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The Third Space is a postcolonial sociolinguistic theory of identity and community realized through language. It is attributed to Homi K. Bhabha. Third Space Theory explains the uniqueness of each person, actor or context as a "hybrid". [1] See Edward W. Soja for a conceptualization of the term within the social sciences and from a critical urban theory perspective.
Third Space theory emerges from the sociocultural tradition [2] in psychology identified with Lev Vygotsky. [3] Sociocultural approaches are concerned with the "... constitutive role of culture in mind, i.e., on how mind develops by incorporating the community's shared artifacts accumulated over generations". [4] Bhabha applies socioculturalism directly to the postcolonial condition, where there are, "... unequal and uneven forces of cultural representation". [5]
In discourse of dissent, the Third Space has come to have two interpretations:
In educational studies, Maniotes [7] examined literary Third Space in a classroom where students' cultural capital merged with content of the curriculum as students backed up their arguments in literature discussions. Skerrett [8] associates it with a multiliteracies approach. [9]
Pre-school: Third Space Theory has been applied to the prespace within which children learn to read, bringing domestic and school literacy practices into their own constructions of literacy. [10]
Another contemporary construction of three "spaces" is that one space is the domestic sphere: the family and the home; [11] a second space is the sphere of civic engagement including school, work and other forms of public participation; and set against these is a Third Space where individual, sometimes professional, [12] [13] and sometimes transgressive acts are played out: where people let their "real" selves show.
Sporting associations may be labeled as Third Space. [14] Often bars and nightclubs are so labeled (Law 2000, 46–47). Latterly the term Third Space has been appropriated into brand marketing where domestic spaces and workforce-engagement spaces are set against recreational retail space: shopping malls as third spaces (see Third place, Postrel 2006; and see also Davis 2008). Bill Thompson (2007) offers an opposite conceptualisation of Third Space as public, civic space in the built environment under pressure from shopping malls and corporate enterprises, transforming public space into an extension of the market.
Higher education: The Third Space is used by Whitchurch [13] to describe a subset of staff in Higher Education that work in roles which cross the boundaries of professional/administrative and academic spheres, providing expert advice relating to learning and teaching without being practitioners. These include Learning/Instructional Designers and Education Technologists, among others.
Third Space Theory can explain some of the complexity of poverty, social exclusion and social inclusion, and might help predict what sort of initiatives would more effectively ameliorate poverty and exclusion. Bonds of affinity (class, kin, location: e.g. neighbourhood, etc.) can function as "poverty traps". [15] Third Space Theory suggests that every person is a hybrid of their unique set of affinities (identity factors). Conditions and locations of social and cultural exclusion have their reflection in symbolic conditions and locations of cultural exchange. It appears to be accepted in policy that neither social capital nor cultural capital, alone or together, are sufficient to overcome social exclusion. Third Space Theory suggests that policies of remediation based in models of the Other are likely to be inadequate.[ citation needed ]
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Russian and Soviet psychologist, best known for his work on psychological development in children and creating the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory. After his early death, his books and research were banned in the Soviet Union until Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, with a first collection of major texts published in 1956.
Homi Kharshedji Bhabha is an Indian scholar and critical theorist. He is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary postcolonial studies, and has developed a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, and ambivalence. Such terms describe ways in which colonised people have resisted the power of the coloniser, according to Bhabha's theory. In 2012, he received the Padma Bhushan award in the field of literature and education from the Indian government. He is married to attorney and Harvard lecturer Jacqueline Bhabha, and they have three children.
Constructivism in education is a theory that suggests that learners do not passively acquire knowledge through direct instruction. Instead, they construct their understanding through experiences and social interaction, integrating new information with their existing knowledge. This theory originates from Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
This is an index of sociology articles. For a shorter list, see List of basic sociology topics.
In postcolonial studies and in critical theory, subalterns are the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered the vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the common people who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India.
Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture. Hybridity is used in discourses about race, postcolonialism, identity, anti-racism and multiculturalism, and globalization, developed from its roots as a biological term.
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a concept in educational psychology. It represents the space between what a learner is capable of doing unsupported and what the learner cannot do even with support. It is the range where the learner is able to perform, but only with support from a teacher or a peer with more knowledge or expertise. The concept was introduced, but not fully developed, by psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) during the last three years of his life. Vygotsky argued that a child gets involved in a dialogue with the "more knowledgeable other", such as a peer or an adult, and gradually, through social interaction and sense-making, develops the ability to solve problems independently and do certain tasks without help. Following Vygotsky, some educators believe that the role of education is to give children experiences that are within their zones of proximal development, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning skills and strategies.
Edward William Soja was an urbanist, a postmodern political geographer and urban theorist. He worked on socio-spatial dialectic and spatial justice.
Bilingual–Bicultural or Bi-Bi deaf education programs use sign language as the native, or first, language of Deaf children. In the United States, for example, Bi-Bi proponents state that American Sign Language (ASL) should be the natural first language for deaf children in the United States, although the majority of deaf and hard of hearing being born to hearing parents. In this same vein, the spoken or written language used by the majority of the population is viewed as a secondary language to be acquired either after or at the same time as the native language.
