Cult Stud of Sci Educ DOI 10.1007/s11422-015-9726-0 FORUM
The relationship between passibility, agency and social interaction and its relevance for research and pedagogy Susan A. Kirch1 • Jasmine Y. Ma1
Received: 27 September 2015 / Accepted: 19 November 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract The interaction analysis presented by Kim and Roth examines nine students, their teachers, the learning task and materials in a mixed second and third grade science classroom during the school day. In the research narrative readers are introduced to two resourceful and creative groups of students as they work on a task assigned by their teacher—to cantilever a pizza box over the edge of a student desk. Readers are given glimpses (through images and transcripts) of the inventive ways each group solved the cantilever problem. Sometimes the children disregarded the design constraints, but even after compliance they managed to successfully solve the problem. The point of the learning task was not clearly stated, but readers are told the unit focused on investigating forces, forces in equilibrium, and structures as well as different forces (push, pull, etc.), properties of materials, and the relations between weight and balance while building structures. Kim and Roth were specifically interested in using this session to investigate and resolve the problem of learning as described by socio-cultural theorists as, how does a learner orient toward a learning outcome when they cannot do that until they have learned it? To answer this question Kim and Roth argued that learners (in engineering design) learn when and because: (1) they are open to be affected by the responses of materials to student action
Lead Editor: C. Murphy. This review essay addresses issues raised in Mijung Kim and Wolff-Michael Roth’s paper entitled: Beyond agency: sources of knowing and learning in children’s science- and technology- related problem solving. DOI:10.1007/s11422-015-9683-7. Susan A. Kirch and Jasmine Y. Ma have contributed equally to this work. & Susan A. Kirch
[email protected] Jasmine Y. Ma
[email protected] 1
Department of Teaching and Learning, New York University, 239 Greene Street, New York, NY 10003, USA
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(i.e. student and material agency and physical touch) (2) their bodies are endowed with the capacity to be affected (i.e. passibility), and (3) knowledge and understanding emerge as and in social relations first. In their analysis, Kim and Roth argued that knowledge and knowing-how depend on these three universal processes. The authors further theorized the concept of passibility. Included in their theory of passibility was the claim that passibility is necessary for agency. After reading this paper we found we had many questions about Kim and Roth’s analysis, context, and assertions, but we decided to focus this forum response on the problem of the learner and the solutions posed by Kim and Roth as well as the proposed relationship between passibility and agency. Keywords
Agency Passibility Pedagogy Problem of learner Activity theory
Progress on solving the problem of the learner? What is the problem of the learner according to activity theorists? In the socio-cultural-historical psychology of Lev Vygotsky, learning activity is different from all other activities including play, work, everyday communication, etc. For instance, Vasily Davydov (2008) defined learning activity as an activity in which the content of learning is specifically theoretical knowledge. Mastery of this knowledge gained through learning activity leads the development of learners’ ‘‘foundations for theoretical consciousness and thinking’’ and their ‘‘creative and personality level of realizing practical forms of activity’’ (Davydov 2008, p. 236). Joachim Lompsher (1999, p. 267) explained that the problem of the learner engaged in learning activity differs from other kinds of activity because it Aims, above all, at psychic [psychological] transformations of the subject itself…. It is an essential feature of learning activity that the acquisition of new knowledge and skill requires certain prerequisites in terms of abilities, motivation, and memory structures that are only partially developed to the necessary degree at a certain moment. If they were fully developed, learning would not be necessary; if they were not developed at all, learning would not be possible. In keeping with these and similar socio-cultural perspectives on the problem of the learner in learning activity, Kim and Roth paraphrased and described it as a ‘‘fundamental condition of learning’’ such that when learning, ‘‘learners cannot intentionally orient to the learning outcome because they inherently do not know it so that that knowledge cannot be the object of intention.’’ To ensure there is some effective or efficient connection between learning effort and learning outcomes from the learner’s perspective, given the problem of the learner, there are several systemic ‘‘contradictions’’ (defined by Kari Kuutti (1996)) such as problems, ruptures, breakdowns, and clashes that need to be continuously resolved during learning activity. Again, Lompscher (1999, p. 267) summarized them well and they can be thought of as prerequisites to this problem. First, there is a contradiction between … the objectively necessary prerequisites for the acquisition of certain material and the existing prerequisites. ‘‘And this contradiction’’ must be solved continuously,
