Abstract
In the school context, feelings and emotions are generally perceived as obstacles to learning. Today, however, the introduction of complex real-world issues in lessons of Geography, History or civic education, such as international migration or cultural diversity, blurs the classic boundaries between emotions and cognition when they prompt students’ personal opinions and experiences. In the frame of a research on teaching and learning practices in education for cultural diversity, this paper examines how students’ personal emotions were elicited in the lessons, and how they were semiotized, transformed in the course of social interactions. We analyze empirical data gathered in 12 Primary and Junior school classrooms in Switzerland. 12 teachers and 232 students (from 11 to 16 years old) participated. We adopt a cultural-historical perspective inspired by Vygotsky and his followers and show the interactional processes by which the emotions undergo semiotization and influence the unfolding of the students’ psychological processes. In the sequences we analyze, using the Valsiner’s schema (Human Development, 44, 84–97, 2001), we identify three different modalities of semiotization: 1) the students’ feelings are simply verbalized and linked to the speaker’s affective world; 2) the verbalized emotions are reframed and interwoven with factual information; 3) the verbalized emotions are linked to information and reframed with collective emotional experiences. These processes are described, illustrated and discussed. We shed light on the central role of the verbal interventions of the teacher (who supports but also hinders the processes sometimes) and of materiality, here photographs, which mediated the teacher-student interactions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Emotional experience (subjective feeling) is one of the five emotional components in Scherer (2005)’s model of emotion, the other four being appraisal (cognitive), bodily symptoms (neurophysiological), action tendencies (motivational), and facial and vocal expression (motor).
“The Russian term perezhivanie serves to express the idea that one and the same objective situation may be interpreted, perceived, experienced or lived through by different children in different ways. Neither ‘emotional experience’ (which is used here and which only covers the affective aspect of the meaning of perezhivanie), nor ‘interpretation’ (which is too exclusively rational) are fully adequate translations of the noun. Its meaning is closely linked to that of the German verb ‘erleben’ (cf. ‘Erlebnis’, ‘erlebte Wirklichkeit’)” (van der Veer and Valsiner 1994, p. 354).
“Ah ben c’est dès que: [rire] dès qu’on travaille avec l’émotion et puis qu’on soulève le couvercle eh ben il peut y avoir des étincelles” (Elsa).
“il faut les laisser quand même un petit peu sortir’ je trouve ces émotions, bon en même temps il faut les : il faut les cadrer parce que bon on est pas des psys on est pas enfin moi je suis pas psy donc quand ça déborde […] on se dit bon ben stop on: là euh là si tu veux après en parler avec moi on peut en parler: ou bien ça dépend mais il faut faire gaffe’ aussi parce que l’on peut se retrouver dans des situations euh très pénibles” (Edwige).
“mhm oui je pense que / trop en parler c’est plutôt nuisible […] et puis je pense qu’ils ont aussi besoin qu’on les aide à ça, qu’on les encourage à s’intéresser à autre chose qu’à eux-mêmes” (Elsa).
“donc notre rôle c’est aussi de leur proposer autre chose que toujours ces problèmes émotionnels quoi, ((mhm)) et je pense que le groupe classe euh: il est/ le savoir ou les lectures, ou l’écriture, ou le travail en soi euh peut les aider beaucoup, ((mhm)) autant que d’en parler je pense” (Emilie).
Informed consent was obtained from all the participants in the study.
“Les photos permettent de prendre conscience de ses propres expériences et emotions. Les objectifs sont alors de permettre de travailler sur les représentations des élèves et de les amener à s’interroger sur la source de leurs perceptions, à travers notamment une démarche en trois étapes: ‘regarder – analyser – interpreter’.”
The data are also analyzed by Stéphanie de Diesbach-Dolder in her PhD thesis. I thank her for her work and the discussion.
“ben moi je peux vous dire, vous avez tous entendu qu’après la guerre mondiale avec Hitler, il y avait des MILLIONS de gens qui étaient morts. Des millions, vous imaginez en Suisse, il y a 8 millions d’habitants. eh ben pendant cette guerre, il y en a eux quarante, quarante-cinq millions d’habitants qui sont morts. vous imaginez à cause de la guerre. eh ben pendant en tous cas quinze ou vingt ans, les gens n’ont pas du tout pu parler de ça, de ce qu’ils avaient vécu pendant la guerre, les horreurs qu’ils avaient vécues pendant la guerre. euh dans toutes les guerres c’est comme ça, vous savez il y a eu des guerres un peu partout dans le monde, eh ben, les gens après, même s’ils ont beaucoup souffert ils n’arrivent pas à raconter tout ce qu’ils ont vécu parce que c’est trop difficile. alors c’est vrai Lea t’arrives très bien à l’exprimer, et puis Babette, moi j’imagine que dans ta famille, ils aiment mieux ne pas en parler parce que c’est trop douloureux, moi je pense quand meme” (Elise).
