When your doctoral thesis has a life of it’s own

Yes, I think this title says it all. My thesis just seems to motor along. I’m not sure anymore if I’m the one controlling it, or if it is whispering paths I should take. As I look upon my schedule and my proposal, however, it is pretty much going as planned with a few minor hiccups along the way.

Although I had planned to do much of the writing in 2012, it turns out that I did large portions of the methodology chapter and literature review at the end of 2011. Analysis, which I had planned for the beginning of 2012 is on target. As I look back, why did I do so much writing when I did? Two reasons: 1) conferences, and 2) it intuitively made sense. And, having already put much thought into my proposal, I was able to take some liberties.

A mossy street in SOS de los Reyes Catolicos, Spain

One of the speakers at a PhD student workshop at the Networked Learning Conference in Aalborg, Denmark back in 2010 had suggested that many doctoral students leave data collection too late. I heeded this advice. Collecting data early allows some analysis and consideration earlier in the process. Hopefully, if the project was untenable, I could shift gears before becoming too invested in one particular path. To prepare for an early data-collection, I decided to focus on the methodology chapter. In retrospect, I found this to be very helpful. A solid grounding in the methodology and methods along with consideration of issues of trustworthiness and philosophical commensurability guided the structure and performance on the interviews. I was also able to pull-together a symposium on phenomenography for the up-coming Networked Learning Conference in Maastrict, 2012.

After interviewing the participants and transcribing their comments, I shifted my attention to the literature review. At first, I considered doing some analysis prior to the literature review in hopes that the literature review would not influence my observations. But, as my supervisor pointed out, I am not doing grounded theory. In any case, I have found that the transcripts speak to me very separately from the ideas collated in the literature review. In some ways, the literature review helped to open my mind to new possibilities. It also helped me to consider my philosophical position and theoretical framework in much greater detail. And, again, I was able to submit an abstract to another conference, this one on threshold concepts in Dublin.

What I have found surprising is how many ideas have fallen into place. In my spare time—that is, when I take breaks from coding—I read some of the seminal works that I have earmarked as requiring attention. My latest discovery is Bakhtin. I can see how his work might be affiliated with social constructionist philosophy. His work resonates with me and is helping fill in some gaps in my framework. Slowly, I hope to work my way through the stack of books and journal article piled high around me.

Although this process seems in control, I do not entirely feel like I am controlling it. It’s as if something is guiding me along and presenting options–interspersed with moments of inspiration that change the course of my work subtly and continuously.

2 Comments on When your doctoral thesis has a life of it’s own

Using an E-Reader to Manage Your PhD Reading

I recently went on vacation. The thought of leaving my library behind was creating stress. I knew that I needed to take a break, but the compulsion to make sure I had some reading just in case the mood would strike was compelling. So, I decided to purchase an e-reader and load my entire electronic library. It took me one, full day to complete this task.

I wanted an e-reader that would allow me to

• read journal articles and e-books from libraries, purchased, etc.
• read easily outside (it was for a tropical vacation)
• highlight segments
• write notes easily
• export and print highlights and notes
• download different kinds of readings from the Internet ranging from the purely academic to newspapers, magazines, and trashy novels

Enlisting the help of my e-reader-owning friends and my husband, I searched the Internet for the “perfect” e-reader. Then, I went to local shops and tried them out. I was seduced by the very small, 5-inch Sony Reader. But, I found that the screen was just a touch too small for the kind of interaction that I wanted to have with the device. It felt like I was moving towards the tiny real estate of a smart phone. I tried the Kobo, the Alurateck Libre, and some others. One last effort took me to a nearby Sony Store. They only had one kind of reader in stock, but, it seemed to match my needs. This model (PRS-T1) had just arrived in the store two weeks prior to my arrival. And, it had wifi which was not on my list, but could be a nice addition.

