LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedings

AU T O N O MY, AG E NC Y, A ND S OC IA L C A PITA L :SURF I N G T H E A LT RU I S T I C C O R A L R E E FCAFÉ S O N A 4 0 - M I LE LAYE R OF LI F E !
Tim Murphey
This paper begins with a brief recap of human history to show how our curiosity plays acentral role in our development, leading us on to more agency within communities, andfinally to more empathetic altruism. I contend that we have the ability to dynamicallyadjust in order to harmonize ourselves to a wide range of situations, balancing
autonomy and community dialectics. I describe how we naturally learn from near-peerrole models and how it may take a little work to get ourselves out of our comfort zones
in order to model diversity. I argue that we normally position ourselves more toward the
comfort of homogeneity, whereas we need to push ourselves to try new things throughmixing with diversity, in order to really savor our time on this glorious planet.
本論は、人類の歴史を振り返りながら、私たちの好奇心が、社会（コミュニティ）において、個人のエージェンシーと自律性を高めることにいかに影響を与えてきたか、
そして最終的に共感できる利他主義に繋がるかを考える。我々人間はオートノミーと協調性／社会性を様々な環境や状況に合わせて調和する能力を持ち合わせている。そして私たちが自然とまわりにいるニアピア・ロールモデルから学んでいること、また、自分の心地良い空間から外に出て多様なロールモデルから学ぶことの難しさを考察した上で、その重要性を訴える。同質・同種の心地良さに捕われず、多様性に触れながら新しいことへ挑戦することで、この素晴らしい地球で「今」生きていることを味わえるのではないだろうか。

“I think the human spirit always wants to make a contribution. And I don’t think there
are enough invitations” (Angeles Arrien as quoted in Briskin, Erickson, Ott, & Callanan,
2009, p. 156).
So, let’s make more invitations. (Tim Murphey, Oct. 29th, 2011)

This paper’s goal is to playfully, briefly, and selectively look at the anthropological history ofhumanity (only the last six million years!) and to combine that with some views on our agency,social capital, and altruism. It is my belief that the cultivation of these three capacities is theprimary purpose of education. Fortunately, the cultivation of these things is not only relevant,Special Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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but eminently possible in language classes, in which “all subjects are ours” (Rivers, 1975, p. 96).
I would like to invite you (readers) to engage in an experience similar to the one oﬀered to myaudience at my presentation in Nagoya. If you play along and answer the questions below(preferably with someone else), you will get an even better idea of what was happening at theconference.
I started my presentation with the following playful questions on a handout (Brown, 2011).
Please try to answer them yourself for a moment before reading the rest of the article.

1. Why do you think humans stood up 6,000,000 years ago?
2. Why do you think women started birthing earlier about the same time?
3. What were the negative and positive (A B C) results of early birthing?
A)
B)C)
4. How is hip hop going to aﬀect future physiology and possibly brain functioning?
5. Why is a turtle trying to fly more beautiful than a bird sitting in a tree?
Figure 1. The questions given on the handout (taken from Brown, 2011).

Research by Rodiger and Finn (2009) shows that, even if you initially get the answers wrong,having thought about the possible answers first (wrong or right) makes your retention stronger(once you get the right answers) than if you were just given the right answers immediately.
Struggling with possible answers creates neurological networks that are more robust. The
struggling makes questions more important.
Below, I ask you to put on several hats to stimulate your imagination and your learning. As hatsoften do, they resemble each other a bit, but are also unique and multifunctional.

