Discursive Psychology post for 7.10.13

Blog post for July 10, 2013 – Discursive Psychology

 

Response to Trena’s comments from 7/8/13:

I read your response to my post for Monday, and wanted to offer some comments back.   Please feel no need to respond to all that I write, I appreciate any feedback you offer, as it makes me think more deeply, but I know I am writing a lot and that you can’t possibly respond to it all.  I am writing a great deal because it helps me to determine what I really think/understand/don’t understand about something and I know it will be helpful to me when we write our final paper for this class and quite possibly for future classes, assignments, comps etc.  

That being said, I would like your response to this… J I put the term “struggling reader” in quotes because I am not really sure how I feel about this concept.  It has been my experience that what people (usually teachers) really mean by this term is that ‘this kid is a “struggle” for me to teach’ – they haven’t found ‘the way in’ yet and are targeting the student instead of their teaching.  I think your comment about ‘sorting out the idea of a struggling reader could be a focus’ is an interesting one … I was thinking about that and the term ‘learning disabled’ or ‘dyslexic’ and what Lester did with the piece on autism.  On my “Want to Know” chart I wrote … How is the notion of ‘struggling reader’ or ‘dyslexic’ formed and maintained by the language we use?   A long time ago (late 60s maybe) Marie Clay wrote a piece called ‘Learning to be Learning Disabled’ in which she questioned the whole notion of learning disability/dyslexia, asserting that ‘not noticing’ teachers were really the issue, not kids who saw words backwards or saw letters flipped.  She didn’t completely discount the possibility that there are kids who are learning disabled … instead she saw mislabeling of the true problem – a teaching problem, not a learning problem.   I am interested in what you think about this and if it might be a potential topic for further exploration… perhaps RTI meetings in which a student is being classified as LD in reading would be an interesting place to capture conversation around “dyslexia” and “reading disability”.

Warranting Scientific Belief – Gilbert and Mulkay

I thought this article was really interesting, though initially I wondered why we were reading about oxidative phosphorylation!  What the authors describe is basically what I see playing out within the ‘reading wars’.  The ‘phonics’ advocates cite their research and state their claims about what works in reading education and discount the ideas of the ‘whole language’ crew while the ‘whole language’ crew does the same of the information the ‘phonics’ folks reference.  Both see their ideas/views as the logical ‘truth’ that is supported by empirical evidence.  

As I read the article, the lyrics to the song Deconstruction were bouncing around in my head … “As for the truth it seems like we just pick a theory – one that justifies our daily lives” (Emily Saliers, Indigo Girls).   Basically, if I agree with a theory, then I talk about the evidence that supports my theory and when I disagree with a theory that others hold, those people and that theory have been influenced by some non-scientific factors.

 

On page 393, there is a discussion of how the scientists cling to the “experimental evidence” to support their theory while at the same time acknowledging the shortcomings of experimental evidence.  I feel caught in this all the time.  I don’t feel something as complex as learning or thinking can be measured by an “experiment”, and at the same time, I am thrilled when something I believe in is supported by the evidence.  It is like a “so there” or “take that” to those that don’t believe similarly.  When Reading Recovery was reviewed by the What Works Clearinghouse and touted as a highly effective reading intervention, I was excited because it was a validation of sorts that had the potential to open doors, allow access to grant funds etc.  It didn’t convince me that RR works – what convinced me was my real life experience (“correspondence with the real world”) with kids and teachers.  Seeing kids move from the bottom 20% of their grade level cohort to being in the top 20% in 20 weeks or less – hearing teachers say things like ‘this kid will read come hell or high water’ and trying a variety of approaches to help them succeed (not just saying ‘struggling reader’ / ‘dyslexic’ nothing I can do…).  So, I really “get” this tension that the authors describe.