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time and again, in the course of learning activity by preforming appropriate learning actions…. The problem is that the learning actions necessary to reach certain goals are often not yet available to the learner or are available only at an insufficient level. At first they have to be formed systematically; only then can they serve as essential means for learning. In the second major contradiction to be resolved, Lompscher (1999, p. 267–268) argued that prerequisites could not be formed without understanding the target of the learning activity, Learning actions are prerequisites for acquisition of certain material, but they cannot be formed (acquired, learned) without being engaged in the corresponding material. It is impossible to learn the appropriate learning actions first and then to learn the material itself. The actions’ content, structure, and course are determined by the object; there is no contentless or objectless formal action to be transferred to different materials. Kim and Roth’s explanation of the problem of the learner captures an interesting absolute that may not represent many activity theorist positions: ‘‘Learners cannot intentionally orient to the learning outcome because they inherently do not know it so that knowledge cannot be the object of intention.’’ We have not found any indication in the activity theory literature stating a learner cannot orient to an outcome because they do not know that outcome (e.g., I cannot orient to the concept ‘‘balance of forces’’ until I know the concept ‘‘balance of forces’’). In fact, one of the first steps in instructional designs developed by a range of activity theorists working to apply Vygotsky’s theory of development to classroom instruction is to determine how to present the outcome to the learner as part of creating a new zone of proximal development (ZPD). These are tangible objects referred to as starting abstractions (e.g., Davydov 1990), germ cells (e.g., Engestro¨m 1987), orienting basis of action (Gal’perin 1992), and modeling operations (e.g., Aidarova 1982). Regardless of the name, this abstract form, designed to resemble the learning outcome, was invented as a way to help solve one of the contradictions of the learner. The abstract form must be generated by or with the learner(s) and must be recognizable and usable by the learner(s). For example, to teach students the theoretical concept of natural processes as a tool for understanding and explaining the conceptual tool of energy, a teacher might start by producing a concrete illustration of a particular natural process, using a demonstration, and then work with students to represent it generally or theoretically (e.g., graphically, diagrammatically). In Harmut Giest and Lompscher’s (2003) example of natural processes the starting abstraction represented the theoretical concept and outcome that students did not yet understand, but it was in a form they could understand and develop further (including arrows representing change over time). In the study, teachers and students used the graphic repeatedly over time and students could apply it to any natural process studied. Through a variety of learning actions, students began to form the desired theoretical concepts. Some of the concepts required extensive interactions with teacher and/or colleagues, while others were more straightforward. All required interactions with the learning object including physical interactions whenever possible, but only in the presence of the starting abstraction with which to study and develop the intended theoretical concept.
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Have Kim and Roth provided tools for resolving the problem of the learner in learning activity? In spite of the difference in the conceptualization of the problem of the learner, we can still consider whether Kim and Roth have provided tools to the education researcher and/or teacher for resolving this problem. For activity theorists working in the area of pedagogy, the solutions to the problem of the learner are the major tasks of the teacher and include: (1) stimulating new questions and problem situations while in the learners’ zone of actual performance, (2) developing conscious learning goals and stimulating the new learning activity in the ZPD (including: creating a starting abstraction; make learning means available and guiding application; initiating new learning activity as needed; and organizing classroom discourse), (3) supporting learners solving the original problem (and others) and recognizing a transition to a new zone of actual performance (ZAP) and (4) supporting the learner in creating a new ZPD (e.g., Giest and Lompscher 2003). This means that learners must ‘‘become more or less conscious of the goals, course, and results of the activity and become actively engaged with the learning material, analyzing this material, solving problems in that context, drawing their own conclusions… through their own initiative’’ (Giest and Lompscher 2003, p. 270). For Kim and Roth, the solution to the problem of the learner is to make the theoretical concept (learning goal or activity outcome) accessible through unconscious reception, physical action and trial and error exploration (e.g., empirical instruction per Davydov 2008). Did they make progress on the problem of the learner? Kim and Roth developed a new analytical concept, passibility, which may advance our ability to solve the problem. In activity theory there is a commitment to working deeply with a learning object, but only within the context of a starting abstraction. This abstraction automatically places constraints on the trial and error exploration (or eliminates it) and replaces it with more systematic actions. Whether or not they are more purposeful actions depends on the plan, students and instructor. What Kim and Roth seem to suggest is missing in the activity theory solution is attention to the micro-scale of interaction—to the role of passibility in producing agency and how passibility influences learning on the social plane in minute-byminute interactions. To understand their argument we found it helpful to understand their definitions of agency and passibility as well as the relationship between these constructs.