Putting on the Anthropologist’s Hat
Anthropologists estimate that humans began standing up six million years ago. Why this isimportant for linguists and teachers will soon become apparent. There are several theories
about why we stood up—the most likely being we had a sense of curiosity and wanted to see
farther. Some think it was so we could run faster, but, actually, quadrupeds run faster thanbipeds. So, standing may have allowed us to see farther, for example, if some dangerous animals
were coming, but standing also made our getaway slower. Others believe it was to reach higher
fruit in the trees. But since we were already climbing trees, that seems unlikely.
One result of standing and walking on two legs was that our hip structures were reshaped. This
resulted in the reshaping of the birth canal of women, and they began giving birth to babies
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much earlier. Women went from having babies after 12 months of gestation to nine months.
This perhaps had dangerous repercussions for the species, possibly reducing our numbers at
first, until we figured out how to take care of prematurely born children. However, gradually,
caretakers realized the infants needed more care, and they started to attend to them for alonger and longer period of time. This attending was crucial, not only for the survival of theindividuals, but also for the development of the species. I stress this attending because it
meant that caretakers spent more time with infants and bonded with them in ways thatprobably encouraged more extended and intensive communication. Language may very wellhave evolved through caretakers and infants babbling to each other playfully and aﬀectionately
and staying with each other long enough to develop a shared repertoire of signs (Lee, Dina,
Joaquin, Mates, & Schumann, 2010; Murphey, 2011).
Another innovation that occurred in every known group of humans on the planet is the adventof midwives. A much earlier birth was not only hard on babies, but coping with narrower birthcanals meant that women needed help—midwives—to assure that they and their infants lived.
Premature children with a diﬃcult birthing, along with communal hunting and gathering offood, brought people together to help each other survive. These beginnings of communities led
to cultures and eventually to civilization as we know it (not yet perfect, but ever improving
with its ups and downs).
The basic human drives above are interesting to note: curiosity, adaptability, and altruism
through bonding. It seems we are often at our best in the worst of times. These are some of
the best characteristics of the species. However, at times, we also have the opposite
tendencies–to merely do what has been done, force old ways, and to care only for ourselves.
And, whereas community and belonging help us survive, they are not always positive, but canlead to some negative tendencies, such as prejudice against nonmembers, war, and group-think.
As for the last two questions on the handout, the answers will come in due course. Relax.

Putting on the Dialectician’s Hat: Autonomy and Social Capital
Stewart and Irie (2011) wrote a wonderful first chapter to Realizing Autonomy in which they note
numerous initial contradictions, or dialectical pairings, involved in researching autonomy, andin particular, “freedom and constraints” within a culture (Bauman, 1999). Stewart and Irie argue
for Marx’s praxis, citing Thornbury’s afterword where he wisely concludes that “individual
independence might best be viewed as a consequence and natural outcome of mutuallysupporting community practices” (p. 264). The chapters in the book are great examples of not
only struggling with and learning from the contradictions involved in fostering autonomy inclassrooms, but, also, of mutually supporting community practices in the very writing of thebook. The authors are all to be applauded. The editing process brings to mind Hanks’s (1991)
contention that “structure is more the variable outcome of action than its invariant
precondition” (p. 17). The authors’ collaborative actions have resulted in a great book, with a
bit of magical restructuring from Irie and Stewart no doubt. As the Realizing Autonomy example

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illustrates, individual agency, social capital, and altruism are intimately connected. Individuals
who come together, aggregate their eﬀorts, and pool their resources thereby increase theirsocial capital, that is, the worth they can generate through social contacts. In addition, thealtruistic eﬀorts they make to collaborate with each other contribute to the development of
new structures and outcomes (procedures for peer editing, draft chapters, and ultimately abook), and this further enhances each individual’s social capital.
Earl Stevick touches on these dialectics in terms of “inside and between.” In teaching, Stevick(1980) introduced the metaphor of “harmony” to balance these two incommensurable
positions, and proposed that the main inducer of eﬀective learning is the ever-changing
rapport among people: “Success depends less on materials, techniques, and linguistic analyses,
and more on what goes on inside and between the people in the classroom” (p. 4). He went on
to suggest that, “The most important aspect of ‘what goes on’ is the presence or absence ofharmony—it is the parts working with, or against, one another” (p. 5). This harmony among
the parts, the opposites, and their balancing, are, for me, keys to making activities and, I dare
say, life meaningful.
In Figure 2, I try to schematically represent Stevick’s (1980) sense of harmony and various
dialectical pairings by means of a diagram. Gal’perin termed such diagrams Schemes for the
Orienting Basis of Action, or SCOBAs, and these SCOBAs “provide learners with resources thatare then formulated as a plan of action...” (cited in Lantolf, 2011, p. 38). The figure is merely
meant to help us think. I do not equate “freedom and constraints” with “inside and between”
and “intermental and intramental,” nor with “autonomy and community,” but they all aresimilar in some obvious ways. We often think that we are free, but, when attached to a group,
we can feel constrained. At the same time, the flip side of this constraint is that, “Freedom’s
just another word for nothing left to lose,” as the country singer Kris Kristoﬀerson recognizedin his song, Bobby McGee. So freedom is not good or bad in and of itself, but, rather, ourthinking and the context make it so. Still, at the extremes of the dialectics, I would suggestthat our thinking has reduced power, and we lose our ability to direct ourselves as the context
consumes us. In other words, being radical autonomy-seekers, like the lone cowboy, might
deprive us of contexts in which we can interact and learn from others and leave us isolated in
the end. Thus, somewhat ironically, we need to use our autonomy to stay in touch with ourcommunities so that we can learn more and, paradoxically, become even more autonomous. By
the same token, trying to be too autonomous—when it means isolation—ends up making us
less autonomous, because we learn less from others about how we might control our lives
more. When we can keep our behavior and thinking within the balancing circles (which, just tocomplicate matters, are always on the move), we are more likely to maintain a balance between
autonomy and community.
This balancing, a cycling movement between the extremes, helps us maintain a healthy life. A
diagram, of course, is not moving and, thus, is limited in its capacity to show the continualadjusting and moving of all the parts (so please use your imagination). There is potential
trouble with going too far to either extreme (becoming a lone cowboy or a sheep) and there isSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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wisdom in changing and adapting as a person-in-context (Ushioda, 2009) and being more orless centered while continually moving. In the circle below, one can ideally move about,adjusting appropriately to contextual needs and enjoying the benefits of all the pairs of
opposites. At times we might drift toward an extreme, but, hopefully, we are soon broughtback into the harmonizing circle that is continually changing. While this may be described as
the fusion of opposites, I would prefer to describe it as an awareness of the need to strike abalance between extremes, trying to maximize the positive attributes of any extreme that lures
us, while at the same time avoiding its negative aspects.

