A Publishing Machine

I have conceived another two possible paper topics. One can be titled “The Importance of Fieldwork for Cultural Psychologists.” In this paper I will illustrate how fieldwork can help cultural psychologists understand the interrelationship between the social-semiotic environment and the development of human mind. Another can be called “Toward a Pedagogic Psychology.” This paper will extend the Vygotskyan paradigm, to use experiments as occasions to facilitate subjects’ cognitive development. For example, after I collected completed surveys from junior high school students, I explained to them what cognitive skills they might have developed by answering questions. Indeed, I don’t want to run experiments, interviews, or surveys from which subjects do not benefit more than financially. I guess it’s easier for me to devise “educational questionnaires” because I study human development. It may well be simply impossible for people in other fields to devise such questions.

Okay, enough papers for psychology journals! What about sociology? (I’m a sociologist after all.) Well, I can write something like “Generational Dynamics in the Nation.” Even though my current research is concerned with ontogenesis, I cannot fail to notice generational differences in Japanese people’s attitudes toward Japan and other countries. For instance, differences between 2nd graders and college seniors are not simply developmental but also generational. (But, alas, my research design does not allow me to distinguish the two.) I think it would be interesting to bring back this generational aspect into theories of nation and society.

Anyway, I have found that people tend to find it more difficult to think about “Japanese people” than about “Japan.”