Now, I have found that I do, indeed, like the e-Reader. And, here are my reasons:

• I can carry my entire electronic library in my purse
• I can read it incredibly well in bright sunlight.
• I love the carry-case with the flexible light
• I can highlight text with the stylus
• I can make hand-written notes or peck-a-letter notes
• I can export all my highlights and notes AND print them
• I can create “searchable” PDF documents or sections of books on university photocopiers and upload them to the e-Reader. These PDFs are somewhat like OCR documents allowing highlighting and searching.
• I can purchase e-books as well as some newspapers and magazines through the desktop interface very easily.
• I can quickly and easily download a variety of open access books directly on the device using the wifi (quick and easy).
• I can surf the web using the device. The browser, although limited is surprisingly good.
• I can read in Spanish and French. With the click of a button, I can locate definitions for unfamiliar words. This is lovely.
• No root-kits that I know of are loaded onto your computer.

Things that I would like to see improved:

• The notes are hugely important to me. I highlight entire paragraphs at times. But, when I export the notes, they are truncated. So, I have to manually fix them all through a copy-paste method. Admittedly, it is still faster that typing out the highlighted sections, but I would like Sony to update their software so that notes are exported in their entirety.
• I was disappointed that the Sony e-readers no longer support MS Word. I had to convert all my word documents into PDF. That’s why it took me an entire day to transfer all my journal articles and notes.
• Some journal articles already in PDF format do not render nicely especially when the font size is increased.
• The “Reader for PC” interface on my desktop is clunky and slow as it connects to the reader and demands my sign-on to the online Sony systems.  I would like the interface to be streamlined.

I really am starting to like reading this way. And, I cannot emphasize how much I love being able to carry around my PhD-study library. I will add more pros and cons as I think of them.

2 Comments on Using an E-Reader to Manage Your PhD Reading

Considerations for conducting phenomenographic interviews

I am finally ready to start recruiting participants for my doctoral thesis on Identity Positioning of Doctoral Students in Networked Learning Environments. The seemingly endless wait for ethics permission and institutional permission (sometimes known as site permission) was actually a very useful time. I used the time for further reading and reflection on phenomenography in light of the recent methodology workshops and my readings on methods.

Bowden, J. A., & Walsh, E. (2000). Phenomenography (p. 154). Melbourne, Australia: RMIT Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.informit.com.au/products/ProductDetails.aspx?id=PHENOMENOGRAPHY_ERIN

Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

.

Why study interviewing methods so intensively right now?

I feel strongly that one must understand one’s methodology before collecting data. And, it is important to be mindful of all the choices that one must make while employing data collection methods. Some researchers utilize data collected previously by other researchers for other research purposes. This might be suitable avenue for researchers who have difficulty accessing some participants or whose projects are on tight time constraints. It might also be done simply for convenience. In some cases, seemingly perfect data sets can be procured from national databases such as the UK Data Archive. As I read more deeply about phenomenography, I sense that it is in the best interests of my own study to collect data carefully with sensitivity to phenomenographic theory and procedures of analysis. This is also the position taken by Bowden (2000):

Whatever research method is used, researchers need to articulate the purposes of their project and to keep those purposes in mind at all stages of the research—in the design of the investigation, in the development of the data collection processes, in the collection of data and in the analysis and interpretation. (p. 7)

What is a phenomenographic interview?

Interviewing is the most common method for collecting data in phenomenography (Walsh, 2000, p. 19, Marton, 1986, p. 42). Trigwell (2000) and Dunkin (2000) suggest that the ideal number of interviews rests around 15 to 20. In phenomenological studies, the number of suggested interviews might be less as phenomenology seeks to explore the essence of an individual’s experience in some depth. Phenomenography, on the other hand, focuses on the limited possible ways of experiencing a given phenomenon across a group of individuals. The outcome space (results) is a compilation of categories of description which expresses the variation. As such, it is necessary to reach a balance between depth of description and breadth of experience among a group of individuals.