Figure 2. Balancing autonomy and community: Dynamic dialectical adjusting harmonizer(DDAH!) (Sing it!)

Extrapolating from the diagram (having a conversation with the SCOBA and letting it teachme), I think the model is also suggesting that the more we balance ourselves through moving,but staying centered, the more we are likely to enjoy being relatively self-regulated and selfdetermined, i.e., taking more control over our lives. This moving to stay in more or lessharmony opens our Zones of Proximal Development (ZPDs) (Vygotsky, 1978) and Zones of
Proximal Adjustment (ZPAs) (Murphey, 1996a, 2000, in press), in which we develop, activate,
and expand our abilities to learn and adjust to others so they, in turn, can open up their ZPDs
and ZPAs and learn more from us. The use of the concept ZPA implies that we all havediﬀerent and developing capacities to adjust to others in diﬀerent contexts.
Stevick’s (1980) image of harmony draws from music, which is moving waves in the air. Of
course, not all sounds are music to our ears, but, again, context and experience can sometimes
change our perceptions of otherwise discordant sound. Still, no movement, no waves to hear =no chance of harmony. We need to move to have a chance of creating harmony. To illustrateusing the example of another sense, children quickly find out, when they have no training
wheels on their bikes, that biking requires continual movement, or you fall over.

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This ability to move and to process information and to change (harmonize) as need be issimilar to Carol Dweck’s (1999, 2007) incremental theory of intelligence (growth mindset) inwhich learners accept that they learn little by little and that mistakes are part of the territoryof learning. When, by contrast, students operate with an entity theory (fixed mindset), they
believe that, whether good or bad, that is the way they are and that nothing can change it, andthus they don’t really try to change things. Even if learners have a positive first appraisal—“You’re great!”—they often do not want to risk losing the label “great” by trying things at
which they might fail. When learners operate with an incremental theory or growth mindset,
they accept that they are forever changing, moving, and learning how to adjust in order tomake harmonious relationships and attune themselves to others. Students with such beliefs are
more open to learning new things and accepting mistakes as they go along. Both harmony inrelationships with others and fluency in language are incrementally realized through a growthmindset that naturally has its ups and downs. Incremental theories are process-oriented,
harmonizing theories for tuning our instruments in continually emerging realities andsymphonies.

