Learning and Development

Aida Banyuls

Observing socio-cultural activity on three planes:

Participatory appropriation, guided participation, and apprenticeship
(Brbara Rogoff)

Along the Brbaras Rogoff work I can understand the unit that participatory
appropriation, guided participation and apprenticeship means in our society. The best
example that helped me to see in the clearest way these relations has been the image of
the organism as a whole but also as a set of organs with an inherent independence. So,
from this point of view, we may consider a single person thinking or the functioning of a
whole community in the foreground without assuming that they are actually separate
elements.
Thus, the three planes already said are inseparable concepts focus on socio-cultural
activity in which includes the community as an institutional, interpersonal and personal
agent.
Regarding the concept of apprenticeship, as the individuals participating with others less
experimented in culturally activities in order to achieve mature participation, I have
understood that learning is not the moment you know something new but is also while
you are getting mature in this knowledge and view of thinking or practicing. Also, this
apprenticeship includes the participation of schooling, family relations
The parallel example that Rogoff used to explain this concept helped me to have an idea of
how it is reflected in our society. It is, as we can see in the article, the Girls scout cookie
sale: Individual scouts (people) are active in learning and managing the activity, along
with their companions, as they participate in and extend community and institutional
practices.
From the guided participation, I didnt knew that may be tacit or explicit, face-to-face or
distal, involved in shared endeavours with specific familiar people or distant unknown
individuals or groups - peers as well as experts.and so on. Taking into account that we
want to be teachers, I see interesting how Rogoff relates this article with children, as she
did saying that a child who is working alone on a report is participating in a cultural
activity with guidance involving interactions with the teacher, classmates, family
members, which help the child set the assignment and determine the materials and
approach to be used. Rogoff used again the example of the Girl Scouts to explain the
relation of this plane with the others. The girls and their companions participated in and
contributed to intellectual and economic institutions and traditions of their nation an d the
scout organization with values (efficiency, persuasion of others within societal bounds of
propriety, competition for achievement and responsible completion of agreed-upon tasks).
Finally, to explain the participatory appropriation is easy to think about the process in
which the individuals transform their comprehension of and their responsibility of the
group through their participation. As Rogoff says, this participation involves creative
efforts to understand and contribute to social activity; communication and shared efforts
always involve adjustments between participants in order to stretch their common
understanding and finally fit several views and to accomplish something together.
The participatory appropriation perspective focuses instead on events as dynamically
changing, with people participating with others in coherent events (where one could
examine each persons contributions as they relate to each other, but not define them
separately), and development is seen as transformation.

Learning and Development

Aida Banyuls

But one of the things that surprised me more is that the way in which the individual
approximates himself to different situations is related with the way in which he constructs
the relations among the purposes and meanings. As well as, following with the Girl scouts
example, we can see that because of their participation in the activities the girls developed
their behaviour in front of each change which helped in their personal, interpersonal and
cultural processes in relation with the community. This is a good experience of learning
that helps in our daily day but that we should still learn as well we get mature.