Interviews are typically semi-structured (or “guided” if you choose Olson’s terminology) and last roughly 40 to 60 minutes or until the “the interviewer feels the experience has been described, and the meaning of relevant words has been revealed (Trigwell, 2000, p. 67). Most phenomenographers seem to agree that the participants should have sufficient flexibility to describe the experiences as they wish in their own way. Hence, most questioning and probing is open-ended. Bowden (Chapter 1) and Prosser (Chapter 3), in working with children, prefer to offer “problem questions” that the participants are asked to resolve. By asking participants to work through problems or tasks “interviewees are encouraged to reveal, through discussion, their ways of understanding a phenomenon, that is, to disclose their relationship to the phenomenon under consideration” (p. 9). Most of the questions in a phenomenographic interview follow from comments of the participant (Trigwell, 2000). Some sample questions that Bowden supplies (p. 10):

• Could you explain further?
• What do you mean by that?
• Is there anything else you would like to say about this problem?

Prosser offers some interesting observations on eliciting information from the participants:

While it is relatively easy to get interviewees to describe their strategies, it is much more difficult to get them to discuss their intentions underlying their strategies and their conceptions of phenomena. (Prosser, 2000, p. 44).

To approach the participant’s conceptions, the researcher must consider the interview/discussion as a whole. According to Marton & Booth (1997) interviews take place on two levels: the interpersonal contact between the interviewer and the participant and at a metacognitive level in which the participant relates his/her awareness of an experience (Marton & Booth, 1997, p. 87). So, whilst the researcher attempts to maintain focus on the target conception(s), he/she must also provide room for the participant fully express related nuances and details. In some cases, it might be helpful within the context of the co-constructed interaction (see previous blog postings on interviews), for the researcher to share her own experiences. However, Bowden (Chapter 4) warns against “leading too much” to avoid influencing the participants. As per my previous blog postings on interviewing, anything that the researcher discloses during the interview should be as carefully transcribed and reported as the participant’s dialogue.

In some cases, a phenomenographic interview might seem to revolve tediously around the same question over and over again. This is partially true. A phenomenographic interviewer will ask similar questions in different ways so as to elicit a number of different views on the phenomenon. “Typically, a range of questions is used to provide views of each conception from several angles in order to make the description of the conception as rich as possible” (Dall’Alba, 2000, p. 94).

References – refer to

• previous blog posting on phenomenography

No Comments on Considerations for conducting phenomenographic interviews

Discourse analysis & a constructionist approach to phenomenography

Gee, J. P. (2011). An Introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (3rd ed., p. 224). New York, NY: Routledge. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/reader/0415585708

I am exploring the use of discourse analysis (DA) alongside the constructionistt phenomenographic methodology that I will be using on my PhD thesis. So, I have started with what has turned out to be a nicely written introductory text by James Paul Gee.

As my first love in academia was languages and linguistics, I feel very comfortable with Gee’s text. In fact, it feels much like a homecoming. I now understand why social constructionist philosophy has become, quite unintentionally, so significant in my doctoral work. In this book, Gee’s own philosophies about language are made clear:

In the broadest sense, we make meaning by using language to say things that, in actual contexts of use, amount, as well, to doing things and being things. These things we do and are (identities) then come to exist in the world and they, too, bring about other things in the world. We use language to build things in the world and to engage in the world building. (p. 16)

To an extent, I try to contain my excitement upon reading this until I can fully ascertain that Gee does not cross the line into critical realism—the idea that there is a reality out there, but we can only see it from our own limited perspective. (I know that this is an oversimplification.) The danger of this crossing could have been perpetrated in Gee’s treatment of the other “stuff” related to language such as non-vocalized behavours, appearances, enactments, social institutions, and props—the context of language (p. 35).  However, Gee appears firmly rooted in the social constructionist camp. Consider, for example, how he refers to knowledge:

. . . the physics that the experimental physicists “know” is, in large part, not in their heads. Rather, it is spread out (distributed), inscribed in (and often trapped in) scientific apparatus, symbolic systems, books, papers, and  journal, institutions, habits of bodies, routines of practice, and other people. Each domain of practice, each scientific Discourse . . . attunes actions, expressions, objects, and people (the scientists themselves) so that they become “workable” in relation to each other and in relation to tools, technologies, symbols, texts,  and the objects they study in the world. They are in sync. (p. 36)