Putting on Another Dialectician’s Hat: Homogeneity and Diversity
Among the crucial survival strategies that we have developed are our abilities to commune,
collaborate, and communicate—what Goleman (2006) calls our social intelligence. With
increased social intelligence comes increased social capital, i.e., the value of our connections.
And the more we exercise our social intelligence, the more we can learn, act, and control ourown lives, further increasing our social capital. We would indeed be shooting ourselves in theproverbial foot if we cut oﬀ the main source of our autonomy, which very clearly is ourmodeling and learning with others in groups. Of course, balancing our time and eﬀort between
community and self can be tricky; it is clear that we need both community and self, but attimes we stray too much to extremes. In the context of our classrooms, while more autonomy
for the individual may be the goal, paradoxically, this learning of autonomy may happen mostoften in highly interactive groups (Thornbury, 2012), or, in another way of describing them,positive present communities of imagining (PCOIz) (Murphey, 2009; Murphey, Falout, Fukada, &Fukuda, 2012; Murphey & Falout, in press). A good read on community is The Power of
Co$ective Wisdom and the Trap of Co$ective Fo$y by Briskin, Erickson, Ott, and Callanan (2009).
While focusing mainly on the positive, the book also describes some of the terrors of groupthink and group protectionism, ranging from harmful and prejudicial social acts to violence.
Through all this writing about self and community, I hear Walt Whitman shouting delightfully
from his rooftop, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself! I containmultitudes!” (Leaves of Grass, sec. 51, line 1321). He might as well have said, “I containcommunities!” since it is from our communities that we draw so much of what we know, do,and say. As Bakhtin (1981) says, “The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes ‘one’s
own’ only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when heappropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention” (p. 294).
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Pearce (1971), and certainly others before him, intuitively sensed how “a kind of roughmirroring takes place between our mind and our reality” (p. 1), shaped greatly by ourcommunity. Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson’s volume, Emotional Contagion (1994) detailed how
we “catch” each other’s emotions. A few years later, I described near-peer role modeling(Murphey, 1996b; Murphey & Arao, 2001) in which not only emotions were caught by others,
but so too were strategies, beliefs, and behaviors. In 1998, Judith Rich Harris woke a lot of
people up with her book, The Nurture Assumption, illustrating with powerful data the subtitle,
How Parents Matter Less and Peers Matter More. At about the same time in the 1990s, mirror
neurons were discovered in monkeys. Mirror neurons basically allow our brains to virtuallysimulate whatever it is that we are looking at, such that, when I see you reach for a glass,similar neurons in my brain will be firing in the same pattern as if I were actually reaching for a
glass. Similarly, when we look at a sad face, we tend to feel sad along with the person. Thus,
Ramachandran (2011) even goes so far as to call mirror neurons “Ghandi neurons”, since theyoften elicit empathetic and altruistic tendencies. Mirror neurons have great importance for thelearning and socializing habits of humans, as well as for the spread of civilization(Ramachandran, 2011).
The above three paragraphs support the idea of forming homogeneous communities andlearning from them. This works—to a point. However, homogeneous groups can only get us sofar. Then they need something else—they need a shot or two of diversity. Learning a foreign
language is wrestling with diversity: diverse people, diverse customs, diverse pronunciations,diverse syntax, diverse expressions, and, hopefully, finding joy in the diversity and ending up
identifying with the diversity. Learning a new language is also about opening up to newcommunities. With Figure 3, I hope to communicate that, in describing our communities,
there is a further dialectic of homogeneity and diversity. Once again, the extremes are generally
unproductive: overly homogeneous communities can be boring and lack innovation, as theywish to replicate the status quo, and overly diverse communities can be diﬃcult to coordinate,both of which could explain why some people prefer “doing it” on their own after having had
bad experiences with groups at the extremes. Most people naturally do near-peer role modeling(Murphey & Arao, 2001; Singh, 2010), which works mostly in the domain of homogeneity, andteachers can use this natural tendency to help students learn more. But life is pretty boring if
you just stay with people who are like you. Still, we tend to naturally gather around the single
asterisk (*) in Figure 3 on the left of the line below, under homogeneity. However, getting out
and mixing with diverse people leads to a richer and fuller experience of what is oﬀered to us
on the planet. My ideal for my students would be to stray to the side of diversity around the
double asterisk (**). Of course, when things are too diverse, they can get very complicated andchaotic. So, even something as good as diversity has its limits, and we need to be careful of
extremes. Thus, again, we have a DDAH! to help us adapt and move from homogeneity tomore diversity and back again when needed.

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Figure 3. Balancing homogeneity and diversity: Dynamic dialectic adjusting harmonizer!
(DDAH!)

