Artin Göncü

Development of Intersubjectivity in Social Pretend Play.

An analysis of social pretend play as an intersubjective activity suggests three processes involved in the development of shared pretend representations. These are adoption of a shared pretend focus f

Development of intersubjectivity in the dyadic play of preschoolers

This study was designed to examine a hypothesis built on the theories of Piaget, 1945 , Piaget, 1965 , Vygotsky (1978) , and Parten (1932) that childrens play becomes increasingly intersubjective during preschool years. The notion of intersubjectivity is defined as joint understanding established between players. The structural features and negotiations of social play are used as indicies of intersubjectivity. The data for the analyses derived from the play sessions of twelve 3-year-olds and twelve 4 1/2-year-olds who engaged in videotaped 20 min play in same-age and same-sex dyads. The results provide support for the hypothesis that social play of preschoolers becomes increasingly shared from 3 to 4 1/2 years of age.

Cultural variations in the play of toddlers

The present study examines differences in the social play of toddlers from four communities. Fourteen children, between the ages of 12 and 24 months, from four cultural communities (San Pedro, Guatemala; Kecioren, Turkey; Dhol-Ki-Patti, India; Salt Lake City, United States) participated in the study. This paper is based on an analysis of data from a larger study, which was designed to examine guided participation between caregivers and toddlers during daily routine activities (Rogoff, Mistry, Göncü, & Mosier, 1993). This study specifically examines episodes of social play which occurred during various activities. We addressed community differences in the occurrence, frequency, partners, and dynamics of social play. We also examined whether or not the kinds (i.e. pretend, object, physical, language, and games) and themes of children’s play varied as a function of the activity (i.e. exploring novel objects, dressing, free activity, and adult conversation) in which the play activities were embedded. The results indicated that social play occurred in each of the four communities, although the frequency and partners of social play presented cultural variations. Also, there were cultural variations in the numbers of children who engaged in the various kinds of play examined. Based on our results we conclude that developmental play theory should be extended to take into account cultural variation.

Preschoolers' Collaborative Construction in Planning and Maintaining Imaginative Play

Developmental differences in the organisation and complexity of dyadic play were investigated. Based on the views of Bateson and Piaget organisation was defined in terms of verbal initiation, planning, symbolic representation, negotiation and termination of imaginative play. Complexity was defined as a range in which one or more than one dimension of planning and symbolic representation were expressed simultaneously. The sample consisted of 12 41/2-year-olds and 12 3-year-olds. There were six boys and six girls at each age level. The children were videotaped as same-age and same-sex dyads in two 20 minute sessions on consecutive days. The results indicated no age differences in the organisation of play. There were, however, developmental and sex differences in the complexity of play. The 4½-year-olds and girls more than 3-year-olds and boys expressed multiple dimensions of planning and symbolic representation. This finding lends support to the Piagetian notion that play symbols are combined in sequences with increasing age and is discussed in relation to the development of decentration.

Interpersonal relations in four-year dyads from constructivist and montessori programs☆

Abstract Forty 4-year-old children from Constructivist and Montessori preschool programs were compared on social-cognitive competence. The Experimenter (E) taught children in pairs to play a board game in Session 1, and in Session 2 asked them to play the game by themselves. Analysis of video and transcripts of 2208 behavioral units using Selmans coding of interpersonal negotiation strategies showed that Montessori pairs used a significantly higher proportion of strategies at Level 1, and Constructivist pairs used a significantly higher proportion of strategies at Level 2. Less conflict was found in Constructivist pairs, and they resolved their conflicts significantly more frequently. Within conflict segments, Montessori children had a significantly higher proportion of Level 0 strategies, and Constructivist pairs had a significantly higher proportion of Level 2 strategies. Both groups followed some basic rules equally well, but Constructivist pairs followed other rules more consistently. Although no difference was found in general ability to count dots on the die, Constructivist children on the whole counted spaces on the board more accurately. It was concluded that children from the Constructivist program were more advanced in social-cognitive competence than children from the Montessori program.

Telling in Time

Readers of this journal have come to expect that each new issue will bring greater diversity to our ongoing investigations into the nexus of Mind, Culture, and Activity (MCA). The range of activities and practices being investigated at the present time is imposing in its variety. Recent issues have included research on children’s engagement in crafting and e-textiles, the contribution of adult musicians to orchestras, preschoolers playing computer games, the dissemination of digital technology and digital literacies in Portugal as organized by social class and locale, a deep reading of a book by A. N. Leontiev, the routines of everyday life, contributions to changing educational practices in Botswana, and family interaction in Cameroon. In MCA, diversity is unpacked to include differences across activities; ages; contexts; cultures; and, emphasized in this issue, time scales. In this introduction, we highlight diversity of three kinds; diversity in:

Life-Span Pretend Play in Two Communities

Two studies sought to determine if pretend play has occurred throughout the lifespans of two communities of young Western adults. First, 10 improvisers were asked to define the words “play” and “pretend,” recount episodes of pretend play in their early childhood, elementary school, adolescence, and adulthood, and relate the benefits of their engagement in pretend play. Second, 49 graduate students answered open-ended and dichotomous-response questionnaire items modeled after the first study. In both studies, participants offered meanings of pretend and play that align with definitions of childrens play and offered personal, life-span episodes and benefits of pretend play.

