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Is there place for the individual construction within socio-cultural thinking? Labyrinth metaphor1

Aleksandar BAUCAL

University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia

In the field of cognitive development two broad clusters of scholars could be noticed. On the one side, individualistic approaches (Piagetian, neo-Piagetian, Information-processing approaches, Neural network, neuropsychology) take very abstract point of view (“bird” perspective) and produce theories about general aspects of the cognitive development. The main assumption is that all human beings share some characteristics that make them to be human beings. Our cognition is based on, embedded in and constrained by these characteristics. Their theories are stories about development out of any context (like Galileo's theory that offer an explanation of the free falling, but just if it happens in the vacuum). On the other side, socio-cultural approaches (Vygotskian, activity theory, situated cognition, narrative and discourse psychology) take closer look and produce theories about the way how the cognitive development is embedded in and formed by the socio-cultural context. The main assumption is that the very nature of human development is determined by the socio-cultural context in which it happens. Should we try to integrate them or it is better to believe that we are right and others are wrong? Based on results of my own studies, the paper will discuss a way that seems to me as a viable for the integration.

Taking a look at the actual landscape of the cognitive development field, it is

possible to notice at least two big clusters of scholars: constructivistic and co-

constructivistic ones.

Constructivistic campus

Constructivistic cluster (Piagetian, neo-Piagetian, Information-processing

approaches, Neural network, neuropsychology) has been mainly based on the

Piagetian and the cognitive psychology traditions. A common point of this way of

thinking is the assumption that the main mechanisms of the cognitive development

are internal ones. Every step in the cognitive development is mainly constructed

within “the skin of person”. Searching for the internal mechanisms has produced

several explanatory concepts like “assimilation”, “accommodation”, “strategy

construction”, “skills development”, “automatization” etc. During the last decade

1 Invited lecture at roundtable “EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AS A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PROCESS” held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, UK, 3 - 5 September, 2002

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this campus has been strongly supported by the development of the

neuropsychology of cognitive development that fits nicely within the constructivistic

reference frame. It adds neurophysiological mechanisms to the picture, and suggests

that behind at least some very basic cognitive mechanisms there are

neurophysiological ones. Therefore, during the time the constructivistic approach

has offered many concepts and methodological devices useful for analysis of the

universal, individual mechanisms of the cognitive development (if something like

that exists at all!).

Is there any place for so called “outside-of-skin” or the contextual factors in

the constructivistic picture? Although in some of constructivistic approaches the

contextual factors have been treated as a source of noise, the answer could be

positive one. The most of constructivistic theories have not neglected the contextual

influences on the cognitive development, but the socio-cultural context has not been

seen as a constructive factor. The context could modify dynamic aspects of the

cognitive development, but it cannot change the nature of developmental changes.

The changes, or developmental steps, are universal and constructed just through the

individual mechanisms, and the context could change just the time needed for

certain step (see picture 1).

Internal states

S1 ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ I1 I2 I3 I4 etc.↑↓ ↑↓ ↑↓ ↑↓ C1 C2 C3 C4 etc.

S2 S3 S4 etc.

Social interaction

Socio-cultural context

Picture 1. Constructivistic model of development

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Co-constructivistic campus

In the co-constructivistic campus there are also different conceptions (for

example: Vygotskian, activity theory, situated cognition, narrative and discourse

psychology etc.), but there is a common point: even if the universal, individual

mechanisms exist, it is far from enough for an explanation. It is necessary to include

the “outside-of-skin”, contextual factors in order to be able to understand the

cognitive development. The socio-cultural context cannot be treated as a source of

noise nor just as a factor that modifies the universal flow of cognitive development

since it is formative, constructive factor of the development. Some co-constructivistic

approaches have made a step forward claiming that the individual factors are just an

illusion co-constructed within a scientific community and has been reified. It means

the individual factors have been treated just as a source of noise (Sounds familiar?)

What is about researches?

Let’s take Piagetian kind of researches as an instance of the constructivistic

way of thinking. The studies of conservation demonstrate nicely the search just for

the individual and universal cognitive mechanisms (opening the internal cognitive

Internal structure

S1

I1 I2 I3 I4

C1 C2 C3

S2 S3

Social interaction

Socio-cultural context

Picture 2. Co-constructivistic model of development

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conflict, disequilibrium, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration, and

restructuration). The explanation is same for all children regardless of the historical

time, the socio-cultural and familiar context, characteristics of the child, and

characteristics of the testing situation and material.