 

On the top of page 398, I had an “ah ha” of sorts and wrote… “we are reading this because the contradictions (different repertoires) become evident only though the talk – the discourse”.  This article showed, using a variety of quotes, how the scientists words seemed to be in contradiction at times when they were trying to explained their adherence to a particular theory.   I did have some questions as I read this, though.  This study does focus on language/talk/words, but it involved interviews instead of naturally occurring talk, right?  Also, the talk wasn’t written/transcribed using Jeffersonian transcription, but just quotes directly lifted from the interviews.   

 

 

Exploring the Borders of Cognitive and Discursive Psychology: A Methodological Reconceptualization of Cognition and Discourse – Lester

This article was helpful to me, as it helped to continue to clarify what is really meant by “discursive psychology” (that was on my ‘want to know’ column as well).  Lester writes much more clearly than many we have read so far.  This sentence stood out to me – “DP assumes that mental states, motives, and thoughts are all features that are situated in and made visible through interaction.”  Lester talks about thinking of discourse as a ‘verb’ rather than a ‘noun’ – the doing of something (an action) rather than a static thing (just the words).  Lester outlines the fundamental principles of discourse that Potter proposes: 1) Discourse is action oriented (what the discourse is actually doing within the interaction), 2) Discourse is constructed (we construct discourse and our discourse constructs our reality), and 3) Discourse is situated (it has a particular context and must be understood within that context and those interactions).  Though we read these same principles on for our class on Monday, it was clarifying to read them again and explained again in a slightly different manner.   I thought the concluding statement of this section was important… “In this sense, DP rejects the notion of an inner, private world for with language is simply a conduit for an individual’s thoughts.” 

The section on the epistemological and ontological assumptions was interesting.  I have been wondering about how ‘constructivism’ and ‘constructionism’ are similar/different and this section provided necessary information.  I am just going to jot notes here for myself… p. 285

·         Knowledge production never moves beyond the language used to convey knowledge.

·         Working on constructing a particular version of the world (a particular reality)

·         Knowledge depends upon context

·         Knowledge is organized within conversational interactions

·         Understanding is “structurally located”

·         No guarantee for consistency of knowledge across different dialogues, examples, etc.

·         No established “truth”

·         We construct discourse.  Within discourse we construct our world.

·         DP focuses on the particular

 

I am still having a hard time getting clear on how DP is a method and a theory.  The quote you shared about it being a ‘package’ was helpful, but I am still thinking it through.   Lester says that Potter sees DP as not just a method, but a ‘methodological approach’ that has particular assumptions.   DP uses ‘the method of DA’ and draws upon CA as well (I am not sure what this means).  Lester quotes Phillips and Hardy (2002) and says, “discourse analysis attends to how the ideas, concepts, and symbols that populate the social world were created and sustained historically, taking note of how language words to construct a given phenomena of interest.” P. 286

So, thinking about my earlier topic of interest, I could ask the question, “How does language construct the concept of ‘dyslexia’?   All of the questions listed in the ‘research questions asked’ section would be relevant – 1) What is the discourse doing?, 2) How is the discourse constructed to do this? And 3) What resources are present and being used to perform this activity?

Lester’s question about autism could be rewritten to address my topic of dyslexia or struggling readers – “How are problem solving moments between teacher and student with ‘dyslexia’ managed in and through interaction?” or “How are reading problem solving moments between intervention teacher and struggling student managed in and through interaction?”  I don’t know, still doesn’t feel right, but I will keep working on it. Performative acts of dyslexia…

 

The discussion on the top of 288 makes me think of Peter Johnston’s book Choice Words and his concept of “collaborative fantasy”.  He talks about teachers who attribute, through language, actions to students.  For example, when a kid works on a reading problem, and the teacher assists by scaffolding and the child eventually arrives at the correct word, the teacher could say something like “You worked that out because you reread and thought about it!”  This isn’t necessarily how it happened – but the teacher uses language to attribute the positive action and success to the child.   On page 288 – how the client is viewed competent was largely shaped by the conversation with the caseworker and would have looked completely different had the client just taken an IQ test. 