Samuel Harry il a choisi euh:- cette image parce que: il trouve ça triste que: des personnes vivent dans une voiture, / pis ben ça le touche parce que: / faut dire qu’il y a des gens qui vivent dans une maison et tout et pis ils s’en rendent pas compte, pis lui ils/ ils vivent dans une voiture et ils sont déjà contents de ce qu’ils ont.
Elsa d’accord
Samuel pis voilà,
Elsa ouais. / ça joue pour toi ce qu’il a dit§
Harry §ouais§
Elsa §ok, alors on passe à la l’image d’après,/
References
Åberg, M., Mäkitalo, Å., & Säljö, R. (2010). Knowing and arguing in a panel debate: speaker roles and responsivity to others. In K. Littleton & C. Howe (Eds.), Educational dialogues: understanding and promoting productive interaction (pp. 13–31). London: Routledge.
Audigier, F. (2004). Rien ne sert de nier les émotions, mais. In L. Lafortune, P.-A. Doudin, & M.-F. Daniel (Eds.), Les émotions à l’école (pp. 73–98). Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Université du Québec.
Bautier, E., & Goigoux, R. (2004). Difficultés d'apprentissage, processus de secondarisation et pratiques enseignantes: une hypothèse relationnelle [Learning difficulties, secondarisation process and teaching practices: a relational hypothesis]. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 148, 89–100.
Crapanzano, V. (1994). Réflexions sur une anthropologie des émotions. Terrain, 22, 109–117. doi:10.4000/terrain.3089.
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3/4), 169–200.
Gallotti, C. (1994). Le voile d’honnêteté et la contagion des passions. La querelle sur la moralité du théâtre au XVIIe siècle. Terrain, 22, 51–68.
Gonzales Rey, F. (2011). The path to subjectivity. Advancing alternative understandings of Vygotsky and the cultural historical legacy. In P. R. Portes & S. Salas (Eds.), Vygotsky in 21st century society. Advances in cultural historical theory and praxis with non-dominant communities (pp. 32–49). Bern: Peter Lang.
Goodwin, M. H., & Goodwin, C. (2000). Emotion within situated activity. In N. Budwig, I. Uzgris, & J. W. Wertsch (Eds.), Communication: an arena of development (pp. 33–54). Stamford: Ablex.
Grossen, M., & Ros, J. (2014). Connaissances quotidiennes et savoirs scolaires: entre resource symboique et obstacle. In C. Moro & N. Muller Mirza (Eds.), Sémiotique, culture et développement psychologique (pp. 177–194). Lille: Presses Universitaires de Septentrion.
Grossen, M., Zittoun, T., & Ros, J. (2012). Boundary crossing events and potential appropriation space in philosophy, literature and general knowledge. In E. Hjörne, G. van der Aalsvoort, & G. de Abreu (Eds.), Learning, social interaction and diversity. Exploring school practices (pp. 15–34). London: Sense.
Holodynski, M. (2013). The internalization theory of emotions: a cultural, historical approach to the development of emotions. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20(1), 4–38. doi:10.1080/10749039.2012.745571.
Holodynski, M., & Friedlmeier, W. (2006). Development of emotions and emotion regulation. New York: Springer.
Holodynski, M., & Seeger, F. (2013). The psychology of emotions and cultural historical activity theory, part 1. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20(1), 1–3. doi:10.1080/10749039.2012.746370.
Kärtner, J., Holodynski, M., & Wörmann, V. (2013). Parental ethnotheories, social practice and the culturespecific development of social smiling in infants. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20(1), 79–95.
Knight-Diop, M., & Oesterreich, H. A. (2009). Pedagogical possibilities: engaging cultural rules of emotion. Teachers College Record, 111(11), 2678–2704.
Le Breton, D. (1998). Les passions ordinaires. Anthropologie des émotions. Paris: Armand Colin.
Leontiev, A. N. (1971). Introduction (The psychology of art (Scripta Technica, Inc., Trans.; pp. v–xi)). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Levyk, M. G. (2008). The affective establishment and maintenance of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. Educational Theory, 58(1), 1–19.
L'humanité en mouvement [Humanity in motion]. (2005). Berne: Alliance Sud.
Lutz, C., & Abu-Lughod, L. (1990). Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Magiolino, L. L. S., & Smolka, A. L. B. (2013). How do emotions signify? Social relations and psychological functions in the dramatic constitution of subjects. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20(1), 96–112. doi:10.1080/10749039.2012.743155.
Mahn, H., & John-Steiner, V. (2002). The gift of confidence: AVygotskian view of emotions. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 46–58). Oxford: Blackwell.
Morcom, V. (2014). Scaffolding social and emotional learning in an elementary classroom community: a sociocultural perspective. International Journal of Educational Research, 67, 18–29. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2014.04.002.
