A Sociological Response to Stetsenko

Abstract

At the start I should say that I tend to agree with Stetsenko that one must embrace the implications of a dialectical worldview and method in order to fully comprehend the Vygotskian project. I also have to agree that the Vygotskian project has been largely overlooked outside of the field of educational psychology, where Stetsenko argues it is still marginalized in comparison to other, more dominant theoretical models. Furthermore, Marxist psychology has never been a part of American sociology, a discipline that has instead focused on macrosociological Marxist models, including Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1980) “world systems theory” or Theda Skocpol’s (1980) “theory of revolutions.” Thus, the Vygotskian project exists at the marginal nexus of both psychology and sociology.

Of course Marxism is a vital foundation for sociological theory. Marxist influences can be found in the Frankfurt School, led by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, as well as the neo-Marxist work of Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Karl Mannheim, these theorists have in turn influenced sociology. Importantly, none developed a Marxist microsociological approach comparable to the lineage of the American Pragmatist tradition (including George H. Mead, John Dewey, and Charles S. Peirce) or the phenomenological tradition (including ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and the work of Alfred Schutz), the rational choice/utilitarian tradition (including George Homans and James Coleman), and what we might call the Durkheimian microsociological tradition (as exemplified by Erving Goffman’s conceptualization of interaction ritual).

More contemporary sociological accounts of the micro/macro divide draw from these dominant microinteractionist traditions. Jürgen Habermas’s critical theory, which is certainly influenced by Marxism via the Frankfurt school, draws primarily from American pragmatism in his conception of communicative action. Similarly Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration draws on Erving Goffman’s view of the social situation, as does Randall Collins’ work on interaction ritual chains. The work of Pierre Bourdieu with his emphasis on practice and habitus is directly influenced, or at least responding to, Marxism. However, he intended his work to turn Marxism on its head and in truth his work is not microsociological nor does it draw from the Vygotsky project.