As researchers is it time to get ‘‘beyond agency’’ and use passibility? How do the authors define agency and passibility? Kim and Roth defined agency three ways (1) agency is the capacity to act, (2) agency is an outcome of passibility, and (3) agency is the purposeful (intentional) engagement with the world. Drawing on the works of ‘‘phenomenological philosophers and societal-historical psychologists’’ Kim and Roth explain that ‘‘agency… is the effect of a much more profound capacity: passibility.’’ Passibility refers to the capacity to be affected (moved, touched or influenced by something). In Kim and Roth’s definition (adapted from Leont’ev 1959 and Henry 2000), agency arises from or is the result of the capacity to be affected by the environment (materially) coupled with a capacity to be affected internally (psychologically). In other definitions, agency is coupled with structure as in William Sewell’s (2005, p. 143–144) version of
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agency, which ‘‘arises from the actor’s knowledge of schemas… agency arises from the actor’s control of resources’’ or as in Michel Foucault’s definition in which ‘‘agency is a discursive construction exemplifying the productive character of power’’ (Barker 2012, p. 238). In the education research literature, agency does not typically refer to intentional or intended action as used by Kim and Roth. Philip Barker (2012, p. 240) presents a synopsis of more neutral positions, which still emphasize social construction, as lacking intention, ‘‘Agency is the socially constituted capacity to act’’ and compares this to Anthony Giddens (1984, p.9) who is explicit about intention, ‘‘Agency refers not to the intentions people have in doing things but to their capability of doing those things in the first place’’ (emphasis added). These conceptions of agency all fit with the conceptions of learning that Kim and Roth say rely on agency. Another controversial position in Kim and Roth’s definition of agency is their acceptance that humans and non-humans alike experience agency. This is keeping with the actor-network theory scholars cited. In Bruno Latour’s version of ANT, however, humans and non-humans (artifacts) are agentic in the sense that they are actants–they affect the actions of other actants (e.g., Latour 2007). The action, however, lies in the bundle, or network, since actants all affect each other. In Kim and Roth’s model it is not clear where agency is located (e.g., is it found in humans? in non-humans? in the network of actants?). Kim and Roth’s definition of agency appears to be the capacity to act as well as intentional engagement with the world. Both are made possible or caused by passibility, which is the capacity to be affected. Both humans and non-humans alike experience these capacities and actions. To understand the implications of this definition for education researchers, we applied it to the example in the research narrative of the students attempting to build a cantilevered structure. To make a cantilevered structure and to learn to explain how a cantilevered structure works (from a physics or mathematics perspective, for example) are two distinct learning outcomes. Making a cantilevered structure through a trial-and-error approach is possible with or without some background knowledge of forces and balance, which the students in this study already possessed. According to Kim and Roth’s definition of passibility, the students were passible in every interaction they had with objects and each other or the teacher. For example, when they held the box on the desk and adjusted it to see when it was balanced, they were passible in relation to the agentic box, which toppled when it extended beyond a certain point. When they listened to the teacher tell them the box couldn’t be opened they were passible in relation to the teacher–agent asserting the rules. According to Kim and Roth’s definition of agency, this passibility made it possible for students to act intentionally to balance the box, use the chair, and choose to listen to the teacher’s directions. Their agency was possible due to the passibility of the box, which was receptive to be balanced, the passibility of the chair, which was receptive to be a support structure, and the passibility of the teacher who was receptive to the students’ utterances. In other words, the flow of agency and passibility between humans and materials was constant in Kim and Roth’s model. In the flow, Kim and Roth emphasize that each microinteraction changes the next interaction, Students’ actions on materials immediately come back to themselves with another sense, another response, and another change. Changes in the choice and position of materials require them to sense new materials and new positions. Students encounter new challenges and new possibilities as they act on these changes. In and as the acting-being acted upon relations, design emerges and learners learn the nature of designing (techne).