Contrary, many researches show that all these contextual factors are relevant

(to mention just few of them, Donaldson, Perner, Light, Rommetveit, Perret-

Clermont etc.), i.e. it is not the same process if it takes place in different contexts,

with different children and in different situation. The Piagetian answer suggests that

the process of construction is the same, but specific characteristics of the context and

the child could modify the dynamic of the process. Therefore, all these differences

could be treated as a noise that should be overlooked in order to get insight into the

universalities.

Notwithstanding, what if the universalities do not exist at all, and what if the

noise is only one reality? Moreover, what if the individual construction is just

another myth created in the science labs, and what if the construction is always

embedded into the social interaction and actually means the co-construction? This

kind of questions has motivated number of studies with basic aim to get insight into

the “noise”, i.e. to get insight into the process of co-construction and its factors.

These studies (Wertsch, Rogoff, Perret-Clermont etc.) make our knowledge about the

co-construction richer, many new useful analytical concepts are (co)constructed (as if

“joint activity”, “scaffolding”, “negotiation”, “intersubjectivity” etc.) as well as new

methodological tools (analysis of discourse, interlocutor analysis etc.). Now, we have

better understanding how children develop new knowledge, skills, and abilities

through the process of co-construction embedded into identities and socio-cultural

context.

Construction vs. co-construction

Although the previous description has stressed differences and has been told

in the genre of dichotomy, it does not change an impression that the constructivistic

and co-constructivistic campus function relative separately and produce different

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and opposite narratives about the main factor of cognitive development. Naturally,

it is not far away of the common sense to raise the question of possibility of

integration of these two ways of thinking, but the real issue is how to do that.

Starting point of the search for an integration: personal experience

Piaget and Vygotsky are a part of almost any textbook of the developmental

psychology, and their conceptions are presented more or less in a very similar way

as I did here. This discourse of polarization is very useful for teaching purpose,

especially when one wants to introduce students into the issue. The same story was

with me when I was an undergraduate student. At the first time I got impression

that Piaget and Vygotsky are really opposite points of the thinking about

development, and that it is not possible that both of them are right in the same time.

However, with time I change this impression and realized that Piaget and Vygotsky

could be complementary and not opposite conceptions.

Important source of this change were results of my researches. I will present

here two of them. First one was focused on the concept of cognitive structure in

Piaget’s theory (Baucal & Stepanović, 1999). The concept of global structure

(structures d'ensemble) is central one in Piaget's theory (i.e. Piaget, 1956, 1971).

Namely, if there are no global structures there are no global stages of cognitive

development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966). The cognitive structure is functionally

superordinated to schemes in the sense that the structure determines basic

characteristics of action schemes which are part of the structure. Therefore the action

schemes have the same set of basic characteristics, and there is a basic similarity

among cognitive schemes (homogeneity of schemes). It means that a global cognitive

structure sets possibilities and constrains of children thinking, that is, determines

logical nature of problems that a child can or cannot understand and solve

(Corrigan, 1979). A structure is superordinated to cognitive schemes in

developmental sense too. According to Piaget, the basic developmental change is a

structural shift. When structure is reconstructed, it will induce correspondent

development of action schemes. Consequently, developmental changes of cognitive

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schemes should occur at the same time (simultaneous schemes' development) since

these are determined by the same factor (Braine, 1959).

On the other side, many researches have demonstrated heterogeneity and

asynchrony both in concrete and formal operational tasks (Elkind, 1961; Piaget, 1969;

Ivić, 1990; Brainerd, 1973; Katz & Beilin, 1976; Miller, 1976; Wason, 1977; Hooper,

Toniolo & Sipple, 1978), and these results are treated as counter arguments to the

concept of global structure. For example, Elkind shows that majority of children at

the age of 7 (and older) understand the conservation of mass, by the age of 9 (and

older) a majority of children understand also the conservation of weight, and the

conservation of volume is not understood until the age of 11.

In order to "assimilate" these facts in his theory, Piaget (1941, 1969)

formulated hypothesis called "horizontal décalage" (in the further text: HD).

Although, there are a few interpretations of the horizontal décalage (Lourenço &

Machado, 1996), even in Piaget's text (Pinard & Laurendeau, 1969; Gruber &

Vonèche, 1995), it seems to us that there is agreement that the HD hypothesis define

two factors which determine performance on tasks of the same logical form.