In this example, a given discourse exists and creates and recreates itself including the scientists who engage in the discourse. This recognition of the cyclical relationship between language and perceptions of reality is, in my opinion, a cornerstone of social constructionism.  Later on the same page, Gee uses the word instantiation with reference to the power of language to create a constantly shifting and abstract world. This, too, dramatically buoys a social constructionist position. (Interestingly, Gee suggests reading Bourdieu, Clark, Engeström, Foucault, Hacking, Hutchins, Latour, Lave & Wenger, and Wittgenstein—all of whom have constructionist leanings or whose work has been foundational to constructionism.)

Before I outline how I will use DA to support my phenomenographic research, I will first post my notes on the main concepts of Gee’s book. But, that is for tomorrow.

1 Comment on Discourse analysis & a constructionist approach to phenomenography

Literature & Your PhD Thesis: A Balancing Act

I consider myself fortunate in that I appreciate reading the “old” authors in my field and adjacently related fields. I am delighted when I read something written many years ago (such as from the late 1800s or early 1900s) and discover that it is still useful or somehow applicable—or somehow provides a different view on a current issue.

But, how should a student balance the sources in the literature review? I have heard that some students are criticized because they have cited nothing older than 10 years. To an extent, I agree with such criticism because it suggests that the student may not understand the origins of the philosophical or methodological ideas upon which they draw. On the other hand, too much reliance upon the classics in the field might leave little room for more current research.

To this point, I recently stumbled upon a different and rather unique view on this issue:

There are many reasons for scientists interested in these matters to examine the long history of philosophical inquiry when beginning their empirical investigations. In many cases we may find that earlier philosophers have provided the clearest delineation of paradoxes and problems for further inquiry, even when techniques to answer them were not yet available. In other cases, attention to prior philosophical debates may provide a map of intellectual space. For example, if two independently compelling claims are logically inconsistent with one another, then models that attempt to accommodate both claims must be dismissed as incoherent. A third, “therapeutic” role for attention to the history of philosophy was suggested by Wittgenstein and has been famously adopted by Daniel Dennett (1991): we may discover that outdated philosophical models continue to underlie our unexamined assumptions about some phenomenon. Alternatively, even discredited or incomplete philosophical models may serve as sources of inspiration that point towards innovative ways of thinking about familiar problems. (Chiong, 2011, p. 1)

Something to ponder.

Resources

Chiong, W. (2011). The self: From philosophy to cognitive neuroscience. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13554794.2010.532808.

No Comments on Literature & Your PhD Thesis: A Balancing Act

Micro vs. Macro Social Constructionism

Here in North America, many people talk about constructivism and constructionism, but mostly from the Piaget vs. Papert perspective (also note their focus on child development). (Oh, some excellent links here: The Nature of Constructionist Learning, MIT.) In Europe, constructionism seems to focus on dialogue and relationship. The following comes from my notes mostly on Vivan Burr’s book:

Burr, V. (2003). Social constructionism (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Routledge.URL: http://www.amazon.ca/Social-Constructionism-Vivien-Burr/dp/0415317606

All forms of social constructionism see language as “performative and constructive” (p. 176).

For both critical realists and constructivists, I believe (as per the European take on it), they both see dialogue as leading to the arrival at a common Truth (leading towards an Essentialist viewpoint of some underlying, foundational reality). But, constructionists would hold that there is no ultimate Truth; rather, everyone has their own perspective on truth. Although individuals can construct ideas together, no two people will hold the exact same view on it.

From Gergen’s book (see my previous posts):

“. . . the constructivist movement, which has been centrally concerned with the way in which the world is constructed or construed by individual minds. The central message here is that our actions are based not on the way the world is, but on the meaning it has for this individual” (Gergen, 2009, p. 26).