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In this way, The new knowledge and understanding of design and problem solving emerges as and in social relation first. Intention (agency) is interrupted and taken into unintended directions in social relations where children mutually affect and are affected by each other (passibility). We might take from this illustration that whether and how agency or passibility is described by an education researcher analyzing such a scene, agency must always be treated as perspectival.
How are agency, passiblity, and social relations related? According to Kim and Roth passibility makes agency possible and agency is enacted within a social relation. Furthermore, during learning (ZPD), this social relation is essential before individualization (ZAP) is possible. In individualization, however, no teacher or more knowledgeable peer is necessary because the learned cultural function still exists as a relation when individualized (Kim and Roth cite Vygotsky here). In this relationship between agency, passibility and social relations, the challenge from Kim and Roth to activity theory is this (as we understand it): the phenomenon of the individualization of knowledge as relation makes it possible for people to learn. People do not learn in activity from a more knowledgeable peer or a teacher, as socio-culturalists argue. Instead, ‘‘learning is an unintended-by-product of societal relations’’ made possible by prior knowledge (defined as an individualized relation from prior social interaction) and this prior knowledge is the solution to the problem of the learner. Learners can learn when they open themselves to learning (passibility) and when they can access and share prior knowledge in societal relations. In other words, what students have learned in previous individualization processes makes it possible to learn in new individualization processes. This does not seem like much of a challenge at first glance until we consider the role of the teachers, the capacity of the students and the concept of learning. Both Kim and Roth and the activity theorists cited here argue for the primacy of social relations, but activity theorists would argue that those social relations are designed to promote learning intentionally. The only time we can call learning an unintended–by– product is when instruction fails to guide learning through social relations (or at all). To say that all learning is the result of unintended social outcomes has at least two troubling consequences: students cannot learn to learn and teachers do not matter. What does it mean to question the role of a teacher in the existence of the ZPD in which students are learning theoretical constructs of their own creation in collaboration with the teacher? It seems to be a dangerous challenge. According to Vygotsky, the reason we want a teacher to create (with the student) the conditions for learning, which in turn stimulate the learner to create a ZPD, is to use teaching and learning within this zone to lead and accelerate development of personality and higher mental functions. The model of the teacher working for the learner’s ZPD is aimed at a specific kind of development (individualization of a particular learning goal)—development of cultural forms typically taught in school. Those familiar with the problem of the learner and attempting to apply Vygotsky’s ideas through pedagogical experiments quickly began to understand the role of the teacher and
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the learning outcomes of several basic instructional forms: traditional-transmission instruction, systemic-empirical instruction, and systemic-theoretical instruction [see review by Igor Arievitch & Anna Stetsenko (2000)]. The first two are most common in schools, but also reflect common apprenticeship style instruction found outside of school and reflect the notion that learning is the same as development. The third form demonstrated how learning relates to development—that it often lags development until it is used to lead development. These instructional forms demonstrate that learning settings are brimming with intentionality. However, it is not located solely within learners. Intentionality, like knowledge and understanding in Kim and Roth’s account, is located (and emerges) as and in social relation. It is dynamically distributed in various ways (and variably visible) across a classroom (people, materials, tasks, rules, time, etc.).
