1 Cultural-historical and discursive tools for analyzing critical conflicts in students’ development Annalisa Sannino University of Salerno, Italy 16º.

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University of Salerno, Italy ______________________________________________________ Annalisa Sannino

Cultural-historical and discursive toolsfor analyzing critical conflicts

in students’ developmentAnnalisa Sannino

University of Salerno, Italy

16º InPLA - Intercâmbio de Pesquisas em Lingüística Aplicada

Minicourse 2nd-5th of May 2007, São Paulo

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1.Introduction:

a journey through my teaching experience at the

University of Salerno

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Two starting points:

• The meeting for welcoming students to the 2003-2004 academic year

• My class on Psychology of Learning and Memory

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Two modes of involvement:

• passionate

• vs rational approach to studies

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A contradiction rises and hits the instructor:

students wanting to make their life as easy as possible, and then choosing the hardest evaluation mode

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The contradiction is recognized as an opportunity for change:

The instructor becomes

a teacher-interventionist-researcher

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2. Theoretical framework:

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)

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CHAT…

• …brings subjective human experience into connection with the external material world

• …promotes transformation in the subject and in her way to operate in the world

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In this inquiry CHAT is used for…

• …exploring the developmental potential of the identified contradiction for both my students and myself as a teacher

• …promoting transformation in my students and myself as a teacher

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What is the nature of the transformation in the subject

I aimed at as a teacher-interventionist-researcher?

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Transformation aimed at:

• Learning how to deal with critical situations, i.e., situations in which the subject faces the impossibility of realizing internal necessities that would fulfill her expectations in life

Using Vasilyuk’s (1988) terminology and key concept…

• …promoting the process of experiencing, i.e. promoting or reinforcing engagement in struggling against impossibility, in order to realize internal necessities

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Transformation aimed at:

• Learning how to deal with critical situations, i.e., situations in which the subject faces the impossibility of realizing internal necessities that would fulfill her expectations in life

Using Vasilyuk’s (1988) terminology and key concept…

• …promoting the process of experiencing, i.e. promoting or reinforcing engagement in struggling against impossibility, in order to realize internal necessities

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Contradiction (Ilyenkov, 1977): a key concept used in CHAT to

interpret critical situations

Mismatches

through which activities

renew themselves

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Conflict (Vasilyuk, 1988) : a key concept used in psychology to

describe critical situations

The individual surrendering in face of contradictory motives that, in the given

form, can’t be subjectively solved

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An example of the individual surrendering in the face of

contradictory motives

Student University teacher

Being a productive academic

Being a caring teacher

Nourishing intellectual interests

Being a successful student

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Difference between conflict experiences and contradictions

Level of analysis

Conflict Short-time actions

Contradiction Activity and inter-activity, which has a much longer life cycle

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Difference between conflict experiences and contradictions

Level of analysis

Conflict Short-time actions

Contradiction Activity and inter-activity, which has a much longer life cycle

Shift to exploring

the roots of conflicts

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Transitional object (Winnicott, 1974; Leiman, 1999) : a key notion used here to conceptualize

the shift between action level of conflict to activity level of contradiction

Objects to which individuals are

attached to and, at the same time,

struggle to separate from

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Learning to shift from the level of conflict to the level of contradiction

• Individuals becoming conscious of being transitional objects for themselves

• and internalizing their transitionality as both

a weakness and as a strength

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• Weakness: Students shaping themselves as potentially competent professionals are also exposed to live through conflicts in the university in a more painful way than other parties, which already have the economic and professional security that students aim at achieving through their studies

• Strength: Students, because they are not bound by any permanent position or economic tie, have the potential to turn their conflicts into developmental initiatives

An example of weakness and strength of being transitional

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Processes of experiencing…

… as both processes of life and processes of acting upon life

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The intrinsic autobiographical nature of experiencing

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3. The setting of the inquiry

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• My class of Psychology of Memory and Learning in the Faculty of Education at the University of Salerno

• 128 students, future elementary and kindergarten teachers

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4. Methodology

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Turning the class in an object-oriented intervention

for understanding and re-designing unfolding critical events in the students’ life at the University

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Using pragmatic discourse analysis

for studying discourse as it occurs in

these specific teaching and research-intervention situations as a pragmatic phenomenon

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Redefining autobiography by focusing on

its transformative potential

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Main phases in the intervention

• Making introspective inquiries and autobiographical texts on the students’ experiences of communicative critical events

• Working on common tasks to share each others’ perspectives, build new knowledge about the critical events, and develop innovative solutions for the future

• After experimentations with the new solutions the day normally reserved for the final exam is spent evaluating the innovations carried out during the intervention, and for future-oriented joint accounting

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Students read each other’s autobiographical texts

When the conflict experiences they wrote about involve directly others present in the class, participants work on their respective texts during separate sessions of the intervention

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5. Analyses

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Some conflicts and ways in which students live, recognize and work them out individually

• conflicts stemming from difficulties in the choice of University

ending up at the university because of the lack of work outside

• conflicts with professors during classes or oral

examination sessions

extreme representations of the professors

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Few excerpts

Antonia, February 2004 (excerpt from the interview during the final exam): (…) When you are 32 years old you want to work. Instead of waiting outside, at least we get here another academic degree, and all these titles may give us more chances to work.