“Although resonant with constructionist views, constructivists tend to place meaning within the mind of the individual, while social constructionists locate the origin of meaning in relationships” (Gergen, 2009, p. 26).

From my discussions with [unnamed professor]: Constructionism suggests that there are multiple valid views, but there is no ultimate truth/reality. Our understandings are shaped by language—which is an imperfect vehicle for expression. The problem with language is in the inability to accurately transmit meaning. This explains the close relationship constructionism has with “dialogue”. Derrida and Leotard (post-modernists) propose that all human concepts are relative; we can never really understand how another human being thinks, experiences, etc.

All that said, there are also different flavours of constructionism. Burr outlines the following:

Macro Social Constructionism

Foucauldian & Critical Discourse Analysis (p. 150)

• “Discourses produce all features of being a person” (pp. 179-180)
• Concerned with power relations and social positioning
• Production of subjectivity
• Power and ideology is important (p. 156)
• Leans towards social determinism
• Criticism: neglects the speaker

 

Interpretive repertoires

• The difference between discourses and interpretive repertoires is scale (p. 169).

Micro Social Constructionism

Discursive Psychology

• The “person is the user of discursive devices” (p. 179)
• Discursive psychologists study the devices themselves and their effects
• Privileges agency of the person (p. 183)
• Concerned with argument and rhetorical devices
• Analysis of talk in interaction
• Interviews are a key way of gathering data
• Less concerned with power
• Criticism: only considers the text

 

Conversation Analysis (p. 151)

• Smaller scale than discursive psychology
• Gather data through observation of naturally-occurring interactions
• Attempt to detect regularities and patterns in language use
• Talk achieves effects
• Less concerned with power

Micro and macro social constructionism need not compete with each other, but may be complementary (p. 175). All forms of social constructionism see language as “performative and constructive” (p. 176).

References

Gergen, K. J. (2009). An Invitation to Social Construction (p. 200). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1412923018/ref=oss_product

No Comments on Micro vs. Macro Social Constructionism

Still investigating social constructionism: Gergen

Gergen, K. J. (2009). An Invitation to Social Construction (p. 200). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1412923018/ref=oss_product.

Do social constructionists take a relativist stance? Yes. Do they argue that there is no underlying or foundational reality? No. According to Gergen, our relationships allow us to make sense of our world(s). “Relationships stand prior to all that is intelligible” (p. 6). There is a reality. But, it is through our cultural and linguistic traditions that we perceive and interpret it. The exact nature of the reality or Truth is not what is sought (or possible to discover).

His example of the desk is helpful: “In my world the desk is solid, mahogany coloured, weighs some 180 lbs, and is odourless” (p. 7). But, depending on one’s traditions, these statements are arguable. He provides these examples:

• Atomic physicist: The desk is not solid.
• Psychologist: The desk has no colour as colour is merely our interpretation of light waves on our retinas.
• Rocket scientist: The weight of the desk depends on the gravitational field.
• Biologist: To a dog, the desk is likely a cornucopia of scent.

All of these hypothetical individuals come to these views by virtue of their traditions—that is, their relationships within their socio-linguistic cultures: “Understandings of the world are achieved through coordinations among persons—negotiations, agreements, comparing views and so on” (p. 6).

Gergen appears to agree with Hacking in that our understandings of the world may be expressed in many different ways. (Hacking refers to this as contingency (1999, p. 72)). There are multiple options. We need not call a quark a “quark”. We may have chosen a different word or taken a different approach to describing the quark-phenomenon. There are or could be equally viable alternatives: “. . . no particular language is privileged in terms of its picturing the world for what it is; innumerable accounts are possible” (p. 22).

Our relationships affect how we perceive the world because they influence what we look for and what we consider possible. Gergen mentions Berger and Luckmann’s phrase “plausibility structures” which lead us to view some things as “natural, taken for granted reality” (p. 23).