The first factor is cognitive structure which is necessary but not sufficient: if a

structure necessary for understanding the logical form of task is developed, then a

child has competence to understand and to solve all tasks of this kind. However,

having a competence is not sufficient for solving a task of this kind. On the other

side, if necessary cognitive structure is not developed, then a child is certainly not be

able to understand and to solve any task of corresponding logical form. The second

factor, which determines performance on a task, is specific content of a task that

determines if a child, who develops necessary cognitive structure, will solve a

specific task of corresponding logical form. Namely, tasks of the same logical form

may differ in content. They are formally same, but they have different contents.

Content of a task is important because it determines degree of resistance which task

offers when one try to apply certain cognitive structure onto the task. If a task offers

lower degree of difficulty, a child will be able to apply a structure easier, and will

solve the task earlier.

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It seemed to me that better test for Piaget’s conception of structure would be if

it would be tested by tasks of same logical form and content. If the horizontal

décalage would be happened in this case as well, it would be something what Piaget

conception cannot explain. But, the problem was how to define more tasks that

would be the same according to the form and content. To made different version of

the conservation task we varied the type of starting relation between two glasses

regarding to the quantity of water. Namely, in the standard version of task, two

glasses contain equal amount of water (A=B). We made two additional tasks by

changing the starting relation between amount of water in the two glasses. In the

first additional task, glass A contains more water than glass B (A>B), and in the

second additional task, glass A contains less water than glass B (A<B). Thus, there

are three conservation of liquid quantity tasks, which have same logical form and

same content (see picture 3).

Speaking frankly, I expected that children performance will be different at

these three tasks and that it will be stronger evidence against the concept of structure

than it was the case with previous studies that used tasks of different content.

However, the result was unexpected for me. About 88% of children showed

homogenous performance on these tasks, i.e. 88% of children solved or didn’t solve

all three tasks. Other 12% of children didn’t show the décalage pattern of results, and

it seemed that they are distributed by chance in the categories defined by some type

of heterogonous performance (see table 1)

Table 1. The number of children classified in each of the eight possible categories

Starting relation A = B A < B A > B Performance f % 1. 0 0 0 Homogeneous 24 33.3 2. 0 0 1 Heterogeneous 5 6.9 3. 0 1 0 Heterogeneous 2 2.8 4. 0 1 1 Heterogeneous 0 0 5. 1 0 0 Heterogeneous 0 0 6. 1 0 1 Heterogeneous 1 1.4 7. 1 1 0 Heterogeneous 1 1.4 8. 1 1 1 Homogeneous 39 54.2

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The research was repeated but with three conservation tasks: conservation of

number, conservation of discontinuous material (pearls), and conservation of

continuous material (water). For every of these tasks three different tasks were

constructed by varying the starting relation. And the results were similar to the

previous study - about 80% of children demonstrated homogenous performance, but

there was significant difference respect to the age of children who were successful on

three different conservation tasks: (a) children who solve all conservation of number

tasks - around 6;2 (exact: 73.90 months, SD=5.11 months), (b) children who solve all

conservation of pearls quantity – 7;4 (exact: 88.37 months, SD=6.36 months), and (c)

children who solve all conservation of liquid quantity – 7;11 (exact: 95.31 months,

SD=3.98 months). The One-way ANOVA showed that there were statistical

significant differences between these mean age: F(2,102) =131.93, p<.000. In sum,

these results fit nicely to the horizontal décalage hypothesis, and suggest that it is

useful to make distinctions between competence (to be able to solve some kind of

problem based on certain kind of thinking) and performance (to be able to apply

existing kind of thinking under certain circumstances).

The second research dealt with the concept of Zone of proximal development

(ZPD). To demonstrate value of the ZPD, Vygotsky used the following example: two

children have the same score when they are tested individually, but when they are

tested with help of adult one child shows bigger progress than other one. Based on

that Vygotsky concluded that it is necessary to make distinction between what the

child is able to perform alone, and what (s)he is able to perform with the help of

adult. First score indicate the level of actual development (abilities that are already

developed), and second one indicate the ZPD (abilities that are in the process of

development and that cannot utilized alone, but that can be utilized with the help of

adult). It is needed to stress that Vygotsky didn’t think that the social interaction

with adult just help the child to actualize some hidden ability, but he claimed that

children built new abilities through the interaction with adult that will be

internalized into the individual ability. On that way, the co-construction is

established as a main factor of development (see picture 4)

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Many researches demonstrated that this idea of Vygotsky is sound and how

the new ideas and abilities could be co-constructed through interaction with adult or

peer (for example: Wertsch et. al, 1980; Brown & Ferrara, 1985; Perret-Clermont,

1980…), but still some questions are opened. I was interested in the complexity of

the social interaction as a factor of development. The interaction between the child

and the adult is a complex phenomenon with different aspects, so I wondered what

aspect of the social interaction is effective?.