In his book, Where Good Ideas Come From, Stephen Johnson (2010) uses the metaphor of thecoral reef and the café as places of diversity, creativity, and activity—somewhat scary places for
those who have not ventured far from the cave. However, it is only in venturing out that we
can interact with diversity and become someone diﬀerent through incorporating others into
our mental networks and increasing our social capital. And once we are engaging in diﬀerent
communities, our role models tend to shift as our minds, and our mirror neurons naturally
model the diﬀerent people around us, and we begin diversity modeling (Murphey, in press)
through simulation (Iacoboni, 2008). This could also be called diversity peering, which is thebringing of diverse people, who are quite diﬀerent from us, into our realms of imagination andmodeling them, such that they become our peers (even if only imaginary). Children tend to do
this much more easily, and are adaptable and flexible in this regard, not only with people, butwith animals, plants, and even objects in the world. (See also, along this vein of thought, Jocey
Quinn’s (2010) lovely book on imagined social capital.)
Note that it is also quite frequent that whole fields migrate toward homogeneity in search of a
firm identity (Kuhn, 1970), but, in doing so, they can greatly deprive themselves of diversity
resources. In our own field of SLA, we had a strong movement for a while that suggested theory
cu$ing. But then some brave people dared to speak up for the rights and benefits of diversity.
Two such publications include The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition (Block, 2003) and,more recently, Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Atkinson, 2011). Of note is
Lourdes Ortega’s final chapter in Atkinson’s volume, in which she describes our choices:…We have a choice in SLA studies among entrenchment, incommensurability, andepistemological diversity. Entrenchment is likely to be a temperamental reaction that is
unsustainable in the long run. Incommensurability is an option that some may findmerit in at this juncture in the history of SLA studies. I want to argue that the third
option, epistemological diversity, is the best choice. (Ortega, 2011, p. 176)

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LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference ProceedingsPeter Block (2008), citing Putnam and Feldstein (2003), describes social capital, or communitynetwork benefits, which, interestingly, allows us to see epistemological diversity in an evenbetter light:
Bonding social capital are networks that are inward looking, composed of people of likemind. Other social networks “encompass diﬀerent types of people and tend to be
outward looking—bridging social capital.”… And as Putnam and Feldstein (2003) put it,“A society that has only bonding social capital will be segregated into mutually hostile
camps. So a pluralistic democracy requires lots of bridging social capital, not just thebonding variety.” (p. 18)
Bonding social capital, good group dynamics, and near-peer role modeling are all powerful tools
for classroom teachers in the initial stages of bonding. However, after bonding, greater
stimulation can be found through bridging social capital, challenging the unknown (Murphey,1989), and diversity-peering. Inviting opportunities for bridging social capital and Ortega’s(2011) epistemological diversity create spaces for diversity-peering and enlarging theautonomous self through identifying with others. In other words, putting diverse people
together first helps with acceptance that leads to aﬃliation and identification. We tend to
identify with those we live and work with most. When diversity is around us, we begin to
identify with it, bond with it, and empathize with it. Ergo, we contain multitudes. (N.B. You
can also try out the diversity peering survey in Appendix A.)

Putting on the Altruist’s Hat
Our species’ initial drives (curiosity, adaptability, and altruism through bonding, as we saw with
our anthropologist’s hats) have served us well. However, as noted above, too much bondingsocial capital can sometimes create more conflicts, and we need to look at how we can build
more bridging social capital and identify with diversity. I invite you to see ourselves as being in
the invitational profession. We can invite students to look into the diverse lives of others who
have become human rights activists, pacifists, ecological advocates, and others who haveadopted international postures (Yashima, 2009). We can identify with not only strangers in thestreet, but with diverse others in strange lands through the massive media networks. With
animal rights and ecological activists, we might even start identifying with all of nature, and,
finally, with Gaia (Earth) herself as a living entity (Cates, 2005). These sideways steps ofidentification are imaginable because our brains are wired for such imagination to ensure
survival—not just survival of ourselves, but of others and theplanet because we essentially depend upon each other—weare part of Gaia.
“The entire reach of the biosphere envelope is less than 40
miles from ocean floor to outer space. Within this narrow
band, living creatures and the Earth’s geochemical processes
interact to sustain each other” (Ri(en, 2009, p. 597). Some
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people commute 40 miles daily to school or work. It’s just a thinlayer of life on a large planet that already has a few holes here andthere. Along with Ri(en, I am curious as to whether we have theadaptive capacities necessary to survive as a species on the planet,or whether our energy addiction practices will, in the end, disable
life on the planet.
Our propensity toward altruistic action may be our saving grace—an altruism that expands
exponentially in groups of people who belong, bond, and bridge.
So notice is given. You’re all invited. Now, go change the world and have a good life.
And remember… invite your students to join you.