Livia, December 2003 (excerpt form the text of her speech during the second intervention in the classroom): When you go to the exam you see the professor as a God, somebody to be afraid of, because you know he can harm you; that’s why one is afraid to go to take an exam. That’s at least what happens to me. We should learn to see the professor as a person, and be aware that he can make you pass or not.

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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The emergence of an intermediate level between the level of conflict and the level of contradiction, while the students confront each others’ autobiographical texts

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A step toward the level of contradiction

Conflict-contradictory experiences emerged during the last phase of the intervention

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• Students articulated differences between this and other classes

• Students recognized developmental tensions that ‘pushed them’ through the class in a stimulating way

• Students articulated future-oriented accounts on the basis of what they have learned

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Few excerpts

Angelica: The class developed on the basis on what actually the students already knew, and was built on that, instead of imposing itself on the basis of what the ideal student has learned before.

Marta: The way the class has been organized pushed us to study and motivated us, but, also, we experienced this sparkling tension, between curiosity and fear, when coming to the class we said “Let’s see what she will bring us today!”

Alessia: I have decided to ask other professors to do the same as you for their classes, especially the most complex ones, because this way to carry a class has lightened our work load without penalizing learning.

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6. Discussion

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S T E P 1 S T E P 2

C ultura l -h is to r ica l a nd d iscurs iv e a na ly ses

D isc uss io n s in the c la ss

D iscu ssio n s in th e c la ss

S tud e nts ’ ev a lua tio n o f

tea ch ing S tud e nts

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

C la ss a nd tea cher

T h e c la s s T h e in terv en tio n

T h e p re sen t stu d y

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

R ules C o m m u n ity D iv is io n o f la b o r

R ules D iv is io n o f la b o r

C o m m u n ity

Two main steps in the progression of the

collective work

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S T E P 1 S T E P 2

C ultura l -h is to r ica l a nd d iscurs iv e a na ly ses

D isc uss io n s in the c la ss

D iscu ssio n s in th e c la ss

S tud e nts ’ ev a lua tio n o f

tea ch ing S tud e nts

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

C la ss a nd tea cher

T h e c la s s T h e in terv en tio n

T h e p re sen t stu d y

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

R ules C o m m u n ity D iv is io n o f la b o r

R ules D iv is io n o f la b o r

C o m m u n ity

a. Change in the nature of the tools through the process of the intervention

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S T E P 1 S T E P 2

C ultura l -h is to r ica l a nd d iscurs iv e a na ly ses

D isc uss io n s in the c la ss

D iscu ssio n s in th e c la ss

S tud e nts ’ ev a lua tio n o f

tea ch ing S tud e nts

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

C la ss a nd tea cher

T h e c la s s T h e in terv en tio n

T h e p re sen t stu d y

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

R ules C o m m u n ity D iv is io n o f la b o r

R ules D iv is io n o f la b o r

C o m m u n ity

b. Flow in the subject-object positioning

during the class and the intervention

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S T E P 1 S T E P 2

C ultura l -h is to r ica l a nd d iscurs iv e a na ly ses

D isc uss io n s in the c la ss

D iscu ssio n s in th e c la ss

S tud e nts ’ ev a lua tio n o f

tea ch ing S tud e nts

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

C la ss a nd tea cher

T h e c la s s T h e in terv en tio n

T h e p re sen t stu d y

S tud e nts a nd tea cher -in terv entio n is t

R ules C o m m u n ity D iv is io n o f la b o r

R ules D iv is io n o f la b o r

C o m m u n ity

b. Flow in the subject-object positioning

during the class and the intervention

StudentsTeacher The intervention

as an historically recursive self-reflective event

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c. Conflicts occurring as actual daily worries for students, which justify their questions often considered as inopportune or impertinent by professors

d. Being transitional and amplification of the subject sensitivity in regard to possible developmental resources available in the environment

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6. Conclusion

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a. The beginning of a definition of zone of proximal development

in this setting

paraphrasing Vygotsky (1987, p.209)…

this study allowed to measure the distance between the actual level of this students’ development, as determined by their capacity to deal alone with the conflicts related to their university experiences, and the level of potential development, as determined by their capacity to work on these

conflicts in collaboration with other students and the teacher

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b. The exploration and concretization

of the connection between

students conflictual experience with the

material contradictions

in the context in which

they live

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c. The challenge for faculty members to become promoters of transformations in the

subject and in the university…

…engaging in first-person inquiries as teacher-interventionist-researcher

…becoming models of change-oriented agent for students, future teachers who will have to deal with analogous conflictual-contradictory experiences in their future professional life

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For contacts:Annalisa Sannino

University of Salerno Department of EducationVia Ponte Don Melillo84084 Fisciano (SA)

E-mail: [email protected]