Gergen also broaches the issue of Cartesian dualism: internal vs. external, mind vs. body, individual vs. collective, etc. In the dualist way of thinking, the mind (subjective) is separate from the world (objective). Along this line, our mind (as we express it through language) mirrors the experience of the external world (p. 42). This way of viewing the world has become accepted in much of the Western tradition as the common sense way to approach the world and guides what we take for granted.

Common-sense categorizations presumably capture the basic essence or “intrinsic qualities” of sets of individuals or aspects of our reality (p. 52). In our day-to-day, practical experience, these categories can be very useful and allow us to interact quickly and without thinking. But, they can also be constraining and imprisoning, locking us into certain modes of behaviour. Consider, for example, what happens to people who are labeled mentally-ill. Social constructionists seek to examine taken-for-granted concepts. When they do, they often cause discomfort. As anti-essentialists, they open up to scrutiny to categorizations of people and the world.

Gergen also indirectly alludes to Hacking’s looping effect: “if informed of a research hypothesis in the human sciences, people can typically choose not to confirm it” (p. 60). Hacking would say that people are of an “interactive kind” (1999, p. 32)—that is, they are aware of what is said about them and react to that knowledge.

More significant to my own work so far, Gergen also mentions Harré’s Positioning Theory.” The concept of positioning calls attention to the fact that you are positioned to be a certain kind of person by each of these individuals [within specified contexts] . . . your identity is dependent upon how you are positioned” (p. 70). [Note the importance of relationships in the development and maintenance of identity.]

See also: My previous notes on Hacking.

No Comments on Still investigating social constructionism: Gergen

A Quick Look at Wittgenstein and Derrida (Notes & Quotes)

I’m in a bit of a hurry today to catch a flight, so this is simply a compilation of quotes to think about with regard to language and the nature of reality.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889- 1951)

Realist: “A statement can only have meaning if that statement refers in an obvious way to things actually in the world” (p. 156).  (Related to Frege’s reference.)

“Wittgenstein saw the world as a totality of facts, not of things. Facts are logical entities; they can only be asserted or denied. They are not hard, red, round, etc. Things exist in space and time: they have shape, colour, consistency, etc.” (p. 158).

“We cannot demonstrate the limits of language or of the world” (p. 159).

“He decided that what a sentence meant (what language means) is not what the words refer to in the world outside, but the way in which words relate to each other. The way language works is not because it acts like an ideal logic, but because it follows its own working, which is the way people agree language works. This is not something that happens formally, but something the people in a language community grasp automatically” (p. 159).

“We can never get outside language to the reality ‘outside’ language. We can only use language in order to talk about language. All language is shared by at least two people. There is no such thing as a ‘private’ language” (p. 160).

“We cannot think unless we possess language” (p. 161).

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

“His greatest insights include the notion that whenever language expresses an idea it changes it” (p. 184).

Structuralism: “Its main teaching is that reality is composed of relationships rather than things” (p. 187).

“Structuralism tends to divide our perceptions of the world into binary categories, minimal pairs: good/bad . . . etc. It analyses the structures that lie behind or beneath things. It tends to distrust history and concentrates instead on the web of patterns holding at any given time. Derrida reacted against this outlook” (p. 188).

“Speaking is a sign of presence. When we speak to somebody they are with us. Writing is a sign of absence. We write to somebody because they are at a remove. The more words are shut away in writing, logocentrism maintains maintains, the more they are copies than the real thing” (p. 189). –>

• “Derrida attacked this theory of presence and origins by attacking the notion than speech has priority over writing. He was not making an historical claim here; he was not saying that our primitive ancestors could write before they could speak. He was saying that both forms of language are signs; both exhibit partial absence and partial presence, which is to say that both are relational” (p. 189).
• “Writing is always eventually cut free from its sender and the person to whom it is addressed. It is then read, frequently with different results, by third parties for whom it could never have been intended” (p. 192).

“. . . we only have access to what is beyond language through this new notion of text. This is the meaning of his dictum: ‘There is nothing outside the text’ (p. 193).