In order to approach this issue I realized a study with the following questions

in my mind.

1. What is the relation between the Level of actual development (LAD) and

the ZPD? Based on the example offered by Vygotsky that it is possible that two

children could have same LAD, but different ZPD, it follows just that the correlation

between LAD and ZPD is not 1. From this example it is not possible to answer what

is correlation between LAD and ZPD. Is it zero correlation, what would mean that

the child with some measure o the LAD could have any measure on the ZPD? Is it

negative one, what would mean that children with higher LAD have somewhat

smaller ZPD? Or, is it positive one, what would suggest that children with higher

LAD would progress more with the help of others?

2. Is the effect of shared problem solving durable or it disappears in time? If

the social interaction is formative (constructive) factor it means that its effect has to

be relatively durable.

3. Do we know something more about future development level based on

the ZPD, that we don’t already know from the LAD? If the social interaction is

formative (constructive) factor and if the effect of shared activity is durable it follows

that one has to have better prediction of future developmental level by the ZPD and

LAD, than just by the LAD.

4. What aspects of the social interaction is the most effective with respect to

the future developmental level? Let’s divide the social interaction into motivational

component (when the adult simply support the child to do better without any kind

of cognitive scaffolding), and cognitive component (when the adult helps to the child

to solve task performing some activities necessary for find out the solution that are

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difficult for the child). If the social interaction is constructive factor of development it

means that the cognitive component has to be more predictive for the future

developmental level than the motivational component.

The design of the study is presented at the picture 5. That was a pre-post test

design. As an instrument for testing the LAD the Raven’s matrices were used.

Participants in the study were children 8-12 years old from a primary school from

Belgrade. In the pre-test phase whole class of children was tested in the same time –

the experimenter gave to every child a copy of test, read the instruction to the whole

class, and children were doing the test individually. Based on the individual score on

the Raven’s test children were divided into two groups that had the same

distribution of scores: experimental and control group. After two weeks children

from both groups were tested again with the same test, but that time every child was

doing the test in somewhat different conditions. Every child came into an office in

the school. The experimenter read the instruction to the child, and the child worked

on tasks individually. Children from the control group processed like that until the

end of the test, but children from the experimental group had different arrangement.

If some child was not able to solve certain task (s)he got a help. The help was

gradual. After first fail, the experimenter gave to the child the motivational help (for

example “Try again, you can do that”). If the child was not able to solve the task

after that kind of help, the experimenter tried with more help. The second level of

help was to analyze relations between elements in the rows of the matrice (the

cognitive 1 help). If the child was not able to solve the task with this level of help,

the experimenter made an analysis of relations between elements in the columns of

the matrice (the cognitive 2 help). If it didn’t help to the child to find out the right

answer, the experimenter made an integrated analysis of the relations between

elements in the rows and columns of the matrice (the cognitive 4 help). Therefore,

for every child from the control group there was just one information – the number

of tasks (s)he was able to solve. Every child from the experimental group was

described by the six numbers: the number of tasks (s)he was able to solve

individually, the number of tasks (s)he solved with every level of help, and the

number of tasks (s)he was not able to solve even with the help of the experimenter.

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The LAD was defined by the number of tasks the child was able to solve

individually, but the question was how to calculate the ZPD score. Starting from the

idea that if the child need more help with certain task it means that the ZPD of the

child for this task is smaller, the following equation was used for calculation of the

ZPD score:

Legend: H1, H2, H3, H4 – the number of tasks the child solved with different levels of help NI – total number of tasks (NI = 60) I1 – the number of tasks the child solved individually (the LAD score)

The results showed that the correlation between the LAD and the ZPD was

statistically significant and was about +0.3. It means that children who had bigger

the LAD progressed more through the interaction with the experimenter.

The results also showed that the interaction with the experimenter had effect

on the children from the experimental group, and moreover this effect was durable

(see graph 1).

From the graph 1, it could be seen that both groups of children solved in

average about 35 out of 60 tasks individually. Children from the experimental group

were able to do much more with the help, so in average they solved about 55 tasks!

