Tuesday, Dec 6th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time
Register by contacting Francine Smolucha at lsmolucha@hotmail.com
This is the third presentation in the “Imagination and Creativity in Vygotsky’s Works” seminar series. There are several good reasons to consider Frame Theory as a conceptual tool for understanding psychological functions and/or human activity.
1. Gregory Bateson introduced the concept of ‘framing’ in regard to pretend play. The words “Let’s Pretend” introduce most toddlers and preschoolers to their first frame shift. This metacognitive awareness of make-believe contrasts with real world activities like daily household routines and schooling.
2. Our two recent seminars have explored the relationship between the development of imagination in pretend play and the use of imagination by adults in International Relations. During pretend play, story-telling builds narrative skills, and role play requires a shift in perspective (a reframing of one’s role, motives, and behavior). For Vygotsky object substitutions, such as using a stick as if riding a horse, are activities that involve switching meanings (shifting from one ‘frame’ of reference to another). Vygotsky refers to the stick as a “pivot” for transferring meanings.
3. In the 1970’s Erving Goffman expanded Frame Theory to the area of inter-personal interactions. Even our scholarly discourse can bring into play either conflicting or complementary social frames that we might not be aware of. Examples are ethnicities, academic roles, personal friendships or animosities, gender roles, and of course theoretical allegiances.
4. Since the 1990’s a variation on Frame Theory has been used to analyze (and intervene in) social movements under International Relations Theory. Terminology such as Frame Bridging, Frame Alignment, Frame Resonance (salience), and Frame Transformation can also be applied to understanding theories of psychology (and education) as social movements.
I think it is necessary to introduce two concepts that haven’t been discussed in the literature (as far as I know). Not all cultures tolerate Frame Flexibility to the same extent and in all areas. Instead Frame Rigidity characterizes certain beliefs, customs, roles, and rituals that must not be reframed or altered. That is where social movements come in.
Recommended Readings:
This reading introduces the terminology used in International Relations Frame Theory pertaining to Social Movements: Snow, D. A., Vliegenthart, R., & Ketelaars, P. (2019). The framing perspective on social movements: Its conceptual roots and architecture. In D. A. Snow S. A. Soule, H. Kriesi, & H. J. McCammon (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (2nd ed., pp. 392-410). (Wiley Blackwell companions to sociology). Wiley Blackwell.
Also see Gregory Bateson’s original paper on framing pretend play from 1955 and “The Sociology of Storytelling” by Francesca Polletta, Pang Ching Bobby Chen, Beth Gharrity Gardner, and Alice Motes. Annual Review of Sociology 2011 37:1, 109-130.
Watch the video if you find this interesting.
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[…] Framing: From Pretend Play to Social Movements (Tuesday, December 6, 9am Pacific […]
One of the things I enjoy about this system is that it SHOULD be easier for people like myself, who have their time for reading these posts interrupted. I am behind on reading the posts below but will catch up soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share this beautiful video I just saw of an artist I love, which seems to me to explain how Paley’s famous description of showing a child himself in the block corner by herself acting as this child, in a short performance, is used with adults to reimagine possible futures — it seems to me to be related to Lois Holzman’s work with NYC police and the youth they arrest, via improve, but also to our question about how to move from Paley’s classrooms to work against war.
https://art21.org/watch/new-york-close-up/shaun-leonardo-the-freedom-to-move/
Following up on the 2018 lecture by Mark Johnson on Moral Imagination lead me to this
interesting presentation by Vlad Glaveanu on the connection between perspective shifting in pretend play and social reform movements. Both lectures were offered as
a series in 2018 by the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology. Glaveanu mentions some of the same things we have been discussing. However, he does not reference Vygotsky’s three papers on the development of imagination and creativity. I think Vygotsky offers a much better more comprehensive developmental model. Also, while Glaveanu does not mention Frame Theory, it fits in very nicely with his discussion of learning to take different perspectives. Worth watching to see the similarities and differences.
https://values.utdallas.edu/vlad-glaveanu-culture-and-the-power-of-creativity-and-imagination/
This note opens up a whole new set of connections, Francine. Matt Brown who hosted the series is a former student who got his PHD in Philosophy and Cog Sci. He is the new head of the Dewey Center. He would definitely make a good addition to the group.
While Vygotsky does not seem to have written about moral reasoning or ethical decision-making as a higher psychological function, that doesn’t mean it can’t be included. For now
I am using the terms moral reasoning and ethical decision-making interchangeably [moral reasoning harkens back to Kohlberg’s work and Carol Gilligan’s expansion to include
compassionate reasoning]. Moral reasoning certainly fits the developmental model for higher psychological functions as a ‘psychological system’. In our publication Vygotsky’s Theory In-Play, Larry and I mention that Vygotsky’s list of HPF is open ended since HPF are cultural ‘constructs’ (and we specifically mention moral reasoning as one example of a HPF that should be added to an expanded’ list of HPF).
