Prachi Vashishtha
Being trained in the areas of child development and education I have always realized the formative role of culture in the learning and development of children. During my masters in child development I was introduced to the Vygotskian ideas but the theory passed away like any other theory without evoking much interest and curiosity. It was later during my M.Phil course work when I was introduced to the cultural historical psychology and exposed to the ideas of Cole, Wertsch, Chaiklin, Kozulin, Daniels and Moll which intrigued me to explore further and delve deeper into these writings. My M.Phil dissertation work in the area of teacher mediation and intersubjectivity was informed by most of these works. Moreover, working as a Senior Research Associate at National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi, I came to know more about the grass root realities of education sector in India which is marked by very high drop-out rate and stark inequalities at the level of access and quality. Vygotskian researches helped me to understand the dynamic interplay of cultural-historical factors influencing educational context in India. My PhD thesis takes a cultural-historical position to understand the creation of intersubjective spaces during the teaching-learning process in a primary school classroom.
I expect the ISCAR summer university will help me to develop a better understanding of the cultural-historical approaches to study children and classroom processes. My focus would be to work towards a methodology for researching intersubjectivity especially in educational context. The summer university will also be an exposure for me to the experiences of the researchers from other cultural contexts and I hope it will be an enriching experience and help me to think about my research in a more creative manner.