⎟⎠⎞

⎜⎝⎛ ×

−+⎟

⎠⎞

⎜⎝⎛ ×

−+⎟

⎠⎞

⎜⎝⎛ ×

−+⎟

⎠⎞

⎜⎝⎛ ×

−= 1

142

133

124

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INIH

INIH

INIH

INIHZPD

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

G1 I1

After H

1

After H

2

After H

3

After H

4 G2

Exp.Control

Graph 1. Scores of the control and the experimental groups in different phase of research

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However, after two months the average score of the experimental group was not so

good (about 44), but still it was higher than the score of the control group (that

stayed unchanged for that period). It means that children from the experimental

group really got something through the social interaction. Moreover, the multiple

regression showed that the ZPD predict the future score over and above the LAD,

what means that both the LAD and the ZPD contribute to the future developmental

level. All these findings fit very well to the co-construction conception.

But, further analysis showed that mostlz motivational aspect of the social

interaction was effective! That was concluded from the following facts: (a) the

multiple regression showed that motivational level of help can explain alone the

effect of shared activity, and (b) for tasks which were solved in the post-test, but not

in the pre-test in the most cases the motivational help was enough for success.

This finding suggests that children didn’t construct some new ability through

the shared activity, but became better in utilization of already existing abilities. To

explain that, it is useful to make again distinction between the competence and the

performance. Therefore, in the individual testing children don’t do what they can,

but their performance is usually result of their competence, but also of different

factors that can influence children’s performance (the motivation of children, the

meaning of the activity, physical and social conditions etc.). The solving the same

tasks with somebody else could (at least in some cases) help to the child just to

utilize better her/his competence, and not to be “field” for co-construction of some

new competence. Following that, it means that it is not enough to show that

children can make better with the help of adult to conclude that the social interaction

is constructive factor of development.

Labyrinth metaphor: a way for integration

These results were unexpected for me. That moves me to consider again the

relationship between Piagetian and Vygotskian conception, and to wonder if there is

a way to keep the social interaction as a main factor of development, but to find also

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some place for the individual activity within it. Now I would like to share with you

some reflections about the issue.

First, I will discuss about the individual activity being in the focus of Piaget

theory to define better the scope of his conception and to find out what it can be

actually learned from this theory. Then, I will present the Labyrinth metaphor that

can facilitate defining of a model in which the construction and the co-construction

would be integrated. Finally, I will present how the Labyrinth metaphor helps me to

understand some aspects of Serbian education and sources of resistance to the

reform.

What Piaget theory is about at all?

Piaget defined own scientific project as genetic epistemology in the book

Recherche (1918) at the beginning of his career (Chapman, 1988). Kitchener noticed

"Piaget is not a child psychologist in the usual sense of the term. As he has always

insisted, he is genetic epistemologist" (1986, p. 1). According to that, Piaget seems to

be interested primary in the ontological characteristics of the human reason. He

followed the rationalistic tradition and assumed that every human being (past,

actual and future) is born with potential to develop her/his own version of the

universal human reason through interaction with objects. It is the same as if any

human being is born with potential to develop idiosyncratic version of heart, lungs,

or some other organ based on universal human form of heart, lungs etc. Because of

that it is important for Piaget's genetic epistemology to made distinction between the

psychological subject "centered in the conscious ego whose functional rôle is

incontestable, but which is not the origin of any structure of general knowledge"

(Beth & Piaget, 1966, p. 308) and the epistemic subject "which is common to all subjects

at the same level of development, whose cognitive structures derive from the most

general mechanisms of the co-ordination of actions." (Beth & Piaget, 1966, p. 308).

The distinction is important because the former is subject of the psychology, and the

later of the genetic epistemology.

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Hence, Piaget's researches of cognitive development were in function of the

genetic epistemology, i.e. that was an empirical approach to the development of the

epistemic subject (Piaget, 1970; Piaget, 1972; Piaget, 1973). In my understanding, the

epistemic subject means idealized thinker. To find out what would be characteristics

of the idealized thinker one needs to abstract the human reasoning completely from the

external context (history, culture, social system, immediate personal and physical context) as

well as of the internal context (personality, affectivity, motivation, knowledge about content

of thinking, attention, memory etc.). Piaget assumed that there are such features and

that these characteristics constitute the human reason (the human competence).