 

Before the section on “A Call for Future Research” on page 288, Lester says, “The researchers hypothesized that this occurrence might be explained by the “set of norms and expectations” that is often associated with treating individuals as “having a learning disability”, which the interviewer may have found less relevant when interacting with individuals not identified as disabled” (p. 260).   I think this is what I am after in my discussion of a possible topic – we treat kids who have a “learning disability in reading” differently than kids who are not labeled but have similar reading issues.  We (teachers) often limit opportunities and stop holding the expectation that the kid CAN learn to read the minute the label is applied.  I am wondering about an investigation around the language we use when discussing “dyslexic” or “learning disabled” students.  This idea would fit with Lester’s ‘call for research’ around “the interactions and situated practices of individuals with disabilities”.   Before the conclusion, she talks about focusing on the discourse of children, particularly those in interventions by saying, “With many cognitive interventions/programs [Reading Recovery] assumed to change how children think and talk about learning, discursively analyzing how children invoke cognitive constructs within their situated practices is particularly relevant, yet remains to be sufficiently explored.”

 

Lastly, I am wondering if the Antaki, Houtkoop-Steenstra, & Rapley (2000) might be an interesting article to read for the critique…

Discourse, cognition and social practices: the rich surface of language and social interaction – Edwards

This article reinforced many of the concepts we talked about in class last night.   More emphasis was placed on the idea that language was not a direct line to thoughts or mental states – Edwards states, “DP rejects the assumption that discourse is the product or expression of thoughts or intentional states lying behind or beneath it.”   Often I write to figure out what I think.  I don’t have a completely formed idea, thought, or sentence in my head before I put it on the page.  I just show up at the type writer and engage in the act of writing and putting down words and when I read I have something to look at and ponder.  I am not at all sure if this is related to what DP is getting at, but it has been my reality and practice for a while.  I do not know how to come to an understanding of something until I talk it out or write it out.    Further in the article, Edwards says that DP doesn’t really reach beyond the surface, it is the surface “where experiences and ideas are made accountable, publicly, and for social consumption” (p. 43).  I suppose in a sense I have to get the words on the surface (through talking or writing) before I can make any sense of them.   

Behavior Analysis and Social Constructionism: Some Points of Contact and Departure – Roche and Barnes-Holmes

This article was really interesting.  Initially, my instinct was to argue that SC and BA weren’t similar or related.  I have a negative association with behaviorism, though as I reflect I can see how there are certain aspects of it that I adhere to – for example, when my step son neglects to bring his dirty clothes to the laundry room on laundry day, I think he should either wear dirty clothes, do the laundry himself, or wait for his clothes to be done on the next laundry day  – there should be a consequence for his behavior (and the consequence shouldn’t be that I have to do laundry AGAIN!).

 

I appreciated the main tenets of social constructionism being discussed on page 219.

1)      Social constructionists have doubts about the assumed concepts in the world.

2)      Social constructionists believe that understanding comes from interactions between people and not from an internal place residing in an individual.

3)      The group in a particular social context decides the rules – they are not fixed, but variable and subject to change.

4)      Understanding is a negotiation between participants who are engaged in the interaction.

 

Social constructionists examine the parts of something to make sense of the whole.  They make sense of the world by analyzing narratives (or texts).

 

The authors maintain that SC and BA are alike in several ways:

1)      Knowledge is social and we can understand knowledge within language.

2)      Rules and norms function and work within a particular society or realm.

3)      No knowledge claim is inherently more valuable or “right” than another.

4)      Both see language as a key feature of human activity.   On page 221, the authors say that “it is now argued by several behavior analysts that complex human behaviors…cannot be considered properly without considering the role of language processes.”

5)      See language as a social convention.

6)      Both agree that you can’t find “inner states” or infer emotional or cognitive stages.

7)      Both analyze events as they happen.

8)      Both agree that you have to look at the social situation in which the actions are occurring to really understand what is happening.

 

 

On page 226, the authors describe an important point of departure.  Both BAs and SCs are looking at language and interactions, but SCs are looking for agreement and connection – “coherence” within talk while BAs want to predict and influence behavior by identifying and manipulating particular variables.