What does Kim and Roth’s model of agency, passibility and social relation provide to researchers? The model provides a lens through which to study classroom interactions. Kim and Roth claim to have shown ‘‘how learners are acting and being acted upon by possibilities and limitations of materialistic, carnal, and social relations during the design task.’’ If this flow exists, back and forth between agency, passibility, and social relations, we do not see any obvious challenge to this position in CHAT, ANT or situated cognition/action, nor do we think the authors have clearly explained why they think this position is particularly new. If passibility is to be a useful construct for analysis we believe it could be used with agency primarily because the two concepts together can provide a constraint on researchers studying interactions between human and non-human objects during interaction analysis. Using these concepts together, however, should only be done while also asking a series of questions such as: (1) how, and in what ways, bodies are open to being affected in particular settings and under particular circumstances? (2) how does activity get negotiated and interpreted? (3) who decides what counts as ‘‘openness’’ and what counts as being closed-off or disengaged? and (4) is it possible for a participant or object to be open, but just not to what the researcher or teacher is paying attention to? That said, in what ways is passibility individual, collective, situated, or disciplinary? For example, what is the evidence that these children are, indeed, open to be affected, and not just doing what they are told? What is the interaction between passibility and (1) issues of power (the teacher’s feedback, or status issues within the group), (2) their identities as learners, students, scientists or engineers, (3) participation structure and opportunities for students to engage, (4) existing knowledge or cultural tools for orienting to and engaging in the problem, and solving it, and/or (5) unfolding actions within the interaction that are the result of, or result in, emerging subgoals for problem solving? In other words, if passibility is not used in conjunction with other contextual modifiers in education research it means little more than anyone who senses things has passibility, which in turn is foundational for learning. For example, the claim that ‘‘the idea of the sense of balance that emerges with the sensing of balance’’ makes intuitive, experiential sense, but then the argument that ‘‘we would not sense anything without passibility’’ again raises the question of the usefulness of the concept of passibility. Does this mean that anyone who senses things has passibility, which in turn is foundational for learning? If so, then we are back to the definition that passibility means people learn and/or are capable of learning.
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Implications for pedagogy From Kim and Roth’s perspective planned pedagogy cannot shape or determine a learning outcome as illustrated by their statements, such as: • ‘‘learning is an unintended-by-product of societal relations’’, • ‘‘neither students nor teachers or administrators can plan beforehand what any ultimately emerging knowledge will be’’, • ‘‘knowledge and understanding are received (as unintended gifts) because our bodies are endowed with the capability to be affected (i.e. endowed with passibility)’’, • ‘‘learning is the result of a donation that comes to be accepted’’, and • ‘‘the notion of passibility challenges the practice of teaching in classrooms. Because learners are affected by the unforeseen, passibility accounts for the fact that learning outcomes are often different from those planned.’’ We believe well-planned theoretical pedagogy can shape learning outcomes especially under a more expansive interpretation of Vygotsky’s explanation of the individualization process. The examples of instruction that Kim and Roth provided to demonstrate their claims about teaching and learning were incomplete and difficult to unpack, but they resembled what might be called open-inquiry or discovery lessons consistent with the constructivist work of Maria Montessori (1964) or Jean Piaget (1954). In open-inquiry or discovery models, the learning tasks have minimal introduction or background (e.g., the learner is presented with a problem–solving situation with or without particular constraints). They may or may not be told what materials or cultural tools are allowed or will help with the problem, and students are responsible for their own learning by interacting with their environment through manipulating objects, grappling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments. For example, In the case of the splotches, participants were only given minimal directions and had to invent tools for what to see, not only how to look at the splotches. In the case of designing the cantilever, students were presented with the problem scenario along with a set of materials and images, and were asked to design a solution to the given problem with no additional assistance. In the case of the baby learning to grasp, the baby is apparently taught one problem (the pointing gesture), which she eventually learned to transform into intentional pointing through imitation and the mother’s reinforcement. In the case of Watson, Crick and the representation of DNA, there is simply much left out of the story. Their model was developed and taken up as a result of an enormous number of cultural tools including: a large body of empirical data, a variety of assumptions and constraints from the historical nature of the problem, an expanding theoretical framework, and physical representations of the chemicals and bonds to be assembled. All of these influenced what they saw and could see as they shuffled the pieces of the puzzle around (e.g., Latour 1987). In Kim and Roth’s rendition of these cases instructional design was minimized, erased, or made irrelevant. It seems they would like readers to take from their work two conclusions. First, without instruction people (e.g., participants, students, individuals) may learn what an instructor intended. Second, with formal instruction people may not learn what was intended. The first conclusion is easily challenged by many reports