Consequently, in empirical researches, Piaget tended to abstract children's

logic from all other aspects of the external and internal context and to find out the

epistemic subject. For example, when one read protocols it is obvious that Piaget

paid attention to context, child's personality and interest, verbal formulation of

questions etc. However, his main aim was to abstract the way how the child reason

from the context in which it was embedded. The child’s personality, the way of

speaking, the mood etc. were important especially as possible obstacles that can blur

the expression of the child's logic. Because of that, Piaget changed verbal

formulations, motivate the child etc. during the interview with aim to "detour" these

other aspects and to get insight into the core quality of the child's reasoning. Piaget

did not deny importance of other aspects for the process of reasoning of the child

when (s)he is solving certain task, but he was interested in the "ideal" form of

children's reasoning, and its development through interaction and relation with

objects. In searching for the epistemic subject Piaget made many interviews, but it is

also important to notice that the idealized thinker cannot be described by the modal

way of reasoning of interviewed children because the modal/average doesn’t

describe the cognitive potentials of children, i.e. what is the child's competence. 2

2 Namely, any child is developed under certain conditions which are less favorable than the ideal conditions for development of the human reason. It follows that the reason of any real child is more or less under the potential of the child competence at the certain level of development, and that the modal/average performance of a representative sample of children is not appropriate indicator. In this sense Piaget’s theory is closer to the scientific thinking than to the thinking of real children who develop in real socio-cultural context because the scientific thinking is the most decentered kind of human thinking, and as such better indicator of the human cognitive competence. That was reason why Piaget studied the way how the new concepts and ideas are constructed in different sciences.

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Thus, in this sense it could be said that Piaget's theory is not about

development of real children in real socio-cultural context, but about development of

idealized epistemic subject, and it explains: (a) why Piaget tended to find out the

most abstract characteristics of examined children, (b) why he was interested in form

and qualitative changes of children reasoning, (c) why he was interested in children

competence, not performance, and (d) why Piaget was interested in general

characteristics of children's reasoning, and not in characteristics of any special group

of children.

What aspects of the cognitive development can be found in Piaget's theory and what

aspects stay out of it? Thus, Piaget's theory is a theory of development (i.e.

"embryogenesis") of the epistemic subject. According to the theory, the epistemic

subject passes through four stages that are different according to the quality of its

logic. These stages define universal, necessary and ideal path of development of

human reason.

It is universal because the epistemic subject is the ontological trait of human

being, but it does not mean that every human being has to pass through all stages. It

depends on conditions and context in which (s)he is developed.

It is necessary in the sense that order of stages is fixed, but not in the sense that

any children have to reach the last stage. Stages follow each other in the fix order

because: (a) the main mechanisms of the development are equilibration and

reflective abstraction, and (b) every stage is defined as a formalization of previous

one.

This path of development is ideal in few ways. First, it is ideal because this is a

chart of development of the ideal knower. Second, it describes development of

cognitive competence, and not performance. In other words, if the child is at the

concrete operational stage it means that (s)he has potential to solve any task with

logical form that is understandable by the concrete operation. It does not mean that

the child will solve any such task in any time and any context. Third, it does not

describe real development of real children, but only potential path of development

which would be realized under the ideal conditions for development of human

reason. And fourth, because of all previous, it is ideal in the sense that represent

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norm of development, i.e. the ideal end point that cannot be reachable in reality, but

which govern the process of construction according to principle of orthogenesis:

"Although never entirely realized as an ideal, reason is a form of equilibrium toward

which all cognitive system aim, no matter how little equilibrium they may have"

(Piaget, 1995, p. 227). 3

It seems to me that Piaget theory could be compared with Galileo's theory of

the free falling4. Namely, Galileo claimed that there is only one factor which

determines free falling of all objects (regardless to their physical characteristics)

under all circumstances. And in that sense this factor is something generic and

universal for every instance of free falling. To stress this factor he imagined what

would be happened when two objects (same according all other aspects except to

weight) would fall freely, not in the real circumstances, but in the vacuum. Vacuum

is an ideal or idealized context since it represents condition in which all factors

relevant in the real conditions are kept constant. In a real context these factors

determine time needed for free falling of certain kind of object, and because of them

it would be easy to find two real objects which would fall freely with different

velocities in real condition (for example: a feather and a stone). However, to show

that a feather falls much slower than a stone would not be contra-argument for

Galileo's conception because he said nothing about falling of real objects under real

conditions.

