A commentary on incommensurate programs

Douglas Macbeth

pp. 73-103

in: Timothy Koschmann (ed), Theories of learning and studies of instructional practice, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

This commentary examines the formulation of 'situatedness' and how it is set to work in our lead paper. The commentary discusses some of the conceptual history of the term and its cognates in the literature, and proposes a different reading of its analytic implications, drawing on ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies of 'situated action." It considers how we might take interest in situated worlds, and then turns to our common corpus of classroom materials to suggest how this alternate reading could take interest in them. Examining the same materials as our lead paper, it writes an analysis that is different in kind. On this account, 'situatedness' cannot freely be joined to or supplement other analytic programs, if only because it owns its own program.