Here is where it really gets interesting: Henry Shonerd sparked my curiosity about Cognitive Linguistics especially as George Lakoff and Ronald Langacker collaborated early on. My husband Larry as a visual artist worked with visual isomorphisms, so our writings always included the development of figurative (analogical/metaphoric thinking) in collaboration with logical analytic thinking. Lakoff & Johnson’s book Metaphors We Live By was one of our favorites.
And here is the punch line: Mark Johnson has a publication from 1993 titled
Moral Imagination and a 2018 YouTube presentation (that I just found & going to view right now). Apparently Mark Johnson has been exploring the connection between imagination,
metaphor, and moral reasoning.
We planned on addressing Cognitive Linguistics in our February session, and would like
to schedule a session that would be at a more convenient time for people on the other
side of the world.
Here is the link to MarkJohnson speaking on Moral Imagination in 2018 (part of a series of lectures on imagination and creativity that I was not familiar with).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk_9Rv6DrPg
Thanks for this Francine. Fascinating. I was really wondering about the point you made regarding moral shock and its relation to imagination. Is there anywhere that Vygotsky (or anyone else) writes about how imagination is used in ethical decision-making, behaviour and actons?
How apropos that the Coffee Hours and this Seminar on Imagination & Creativity should lead us to the topic of Creative Collaboration. When we started in March, the first Coffee Hour on Vygotsky’s paper Imagination & Creativity in Childhood featured three Vygotsky translators. For the past forty years, the discourse among Vygotsky scholars has gone in the direction of who is the correct translator/interpretor of what Vygotsky really meant.
This is a ‘frame’ that might derive from biblical scholars or other religious authorities
arguing for interpretations of holy books. It seems we have broken free of that frame and
have stumbled upon something new in Vygotskian discourse – creative collaboration
among scholars with different backgrounds who respect the original texts but are also open to different interpretations and creatively expand upon Vygotsky’s insights.
Henry Shonerd is preparing a January session on Vera John-Steiner’s book Creative
Collaboration and on Vera herself as someone who epitomized “the courage to create.”
What’s the better date Tuesday Jan 10th or the 17th? If Ivana can provide the technical
assistance and Henry is available, we could also repeat that seminar in January on a
different day and time that would make it easier for our friends in the ‘Asian’ time zones to join us in a Live ZOOM session.
Ha! I finally am getting the knack for posting comments!
I was especially in Francine’s recounting of the history of the concept of Framing starting in the 50s with Bateson, who observed monkeys at play. He wondered how they knew that it wasn’t “for real”, which would have meant violence and injury. I was familiar with the work of Goffman in the 70s but not Snowden starting in the 90s.
Langacker, the major figure in Cognitive Grammar, talks of “construal”, which, arguably captures the concept of framing. Langacker refers to what Fillmore calls a “frame” and what Lakoff calls “idealized cognitive models”. Fillmore and Lakoff were both at UC Berkely when Cognitive Grammar was being developed and both of them were in constant dialog with Langacker, who was to UC San Diego. I was present at some of their in-person dialog.
I am looking forward to a session of this series that develops a connection between Cognitive Linguistics, one the one hand, and the work of Vygotsky. I have felt this would be “generative”, as Vera would say, since I was introduced to Vygotsky by Vera and to Cognitive Grammar in the early 80s.
When I first learned about Vygotsky, I saw him first and foremost as a semiotician, that is someone looking at sign. His notion of Word as unit of analysis is absolutely what Langacker calls a symbolic unit, a unity physical form (sound) and meaning (semantics), for linguistic purposes.
Both Vera Brofman and Inna Rabinovitch joined us in this session on Framing. Unfortunately Vera’s microphone was not working. Perhaps they would consider being guest speakers in a future session. They recently (2021) published a journal article that is very relevant to our discussion.Here is a link to that study showing adult guided pretend activities improved self-regulation and cognitive development.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/ip3/bridges.monash.edu.icohttps://bridges.monash.edu › articles › journal_contribution › 01_Vygotskian_preschool_education_Promoting_the_development_of_self-regulation_and_symbolic_thought_in_pre-K_children › 14338943
01 Vygotskian preschool education: Promoting the development … – figshareMar 30, 2021posted on 30.03.2021, 09:47 authored by Vera Brofman, Yuriy V. Karpov, Inna Rabinovitch The Vygotskian preschool education program (VPEP) is built around mediation in the context of preschool age-specific activities such as sociodramatic play, constructive play, listening and retelling fairy tales, playing with dollhouses, motor activities, and …
Checking in here to see if I can post
Let’s keep the momentum going!
I am testing the posting system as requested! Also thanking Francine again for the very interesting talk! I kept thinking about Bateson on consciousness and humor in relation to our previous talks, and today’s talk, in the series, Beth
My previous post was really pointing more to the February session of I&C in V, so let me add here that the session in January is a creative collaboration, instantiates it. Suki’s presentation (my job being to introduce her) will facilitate collective conceptual coherence for the entire seminar. But it is challenged technologically by how well we use asynchronous resources (comments by email and suggested reading) leading up to January 10 and between Jan 10 and the my cognitive grammar session in mid-February.