Following this analogy, it could be said that Piaget's approach dealt with the

idealized epistemic subject, which represent universal and ontological aspects of

human reason, and its development within the idealized kind of social context. It

means also that the psychological subject stayed out of scope of his theory as well as

Galileo did not deal with free falling of real objects in real conditions. Reasoning of

certain child or adult is embedded necessarily into certain kind of cognitive system

(attention, short and long memory etc.), personality, and certain historical and social

3 There are many misunderstand of the nature of Piaget's theory, and consequently about implication of this theory. Here we stress two important implications that are sometimes wrongly understood: (a) the correspondence between age and stages is not necessary, (b) it is not necessary to reach the last stage, and (c) if the child is at certain stage and if development goes further than the following stage must have specific characteristic. 4 Any two things would fall in the same time on the ground regardless of their weight.

17

context, and it develops as an integral part of the external and internal context.

Piaget put attention on the "ideal organization", and not on the cognitive functioning

and development of real, "unideal" children who are developing within some kind of

socio-cultural context.

Based on all that, it could be concluded that Piaget theory tells a story about

individual construction as a universal potential of the human reason and individual

construction as a factor that is present in all situations (in the same way as

gravitation is present in every case of falling), but it doesn’t tell something about this

potential in real conditions (how it is embedded into some real child, how it is

developed and modified by socio-cultural context etc.).

What is relationship between Piaget and Vygotsky?

It seems to me that it is not proper to think about Piaget and Vygotsky as

conceptions that are opposite to each other. In my view, these conceptions are

complement to each other. Complementary to Piaget, Vygotsky was interested in the

development of real children in the real socio-cultural context, and not in

development of the idealized subject in the idealized context. Taking again the

analogy with Galileo, it means that Vygotsky would be interested to explain the free

falling of some real object under some real circumstances, i.e. to explain why a

feather under certain conditions fall freely in certain way. Or what was abstracted by

Piaget that was included in consideration by Vygotsky.

If one accept this way of thinking about relationship between Piaget and

Vygotsky than the question who is right stop to be relevant in the same way in

which it would be irrelevant if one would ask a physician what is more important to

understand: the ideal kind of free falling or to understand what and how determines

free falling of some object under certain conditions.

Labyrinth metaphor as a thinking tool in a search for integration

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Faced with the dichotomy the “construction vs. co-construction” and having

in mind results and reflections mentioned above, I decided to try to escape from the

dichotomy, to play a little and try to find a model in which there would be place for

both construction and co-construction. The model is intended to be about

development of real children embedded in a real socio-cultural context and

developed through interaction with the context, but also to show how the individual

activity can be significant factor of development that is basically constructed by the

socio-cultural context.

I started with the fact that even if there are universal features of the human

reason the question is what is going on with them when they are embedded into

certain socio-cultural context. From Piaget’s point of view that is something what

should be abstracted, but for the developmental psychology this is not a case

because no one child on this world develops in the idealized context (imagined by

the scientists in order to make thinking experiments). Every child is born and

her/his development is unfolding in very specific socio-cultural context that is not

built to meet developmental needs of the epistemic subject, but for other purposes.

And this is a place for the labyrinth metaphor. I imagine the socio-cultural

context as a Labyrinth. There are different channels that are built by the previous

generation. Some of these channels have been used by many people and many

generations what have made them to have special place in the Labyrinth. These

channels are big and beaten, and there are many tools that support members of

community to use these routs. Some other channels are also old ones, but they are

not used anymore or they are used just by some members of the community. For

some of these unused channels there are also tools that should prevent members to

use these routs. There are some new channels as well that are just in the process of

building.

Every channel is basically defined by its walls. Let’s imagine that walls are

very fluid at the beginning of building of certain channel, and that with passing of

every member walls become more fixed and harder. Also, in the beginning, when

walls are the most flexible, every user can modify walls according to her/his needs.

For example, if one doesn’t feel comfortable with certain walls in a very new

19

channel, (s)he can simply reshape it without big resistance. During the time and

proportionally to, for example, the number of passings through a channel its walls

become more and more fixed. Therefore, in the very old channels (no matter if they

are used in the present) walls are very hard and almost fixed, so people who passing

through it cannot make changes, but just use it.

Let’s imagine now a child born in certain Labyrinth. Even if every human

baby has certain universal, ontological features that make her/him to be a human

baby, the activity of imagined child will be mainly organized and formed by the

structure of Labyrinth. Moreover, if the child is engaged in some kind of activity for

a long time it will support development of such mental forms that fit to the structure

of activity. It means also that the locus of control of activity is changed from external

to internal one what makes this form of activity less dependant of the context. Since

channels determine mainly the kind and structure of children activity and since the

structure of channels is relatively persistent factor, it can be concluded that the child

will develop such mental structures that fit to the Labyrinth.