Moro, C., & Rodriguez, C. (2005). L'objet et la construction de son usage chez le bébé. Berne: Peter Lang.
Muller Mirza, N. (2012). Civic education and intercultural issues in Switzerland: psychosocialdimensions of an education to Botherness. Journal of Social Science Education, 10(4), 31–40.
Muller Mirza, N., Grossen, M., de Diesbach-Dolder, S., & Nicollin, L. (2014). Transforming personalexperience and emotions through secondarisation in education for cultural diversity: an interplay betweenunicity and genericity. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. doi:10.1016/j.lcsi.2014.02.004.
Nicollin, L., & Muller Mirza, N. (2013). Le rapport à l'altérité et à la diversité dans les plans d'étude de Suisse romande: Quelles conceptions d'une éducation à l'altérité? Lausanne: Institut de Psychologie (Université deLausanne)
Ratner, C. (2000). A cultural-psychological analysis of emotions. Culture and Psychology, 6, 5–39.
Rosaldo, M. (1980). Knowledge and passion: Ilongot notions of self and social life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salgado, J. (2006). The feeling of dialogical self: affectivity, agency and otherness. In L. M. Simão & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Otherness in question: labyrinths of the self (pp. 53–72). Greenwich: Information Age.
Santiago-Delefosse, M. (2004). Activité et émotions: Une perspective développementale des émotions comme instruments psychologiques [Activity and emotions: a developmental perspective of emotions as psychological instruments]. Bulletin de Psychologie, 57(469), 29–36.
Scherer, K. R. (2005). What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information, 44(4), 695–729. doi:10.1177/0539018405058216.
Schwarz, B., & Goldberg, T. (2013). BLook who’s talking : identity and emotions as resources to historical peer reasoning. In M. Baker, J. Andriessen, & S. Järvelä (Eds.), Affective learning together (pp. 272–292). London: Routldege.
Smagorinsky, P., & Daigle, E. A. (2012). The role of affect in students’ writing for school. In E. Grigorenko, E. Mambrino, & D. Preiss (Eds.), Writing: a mosaic of new perspectives (pp. 293–310). New York: Psychology Press.
Vadeboncoeur, J. A., & Collie, R. J. (2013). Locating social and emotional learning in schooled environments: a Vygotskian perspective on learning as unified. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20(3), 201–225. doi:10.1080/10749039.2012.755205.
Valsiner, J. (2001). Process structure of semiotic mediation in human development. Human Development, 44, 84–97.
Valsiner, J. (2007). Culture in minds and societies: foundations of cultural psychology. New Dehli: Sage.
Valsiner, J., & Han, G. (2009). Where is culture within the dialogical perspectives on the self? International Journal for Dialogical Science, 3(1), 1–8.
van der Veer, R. (1984). Early periods in the work of L.S. Vygotsky: the influence of Spinoza, 1–12. Retrieved from https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/…/7_703_038.pdf
van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (1994). The Vygotsky reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Veresov, N. (2014). Emotions, perezhivanie et développement culturel : le projet inachevé de Lev Vygotski. In C. Moro & N. Muller Mirza (Eds.), Sémiotique, culture et développement psychologique (pp. 209–237). Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1925/1971). The psychology of art. Cambridge: MIT Press. Partially available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/index.htm
Vygotsky, L. S. (1930/1982). Sobranie socinenij ï, (Collected works). Moscow: Pedagogika
Vygotsky, L. S. (1934/1986). Thought and language. Cambridge: The MIT Press
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Lecture 4: Emotions and their development in childhood (N. Minick, Trans.). In R. Rieber & A. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (Vol. 1) (pp. 325–358). New York: Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Oxford: Blackwell.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1999). The teaching about emotions. Historical-psychological studies. In R. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (Vol. 6: Scientific Legacy) (pp. 71–235). New York: Plenum. trans: M. J. Hall.
Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion. A new social science understanding. London: Sage.
Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Talking about emotions: semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognition & Emotion, 6(3), 285–319. doi:10.1080/02699939208411073.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (100013_1322/92; “Transformation of Emotions and Construction of Knowledge: Identity in Classroom Practices in Intercultural Education”—M. Grossen). The author warmly thanks Michèle Grossen and Laura Nicollin for their involvement in the study, and particularly Stéphanie de Diesbach-Dolder, who is doing her PhD within this project, for the quality of her work and discussion . The author is also grateful to the school authorities, teachers, and students without whose cooperation this project would not have come to fruition. Furthermore, the author would like to thank the reviewers for their comments, which have enabled her to substantially improve on the initial version of the manuscript. She also thanks Elizabeth Portier for her precious help with the English language.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
All procedures involving human participants were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Conflict of Interest
The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all the participants included in the study.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Muller Mirza, N. Emotions, Development and Materiality at School: a Cultural-Historical Approach. Integr. psych. behav. 50, 634–654 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-016-9348-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-016-9348-4