Abstract
In this article, we present a sociocultural alternative to contemporary constructivist conceptions of classroom interaction. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky and Leont’ev, we introduce an approach that offers a new perspective through which to understand the specifically human forms of knowing that emerge when people engage in joint activity. To this end, we present two concepts: space of joint action and togethering. The space of joint action allows us to capture the collective and sensuous or intercorporeal dimensions of thought and feeling in interaction. We resort to the concept of togethering to capture the ethical commitment participants make to engage in and produce activity. These concepts are illustrated through a discussion of concrete episodes from an elementary mathematics classroom.
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Notes
This is so because the material/intentional object (designated in Russian by predmet in Leont’ev’s works) is distinct from objekt, which refers to material objects. Leont’ev grounds his work in Marx, whose German makes the same distinction between the nouns Gegenstand and Objekt, respectively. Predmet and Gegenstand have both material and ideal dimensions.
The recent need to come up with non-individualistic conceptions of interaction has led several researchers to conceptualize the space of interaction in different ways. See, e.g., the theory of joint action (Ligozat & Schubauer-Leoni 2010) and the cognitive space of action, production and communication (Arzarello, 2006).
These ideas can also be expressed as a difference in activity. But while individualist student-centered approaches locate this difference in the realm of beings, activity perspectives locate it in the division of labor that underpins joint activity and the manner in which the object of activity becomes refracted.
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This article is a result of research programs funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC/CRSH).
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Radford, L., Roth, WM. Intercorporeality and ethical commitment: an activity perspective on classroom interaction. Educ Stud Math 77, 227–245 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-010-9282-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-010-9282-1