Of course, in the most cases the child activity in the Labyrinth would be

mediated by the adult, and because of that the structure of the child’s activity would

be co-constructed. But still the co-construction would shape the structure of the

child’s activity and serve as an external locus of control at least until the

development of mental counterparts are developed. It means that the co-

construction factors always include the individual activity!

However, there would be cases when the child’s activity is not mediated by

the others, but it happens through direct interaction with the structure of Labyrinth.

Looking from Piaget point of view that would be an example how mental

development is constructed through individual activity. However, that would be

just half of the story. In these cases, the influence of social-cultural factors is hidden

because their influence is indirect via previous structuration of the Labyrinth. So, it

means that there is no clear-cut case of the individual activity in the Labyrinth!

Therefore, the playing with the Labyrinth metaphor brings us to an

interesting conclusion: the co-construction always includes the individual activity,

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and every individual activity is shaped directly or indirectly by the socio-cultural

context!

Education in Serbia: An example of the use of the Labyrinth metaphor

Almost a year I am member of a team who is dealing with the reform of the

education system in Serbia.

Of course, the reform started with an analysis of previous education system.

What was striking to me was big gap between what were planned goals of education

and what was realized. The results of a big study about effects of primary education

can serve as an illustration of this gap. It was found that somewhat more than 50% of

students learned less than half of the most important concepts from curriculum (it

was selected just 25% of concepts that were estimated as the most important by the

group of psychologists, university teachers, and teachers from primary schools).

More specifically, it was really striking to be faced with the fact that huge number of

students was not able to do some very basic tasks. It was also interesting to see the

reaction of teachers from primary schools when we discussed this finding. Many of

them believed that our education had serious problems, but that was too much for

them. They were sure that very little number of students were not able to do some of

very basic tasks, and they didn’t believe at all in results.

Thinking about these findings I ask myself: does it mean that our education is

not effective at all? Does it mean that students just sitting there and learn nothing?

Does it mean that students just lost their time in the school? And if this is like that,

how it is possible that there was no red alert?

But, taking the Labyrinth metaphor as a reference frame I realized that I

should change the focus of my attention. I realized that I should not look at what is

declared as a goal of education, and to think about gap between what was intended

and what was realized respect to the declared goals. I realized that more important is

to look at the structure of activity of students within education process because that

is the place where educational effects are produced.

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Very briefly, when I focused at the structure of activity in the school and how

it is canalized, I realized how the education process was settled on a way as if the

goal was not to produce knowledge or declared goals, but to support development

of obedience, uncritical acceptance of authority and power relations, passivity etc.

And, I also realized that these effects were even more important for the kind of

society we lived in than the declared education goals were! Somehow, that kind of

education fitted nicely to the socio-cultural context! As if the education was a

Labyrinth with such channels that forced kinds of activity appropriate to the nature

of society.

Moreover, since teachers were also included into this kind of activity they

were also shaped by it. And, since this kind of activity lasted for very long time,

many teachers were developed such mental structures that serve as the internal

locus of that kind of activity. I found also that it could be a reason why many

teachers resist to the reform in spite of the fact that many of them would say that we

need to change our education.

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1. Pouring to narrower glass

=A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

2. Pouring to wider glass

=A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

Starting relation A=B

1. Pouring to narrower glass 1

>A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

2. Pouring to narrower glass 2

>A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

Starting relation A>B

1. Pouring to wider glass 1

<A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

2. Pouring to wider glass 2

<A B B1 A B1?

Does A contains equal, more or less water then B1?

Starting relation A<B

Picture 3. Schematic presentation of three conservation tasks of same logical form and same content

23

Child Adult

Co-construction through the shared (joint) activity

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Internalization Child

Level of Actual Development

(LAD)

Picture 4. Co-construction of the cultural form of activity through the shared activity

24

Test: Raven's matrices (NI=60 items)Sample: 126 children (8, 10, 12 years)

I phasepretest 1

II phasepretest 2

two weeks

III phaseThe measurement of ZPD

IV phaseretest

two monthsimmediately follows

Control groupN=63

Exper. groupN=63

Experimental treatment:Children tried to solve with gradual help of experimenter tasks that were not able to solve by themselves on the pretest 2 (Individual testing).

Gro

up te

stin

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aria

b le

G1)

Indi

vidu

al te

stin

g(V

aria

ble

I1)

Gr o

up te

s tin

g(V

ari a

ble

G2)There is no experimental treatment

Picture 5. The design of the study