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demonstrating that most students learn what was intended (and beyond) when instruction was well-designed—these include studies in literacy and language learning (e.g., Aidarova 1982), mathematics (e.g., Davydov 2008; Gal’perin 1992; Schmittau 2003), social studies and science (Hedegaard 2001) life science (e.g., Zuckerman, Chudinova and Khavkin 1998) and life planning (Vianna and Stetsenko 2011). The second conclusion depends on the type of instruction. Arievitch and Stetsenko (2000) argue that poor learning outcomes are the result of poor instructional practices and that successful learning outcomes are the result of high quality instructional practices. Unfortunately, there are many examples in the literature demonstrating that students may not learn what was intended with formal instruction including reviews of elementary science (e.g., Bredderman 1983; Slavin, Lake, Hanley and Thurston 2014) and elementary mathematics programs (e.g., Slavin and Lake 2008). We acknowledge that any instructional design is difficult because the object of learning activity is nearly always a cultural tool and these tools are rapidly shapeshifting as described by Kim and Roth. Tools are relations themselves, continually re/produced in interaction and in turn widening the gap between intention and outcomes. That said, it is possible to acknowledge this and still structure a learning environment where learning is an intended product of social relations.
Coda We agree that being open to the unexpected is invaluable for learning and passibilty may or may not be the analytical construct to help researchers and teachers interrogate that phenomenon further. We welcome the notion of passibility, but it is not yet clear how the construct will help us as researchers or teachers. We are not convinced that the concept of passibility, as currently developed, adequately represents the phenomenon, but we agree that it is not well represented in the literature to our knowledge. In CHAT-grounded research the problem of the learner has been recognized for at least three generations and we agree that it is an important question for current pedagogy and curriculum research, especially for those of us engaged in the enterprise of providing all students access to disciplinary science learning while simultaneously valuing and leveraging learners’ prior understandings and experiences. The paper by Kim and Roth raises our awareness about the problem of the learner as well as pertinent questions about agency and intentionality. They encourage and inspire us to look beyond individual learners to materials, material configurations, bodies, and social relations as part of a network of action and possibility. We wonder, however, about alternative framings for the question that may galvanize activity theorists to take up more (and variably) expansive formulations of the problem itself. In this discussion we have tried to ask some questions about how Kim and Roth conceptualized important constructs like agency and intentionality. In concluding and looking forward we might also ask how a concept (like passibility, or something else entirely) might be (re)constructed in relation to alternative, or additional constructs. For example, instead of agency we might explore Tim Ingold’s (2010, p. 307) conceptualization of learners’ ongoing activity as improvisation, ‘‘follow[ing] the ways of the world, as they unfold’’. Instead of focusing on students’ lack of intentionality in relation to learning objectives, we may ask what their intentions are in the learning setting, and how they relate to designed learning activity (e.g., we might ask what implications Randi Engle and Faith Conant’s 2002 ‘‘Productive Disciplinary Engagement’’ framework has for
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intentionality in relation to learning). Or we may add what Jan Nespor (2004) calls new ‘‘educational scales’’ to our analytical lens, which may produce newly visible configurations of agency and intentionality. Whatever we create, this exploration of the relationship between passibility, agency and social interaction reminds us to keep everything problematic for research and pedagogy.
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Susan A. Kirch is an Associate Professor of Science and Childhood Education at New York University. Her current research interests include teaching and learning the social construction of knowledge and knowing in science education and the reconstruction of process-tools such as evidence, causality and relevance in school classrooms. Her forthcoming book from Sense Publishers with long-time teacher researcher colleague Michele Amoroso is titled, Being and becoming scientists today: Reconstructing assumptions about science and science education to reclaim a learner–scientist perspective. Jasmine Y. Ma is Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at New York University. She is interested in how individuals and groups learn across settings, and the social, material, and embodied resources that support learning. Currently she is investigating the spatial practices and learning of workers at an art crating company, and developing designs of walking scale mathematical tasks meant to disrupt the scale and modality of students’ problem solving practices.
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