Cultural-historical psychology is a branch of psychological theory and practice associated with Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria and their Circle, who initiated it in the mid-1920s–1930s. The phrase "cultural-historical psychology" never occurs in the writings of Vygotsky, and was subsequently ascribed to him by his critics and followers alike, yet it is under this title that this intellectual movement is now widely known. The main goal of Vygotsky-Luria project was the establishment of a "new psychology" that would account for the inseparable unity of mind, brain and culture in their development in concrete socio-historical settings and throughout the history of humankind as socio-biological species. In its most radical forms, the theory that Vygotsky and Luria were attempting to build was expressed in terms of a "science of Superman", and was closely linked with the pronouncement for the need in a new psychological theory of consciousness and its relationship to the development of higher psychological functions. All this theoretical and experimental empirical work was attempted by the members of the Vygotsky Circle.
Anna Stetsenko is a developmental psychologist known for her important contributions to cultural-historical activity theory, building on the work of Lev Vygotsky, Leontiev and Alexander Luria. Her research centers human development, education, and social theory.
Multiliteracy is an approach to literacy theory and pedagogy coined in the mid-1990s by the New London Group. The approach is characterized by two key aspects of literacy – linguistic diversity and multimodal forms of linguistic expressions and representation. It was coined in response to two major changes in the globalized environment. One such change was the growing linguistic and cultural diversity due to increased transnational migration. The second major change was the proliferation of new mediums of communication due to advancement in communication technologies e.g. the internet, multimedia, and digital media. As a scholarly approach, multiliteracy focuses on the new "literacy" that is developing in response to the changes in the way people communicate globally due to technological shifts and the interplay between different cultures and languages.
Anne Haas Dyson is a professor at the University of Illinois. Her fields are the study of literacy, pedagogy, and contemporary, diverse childhoods. Using qualitative and sociolinguistic research procedures, Dyson examines the use of written language from children's perspectives within their social worlds, and as they engage with popular culture. Books she has published include The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write, Popular Literacies in Childhood and School Cultures (2003), Writing Superheroes, Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy (1997), Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School (1993), Multiple Worlds of Child Writers: Friends Learning to Write (1989). Dyson has also written articles for professional journals.
David R. Cole is a philosopher of education, academic and author. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Education, English, Literacies and ESL and has held positions as Globalisation Theme Leader in the Centre for Educational Research, Senior Researcher in the Institute for Culture and Society and Associate Dean, HDR at Western Sydney University.
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (LCHC) is a social science laboratory located at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) since 1978. Scholars at LCHC pursue research focused on understanding the complex relationship between cognition and culture in individual and social development. Such research requires collaboration among scholars from a variety of research disciplines, including cognitive science, education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. LCHC also functions as a research and training institution, arranging for pre-doctoral, doctoral, and post-doctoral training, as well as research exchanges with scholars throughout the world. In addition, LCHC sponsors a journal, Mind, Culture and Activity: An International Journal (MCA), and an open internet discussion group, XMCA.
Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge.
Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) is a theoretical framework to conceptualize and analyse the relationship between cognition and activity. The theory was founded by L. S. Vygotsky and Aleksei N. Leontiev, who were part of the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology. The Soviet philosopher of psychology, S.L. Rubinshtein, developed his own variant of activity as a philosophical and psychological theory, independent from Vygotsky's work. Political restrictions in Stalinist Russia had suppressed the cultural-historical psychology – also known as the Vygotsky School – in the mid-thirties. This meant that the core "activity" concept remained confined to the field of psychology. Vygotsky's insight into the dynamics of consciousness was that it is essentially subjective and shaped by the history of each individual's social and cultural experiences. Since the 1990s, CHAT has attracted a growing interest among academics worldwide. Elsewhere CHAT has been described as "a cross-disciplinary framework for studying how humans transform natural and social reality, including themselves, as an ongoing culturally and historically situated, materially and socially mediated process". CHAT explicitly incorporates the mediation of activities by society, which means that it can be used to link concerns normally independently examined by sociologists of education and (social) psychologists. Core ideas are: 1) humans act collectively, learn by doing, and communicate in and via actions; 2) humans make, employ, and adapt tools to learn and communicate; and 3) community is central to the process of making and interpreting meaning – and thus to all forms of learning, communicating, and acting.
Carol Diane Lee is an American professor, educational researcher, school director and author. Now retired, Lee was the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy, Professor of Learning Sciences, and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. Her scholarly interests focus on the influences of culture and literacy on education, particularly among students in the African-American community. She chairs the Board of Director of the Betty Shabbazz International Charter School, an institution she helped found.
Positioning theory is a theory in social psychology that characterizes interactions between individuals. "Position" can be defined as an alterable collection of beliefs of an individual with regards to their rights, duties, and obligations. "Positioning" is the mechanism through which roles are assigned or denied, either to oneself or others. The theory describes malleable roles and storylines that determine the boundaries of future acts and the meanings of what people say and do. The theory expands upon the work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky, especially his theory of zone of proximal development (ZPD). It emphasizes the interdependence of positions, speech and other acts, and storylines that arise from them; a change in any one aspect affects the other two. The theory provides a framework to understand a person's specific behavior by considering social, individual, and moral factors.
Vera (Veronka) John-Steiner (1930–2017) was a Hungarian-American educational psychologist and activist. She was known for her work on creative collaboration, and her contributions to psycholinguistics, cultural-historical activity theory, cross-cultural education, bilingualism, psychology of women, and cognitive psychology. Her theoretical framework was heavily influenced by the work of Lev Vygotsky. In 2007, the American Educational Research Association honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.