Experience, Imagination, and Action: Versions of Artifact Mediation

This issue of Mind, Culture, and Activity foregrounds artifact mediated action as central to the process of developing psychological tools. Artifacts include tools used in production, words, writing instruments, and telecommunications networks (Cole, 1996); representations of artifacts and modes of action that arise using artifacts, such as recipes and social norms, and rules, conventions; and outcomes that do not appear to be obviously practical, that appear more like play or game-based activity (Wartofsky, 1973). Artifacts are “objectifications of human needs and intentions already invested with cognitive and affective content” (Wartofsky, 1973, p. 204). Each of the present articles, in its own way, emphasizes that artifacts are, simultaneously, the embodiment of imagination, or crystallized imagination, and catalysts for thinking anew (Vygotsky, 2004). The creative production of artifacts reflects a simultaneous weaving of human experience, imagination, and action in concrete environments; a process of human and artifact codevelopment. The six articles in this issue reflect these ideas through an investigation of human actors and the artifacts that mediate their participation in, and transformation of, social practices. Authors Beth Buchholz, Kate Shively, Kylie Peppler, and Karen Wohlwend, in “Hands On, Hands Off: Gendered Access in Crafting and Electronics Practices,” investigate the use of needles, fabric, and conductive thread in e-textiles as enabling nontraditional gender scripts in the use of electronics and technology. Their examination of how gendered patterns of e-textile practices affect youths’ division of labor yields a number of significant insights. For example, their results highlight how the gendered history of sewing and crafting practices enabled girls to play a leading role in these activities and provided them hands-on access that led to a deeper level of investment and competence. By taking into account the gendered histories of materials, the maker movement may begin to address the gender divide using a strengths-based approach that brings together “girls and the tools, materials, and practices that have historically been valued in feminine communities of practice” (p. 295). In “Orchestras as ‘Ensembles of Possibility’: Understanding the Experience of Orchestral Musicians Through the Lens of Communities of Practice,” Helena Gaunt and Melissa C. Dobson

Designing for Change

The articles in this issue share an interest in intervention and seek to advance the practice of engaging people in change that is thought to be of social benefit. This line of research, under varying names, has been fundamental to scholarship that has emanated from Vygotsky and his followers, Dewey, Bakhtin, and other cultural-historical scholars. Over the past several decades, there has been a broad acceptance among current scholars of the need to intentionally design opportunities to intervene in an effort both to better understand and to support human learning and development. However, there remain a range of views regarding how ethics and science should be pursued in such matters. Divergences seem to stem, in part, from differing interpretations of cultural-historical theory broadly and concepts like “double stimulation,” “rising to the concrete,” and “activity,” all foundational to Mind, Culture, and Activity discourse, colloquially referred to as CHAT. For the past 25 years, a parallel set of concerns has surfaced within the academic enterprise known as the learning sciences where the concept of design experimentation has been developed and debated as an intervention methodology. Although the two traditions were evident in Ann Brown’s (1992) classic paper on this topic, they have not, until recently, begun to interact seriously with each other. The work included in this issue addresses these problems and raises interesting questions of the kind that are likely to evoke some disagreement. For example, what are the methodological foundations of the most effective intervention practices in such varied domains as education, medicine, and agriculture? What are the consequences of carrying methodologies from one cultural-historical setting to another, both for the modifications in methods required, and for what can be learned about the process of socio-cultural-historical change? Does the meaning of basic concepts—including design, experiment, double stimulation, and activity—remain invariant across the articles, or do meanings shift between and, perhaps even within, the articles themselves? Our goal in raising these questions is to encourage dialogue between competing “schools of thought” within what is generally regarded as a single, broad, theoretically motivated research tradition. Our hope is to initiate a dialogue that will continue at conferences such as the International Conference of the Learning Sciences in June 2014 and the congress of the

Structuring Social Futures: The Possibilities, the Challenges

We are excited to introduce the articles for the first issue of Mind, Culture, and Activity in 2014. Taken together, these four articles and four book reviews reflect well the principles committed to by the new Editorial Group at the end of last year. Across the articles and book reviews the reader will find attention to: revisiting theoretical grounding in order to clarify key ideas, concepts, units; multiple views of the ways in which cultural-historical and activity theoretical research speaks to different disciplines and fields; concern for ethical engagement both as a subject of study and as a project to which our research contributes; and a range of expertise, experience, and voices. In addition, these articles and reviews have a common underlying theme that we find especially fitting for the new year: the possibilities and challenges of the tools we create socially, culturally, and historically to anticipate uncertain futures and attempt to structure them into recognizable and development enhancing futures. The articles in this issue foreground the role of units, routines, positioning, and pedagogies in the structuring of futures, an idea that surfaces more generally in the book reviews as well. Opening this issue, Wolff-Michael Roth’s article “Reading Activity, Consciousness, Personality Dialectically: Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and the Centrality of Society” examines theoretical units and reconsiders how they are interpreted. More than concepts in Leont’ev’s work, object-oriented activity, consciousness, and personality are units that retain the properties of the relation of individual-society. Roth draws upon his research to describe an ethnographic case study of Mike, a fish culturist, including the relation between Mike as an individual, the fish hatchery as an institution, and the impact of the Canadian economy on salmon enhancement program policies from the provincial and federal government as the societal context. He uses this case to look at the differences that different interpretations of activity, consciousness, and personality make to the potential explanations produced by research. Interpretations of units matter because they influence the conduct of research. They shape what constitutes data, how we analyze it, and what we take our analysis to mean. They structure a complicated research methodology into a recognizable research design, an act that both enables and constrains future research.