Post Script
It was my students who asked question #4 How is hip-hop dancing going to aﬀect future
physiology and possibly brain functioning? And I have no answer.
Question #5: Why is a turtle trying to fly more beautiful than a bird sitting in a tree? A turtle
trying to fly is attempting to do something, even if it seems impossible, and that is beautiful in
its own way. I believe this is also a characteristic that our species shares with turtles—andpossibly with life on earth.

Tim Murphey (PhD Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in Applied Linguistics) Kanda Universityof International Studies professor, TESOL’s Professional Development in Language Education series editor,
co-author with Zoltán Dörnyei of Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom, presently researches
SCT applications with particular emphasis on student voice, agency, identity, and community construction.
He rea$y gets a kick out of creatively scaﬀolding the agentizing of students’ languaging abilities andteaching people to ski and ju)le, at the same time. His novel on the Japanese entrance exam system, The
Tale that Wags (Perceptia Press) came out in 2010 in English and Japanese in September 2011. His mostrecent book is Teaching in Pursuit of Wow! (2012, ABAX).
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To cite this article: Murphey, T. (2012). Autonomy, agency, and social capital: Surfing the altruistic coral
reef cafés on a 40-mile layer of life!. In K. Irie & A. Stewart (Eds.), Proceedings of the JALT Learner
Development SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference, [Special issue] Learning Learning, 19(2), 4-17. Retrieved
from http://ld-sig.org/LL/19two/murphey.pdf

References
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Routledge.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.) In M.
Holquist, (Ed.), The dialogic imagination (pp. 259-422). Austin, TX: The University ofTexas Press.
Bauman, Z. (1999). Culture as praxis (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.
Block, P. (2008). Community: The structure of belonging. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Briskin, A., Erickson, S., Ott, J., & Callanan, T. (2009). The power of co$ective wisdom and the trapof co$ective fo$y. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Brown, S. (2011). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New
York: Penguin.
Cates, K. (2005). Teaching for a better world: Global issues and language education in Japan. In
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59-73). Stoke, U.K.: Trentham Books.
Dweck, C. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia,
PA: The Psychology Press.
Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Goleman, D. (2006). Social inte$igence: The revolutionary new science of human relationships. New
York, NY: Random House.
Hanks, W. (1991). Forward. In J. Lave & E. Wenger (Eds.), Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral
participation (pp. 13-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, J. (1998). The nurture assumption. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J., & Rapson, R. (1994). Emotional contagion. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Iacoboni, M. (2008). Mirroring people: The science of empathy and how we connect with others. New
York: Picador.
Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Johnson, S. (2010). Where good ideas come ,om: The natural history of innovation. New York:Riverhead –Penguin. (See also Where Good Ideas Come From [video file] at http://
www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html)
Lantolf, J. (2011). The sociocultural approach to second language acquisition: Sociocultural
theory, second language acquisition, and artificial L2 development. In D. Atkinson (Ed.),
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Appendix A
Diversity Peering Survey
1. How many people in your professional environment have you regularly collaborated with(that you see on a monthly if not weekly or daily basis) in the last year? Write theirnames: _______________________________________________________total #_______+
2. Occasional collaborators – you collaborated one or more times this past year on a
project? (paper, presentation, class lessons and study, curriculum, reports, etc.) Write theirnames: +____________________________________________________total# _______
3. How many of the people above are of a diﬀerent gender? total#______________+
4. How many of the people above are 10 years older or younger? total#_______________
5. How many of the people above are of a diﬀerent nationality? total#______________
6. How many of the people above are of a diﬀerent ethnicity? total# _____________+
7. How many of the people above are not in your immediate field? total# ________+
8. What is your total 3 through 7 added up: _______________ **How do you feel about this?
___________________________________________________________________________++++
9.What kind of people would you like to collaborate more with? _______________
10. Where might you find these people?______________________________________+** Note: There are no absolute scores for how collaborative someone is. It is up to you andrelative to your context and desires. Research does say however that the more diverse thepartners are, the more beneficial the collaboration usually is (thus questions #3-7). Send
comments to Tim Murphey at mits@kanda.kuis.ac.jp

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

Special Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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