Derrida’s “différance” (not “différence”): “. . . meaning is never immediate; it is always deferred” (p. 189). –> “This new word does not stand for a new concept; rather, it plays around the notion of undecidability. Language, thought and meaning are now all in an uncomfortable position; they are unstable. They force us to ask ourselves if language can be relied upon” (p. 192).

“Comfort is restored with the reinstatement of binary order. But what if this binary order cannot be recalled; what if undecidability is the norm?” (p. 190).

“Once language enters the public domain, the speaker or writer loses control over it” (p. 191).

Reference

Johnston, D. (2006). A brief history of philosophy: From Socrates to Derrida (p. 211). London, UK: Continuum Books.

No Comments on A Quick Look at Wittgenstein and Derrida (Notes & Quotes)

Mead: Some Final Noteworthy Quotes

(Note: Converted from Livescribe Pen via MyScript. Possible typos.)

CONVERSATION AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY

“The process of conversation is one in which the individual has not only the right but the duty of talking to the community of which he is a part, and bringing about those changes which take place through the interaction of individuals. That is the way, of course, in which society gets ahead, by just such interactions as those in which some person thinks a thing out” (p. 168).

CONSCIOUSNESS

“. . . is that peculiar character and aspect of the environment of individual human experience which is due to human society, a society of other individual selves who take the attitude of the other toward themselves” (p. 171).

COGNITIVIST
“The essence of the self, as we have said, is cognitive: it lies in the internalized conversation of gestures which constitutes thinking, or in terms of which thought or reflection proceeds. And, hence, the origin and foundations of the self, like those of thinking, are social” (p. 273).

• [Note: The view that the self as a cognitive process is somewhat incommensurable with social constructionism.]

”The reaction of the individual in this conversation of gestures is one that in some degree is continually modifying the social process itself” (p. 179)

SYMBOL
“A symbol is nothing but a stimulus whose response is given in advance,’ (p. 18))

THE SELF AS AN EDDY

“The self is not something that exists first and then enters into relationship with others, but it is, so to speak, an eddy in the social current and so still a part of the current. It is a process in which the individual is continually adjusting himself in advance to the situation to which he belongs, and reacting back on it” (p. 182).

MIND
“The mind is simply the interplay of such gestures in the form of significant symbols” (p. 189).

References:

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self & society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. (C. W. Morris, Ed.) (Vol. 13). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

No Comments on Mead: Some Final Noteworthy Quotes

Mead: Quotes about Embodiment, the Self, and the Interaction between the “I” and the “Me”

(Note: Converted from Livescribe Pen via MyScript. Possible typos.)

“The self has the characteristic that it is an object to itself, and that characteristic distinguishes it from other objects and from the body” (p. 136).

“The parts of the body are quite distinguishable from the self. We can lose parts of the body without any serious invasion of the self. . . the body does not experience itself as a whole, in a sense in which the self in some way enters into the experience of the self” (p. 136).

The word self is reflexive: ”oneself”. As such, Mead suggests that the self can be both subject and object” (p. 136-137).

“The ‘I’ of this moment is the present in the ‘me’ of the next moment. . . It is as we act that we are aware of ourselves” (p. 174).

The GENERALIZED OTHER: “how the community exercises control over the conduct of its individual members” (affects the individual’s thinking) (p. 155).

ATTITUDES: “organized sets of responses” (p. 161).

Community: “A person is a personality because he belongs to a community, because he takes over the institutions of that community into his own conduct. . . The structure, then, on which the self is built, is this response which is common to all, for one has to be a member of a community to be a self” (p. 162).

“We cannot have rights unless we have common attitude” (p. 164).

“Selves can only exist in definite relationships to other selves” (p. 164).

The self as a “structural process” (p. 165).

Institutional Form ”. . . the whole community acts toward the individual under certain circumstances in an identical way” (p. 167).

References:

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self & society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. (C. W. Morris, Ed.) (Vol. 13). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

No Comments on Mead: Quotes about Embodiment, the Self, and the Interaction between the “I” and the “Me”