developing a set of categories which allow a transition from the social to the individual levels of analysis. His view of how symbols are created, transmitted and changed is also of particular interest, both in individual and in social life, as is his discussion of the role feelings play in semiosis.

Dilthey's dream. Teaching history to understand the future

Abstract This chapter argues for a historicists attitude in the teaching of history. The works of Dilthey, Vico, and Ricoeur are contrasted with those of Hempel, and from the analysis it is concluded that while there are many possible goals of instruction in history, history teaching should empower the students to defend themselves from ready-made stories and their implications. History, it is also argued, should allow students to make better sense of their social life.

Cross-Cultural Dimensions of Meaning in the Evaluation of Events in World History?

The universality versus culture specificity of quantitative evaluations (negative-positive) of 40 events in world history was addressed using World History Survey data collected from 5,800 university students in 30 countries/societies. Multidimensional scaling using generalized procrustean analysis indicated poor fit of data from the 30 countries to an overall mean configuration, indicating lack of universal agreement as to the associational meaning of events in world history. Hierarchical cluster analysis identified one Western and two non-Western country clusters for which adequate multidimensional fit was obtained after item deletions. A two-dimensional solution for the three country clusters was identified, where the primary dimension was historical calamities versus progress and a weak second dimension was modernity versus resistance to modernity. Factor analysis further reduced the item inventory to identify a single concept with structural equivalence across cultures, Historical Calamities, which included man-made and natural, intentional and unintentional, predominantly violent but also nonviolent calamities. Less robust factors were tentatively named as Historical Progress and Historical Resistance to Oppression. Historical Calamities and Historical Progress were at the individual level both significant and independent predictors of willingness to fight for one’s country in a hierarchical linear model that also identified significant country-level variation in these relationships. Consensus around calamity but disagreement as to what constitutes historical progress is discussed in relation to the political culture of nations and lay perceptions of history as catastrophe.

Representaciones del pasado, cultura personal e identidad nacional

Memoria, Historia, Individuo, Nacion,Identidad, — asi, escritos con mayusculas — sonpalabras que se hacen presentes en el discur-so publico de cada dia. Se trata de conceptosque, en ocasiones, se convierten en armasarrojadizas en los conflictos sociales, y se agitancomo conceptos explicativos en los discursospublicos que dan cuenta de la violencia simbo-lica, y a veces de la fisica, que sufren losciudadanos de a pie; quienes, ademas de serpeones en los juegos en marcha, no dejan detener alguna responsabilidad en los resultadosque en estos se den.El proposito de este capitulo es ofrecerun conjunto de conceptos y una estructurarelacional entre ellos que facilite la conexionentre cada una de las aportaciones de queconsta el volumen en su conjunto, al mismotiempo que oferta una reflexion sobre una seriede cuestiones que, sin ser tratadas explici-tamente en cada uno de los otros capitulos,muchas veces estan presentes en forma depresuposiciones no siempre faciles de tener encuenta. Dicho en forma mas breve, lo que aquitrataremos de ofrecer es un marco general detrabajo que, al mismo tiempo, contextualice loscapitulos que siguen sobre el fondo de lapreocupacion contemporanea desde ambitosdisciplinares muy diversos sobre los temas ci-tados al principio.Las cuestiones que aqui nos van a ocu-par, como es el caso de la memoria y la iden-tidad, para ser abordadas con cierto rigor,requieren adoptar un planteamiento capaz de

Construyendo narraciones para dar sentido a experiencias vividas. Un estudio sobre las relaciones entre la forma de las narraciones y el posicionamiento personal

Resumen Este artículo presenta los primeros resultados de una investigación empírica sobre los modos de constitución de la experiencia. Se investiga cómo un grupo de alumnos que participaron de una situación potencialmente conflictiva interpretan esa situación a través de un relato. Se cuestiona que esas narrativas transmitan de un modo transparente y directo las formas en que los sujetos experimentaron una situación vivida, proponiéndose, en cambio, que aspectos formales de las narraciones (tema, formas de los enunciados, voces, etc.) pueden dar pistas sobre los posicionamientos e interpretaciones de los participantes. Asimismo, se entiende a las narraciones como construcciones discursivas que articulan dialógicamente al sujeto que narra y a los interlocutores a quienes se dirige la narración, al mismo tiempo que dan cuenta de qué sucedió y por qué sucedió de esa manera. Los resultados muestran cuatro tipos de narrativas caracterizadas por diferencias en sus aspectos formales que, al mismo tiempo, son reveladoras de diferentes maneras de posicionarse ante la situación vivida y ante el interlocutor a quien se dirige el relato.

The Past, Intellectual Histories and Their Uses for the Future: A Response to Middleton and Crook (1996)

This paper focuses on an examination of the uses of the past in intellectual history and in science. Borrowing the concept of symbolic market from Pierre Bourdieu, the production of new texts within a discursive formation (a la Michel Foucault) is pictured as a process of consumption-production whose outcomes are attributed a certain value by the consumers of the text. This view can be applied both to scientific and to historical products, which have their own independent-even if relatedepistemic markets with different criteria for attribution of value. Whatever the case, when events or discourses of the past appear in a current discourse it is because they are of some use as a way of providing a narrationality for current and future actions.

Trajectories of experience of real life events: a semiotic approach to the dynamics of positioning

This paper is devoted to the study of experience as a semiotic process of constructing the personal meaning of the situation lived. Its main purpose is to devise a semiotic methodology capable of describing and explaining the dynamics of positioning when facing personal lived experiences in real life contexts. Twenty four young adults were exposed to a simulated conflict and then asked to write a narrative of their understanding of the incident and a self-report of their personal experiences. Results show how narratives and trajectories of experience present different forms in each participant, which could be related to: a) the understanding of the situation lived and the position taken regarding the conflict; and b) the position each participant takes regarding the reports they had to produce for the researchers. The incorporation of reflexivity into the applied method allows identification of how the dynamics of double positioning leave traces in the records produced.

El tiempo del reloj y el tiempo de la acción. Introducción al número monográfico sobre Tiempo y Explicación Psicológica

Resumen Este artículo examina los fundamentos de la percepción de la simultaneidad y la sucesión, del movimiento y del cambio, considerándolos como las bases sobre las que se construye la noción de tiempo. El tiempo no se percibe de forma directa, sino que su presencia es consecuencia de la constitución mutua de las nociones de permanencia y cambio. Sin la función simbólica resulta imposible concebir las nociones de pasado, presente y futuro, y el tiempo de la larga duración y de la historia. Es la acción, mediada instrumental y semióticamente, la que crea las unidades de medida que permiten conectar el tiempo vivido con el tiempo medido.

What to Teach in History Education When the Social Pact Shakes

Rosa and Bresco review the role of history teaching in a world where the idea of state sovereignty fades away and the notion of social pact—usually conceived to be bounded within national borders—is felt shaking. If history teaching aims at preparing students for active participation in multicultural societies within an increasingly globalised world, the role of nations as the prominent historical agents for understanding current affairs needs to be revised. What skills does this new scenario demand? History of what? History of and for whom? Drawing on these questions, the authors advocate a history teaching devoted to studying the transformation of social agents and Statehood, and concerned with the rights and empowerment of citizenship, rather than centred on national narratives of the expanding and shrinking size and power of each state.