Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (Лев Семенович Выготский) (November 17 (November 5 Old Style), 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet developmental psychologist and the founder of the Cultural-historical psychology. Lev Vygotsky. ... Lev Vygotsky. ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... November 5 is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 56 days remaining. ... Old Style or O.S. is a designation indicating that a date conforms to the Julian calendar, formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar, currently in use in most countries. ... 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... June 11 is the 162nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (163rd in leap years), with 203 days remaining. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... Cultural-historical psychology (the school of Vygotsky) - a trend in psychological research founded by Lev Vygotsky in the end of the 1920s and developed by his students and followers in Eastern Europe and worldwide. ...

Biography

He was born in 1896 in Orsha, Belarus (then Russian empire) and grew up in Homel (southern Belarus) in a prosperous Jewish family. Vygotsky attended Moscow University, majoring in law, and, at the same time, studied history and literature at the Shanivsky University. He graduated in 1918 and returned to Homel where he worked as a school teacher and studied. In 1924 he moved to Moscow, working on a diverse set of projects. He died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored. Orsha (Belarusian: Во́рша; Russian: О́рша; Polish: Orsza) is a city in Belarus, an important railway node along the Minsk–Moscow line. ... Anthem: God Save the Tsar! Russian Empire in 1914 Capital Saint Petersburg Language(s) Russian Government Monarchy Emperor  - 1721-1725 Peter the Great  - 1894-1917 Nicholas II History  - Established 22 October, 1721  - February Revolution 2 March, 1917 Area  - 1897 22,400,000 km2 8,648,688 sq mi Population  - 1897... Categories: Towns in Belarus | Belarus-related stubs ... For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... Categories: Towns in Belarus | Belarus-related stubs ... Location Position of Moscow in Europe Government Country District Subdivision Russia Central Federal District Federal City Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov Geographical characteristics Area  - City 1,081 km² Population  - City (2005)    - Density 10,415,400   8537. ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for Tubercle Bacillus) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by the mycobacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis or Mycobacterium bovis, which most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system, lymphatic system, circulatory system, genitourinary system, bones and joints. ...

Work

Being a pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: the collection of his major works contains 6 volumes written over roughly 10 years. Vygotsky's interests in the fields of developmental psychology, child development, and education were extremely diverse. His innovative work in psychology includes several key concepts such as This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

• psychological tools, mediation, and internalization
• the zone of proximal development

and covers such diverse topics as the origin and the psychology of art, development of higher mental functions, philosophy of science and methodology of psychological research, the relation between learning and human development, concept formation, interrelation between language and thought development, play as a psychological phenomenon, the study of learning disabilities and abnormal human development (aka defectology), etc. Lev Vygotskys notion of zone of proximal development (зона ближайшего развития), often abbreviated ZPD, is the gap between a learners current or actual development level determined by independent problem-solving and the learners emerging or potential level of development. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Philosophy of science studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Human development may refer to: Human development (biology) Human development (psychology) see Developmental psychology Occasionally, it may refer to both, but because each of these is already an immense area, few if any contemporary academic discussions attempt to tackle both with any completeness. ... A variety of different authors, theories and fields purport influences between language and thought. ... In broad terms, the phrase learning disability covers any of a range of conditions that affect a persons ability to learn new information. ...

Cultural mediation and internalization

Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture and interpersonal communication. Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions developed through social interactions with significant people in a child's life, particularly parents, but also other adults. Through these interactions, a child came to learn the habits of mind of her/his culture, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge through which the child derives meaning and affected a child's construction of her/his knowledge. This key premise of Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as cultural mediation. The specific knowledge gained by a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.

Internalization can be understood in one respect as “knowing how”. For example, riding a bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and initially outside and beyond the child. The mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of internalization is appropriation in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than draw exactly what others in society have drawn previously.

Psychology of play

Lesser known is his research on play, or child's game as a psychological phenomenon and its role in the child's development. Through play the child develops abstract meaning separate from the objects in the world which is a critical feature in the development of higher mental functions.

The famous example Vygotsky gives is of a child that wants to ride a horse but he cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but at around the age of three the child's relationship with the world changes "Henceforth play is such that the explanation for it must always be that it is the imaginary, illusory realization of unrealizable desires. Imagination is a new formation that is not present in the consciousness of the very young child, is totally absent in animals, and represents a specifically human form of conscious activity. Like all functions of consciousness, it originally arises from action." (Vygotsky, 1978)

He wishes to ride a horse but cannot, so he picks up a stick and stands astride of it, thus pretending he is riding a horse. The stick is a pivot. "Action according to rules begins to be determined by ideas, not by objects..... It is terribly difficult for a child to sever thought (the meaning of a word) from object. Play is a transitional stage in this direction. At that critical moment when a stick – i.e., an object – becomes a pivot for severing the meaning of horse from a real horse, one of the basic psychological structures determining the child’s relationship to reality is radically altered".

As children get older, their reliance on pivots such as sticks, dolls and other toys diminishes. They have internalized these pivots as imagination and abstract concepts through which they can understand the world. "The old adage that children’s play is imagination in action can be reversed: we can say that imagination in adolescents and schoolchildren is play without action" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Another aspect of play that Vygotsky referred to was the development of social rules that develop, for example, when children play house and adopt the roles of different family members. Vygotsky cites an example of two sisters playing at being sisters. The rules of behavior between them that go unnoticed in daily life are consciously acquired through play. As well as social rules the child acquires what we now refer to as self-regulation. For example, as a child stands at the starting line of a running race, she may well desire to run immediately so as to reach the finish line first, but her knowledge of the social rules surrounding the game and her desire to enjoy the game enable her to regulate her initial impulse and wait for the start signal. Social Cognitive Perspective: Zimmerman et al specified three important characteristics: self-observation (monitoring ones activities); self-judgement (self-evaluation of ones performance) and self-reactions (reactions to performance outcomes) Cognitive Processing Perspective Winne & Marx posited that motivational thoughts and beliefs are governed by the basic principles of cognitive...

Thinking and Speaking

Perhaps Vygotsky's most important contribution concerns the inter-relationship of language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book Thinking and Speaking, establishes the explicit and profound connection between speech (both silent inner speech and oral language), and the development of mental concepts and cognitive awareness (metacognition). It should be noted that Vygotsky described inner speech as being qualitatively different than normal (external) speech. Although Vygotsky believed inner speech to develop from external speech via a gradual process of internalization, with younger children only really able to "think out loud", he claimed that in its mature form it would be unintelligible to anyone except the thinker and would not resemble spoken language as we know it (in particular, being greatly compressed). Hence, thought itself develops socially. Metacognition refers to thinking about cognition (memory, perception, calculation, association, etc. ...

The infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with her mother. She learns that pointing can be a tool and that pointing can be accompanied by cries and gurgles to express what she wants. Through this activity with her caregivers she learns that sounds are signs with which to conduct social interaction and soon the child begins to ask for the names of objects.

Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. As she grows into her second year, the child uses this tool to guide her own activities in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud". Initially, self-talk is still very much a tool of social interaction, tapering away to negligible levels when the child is alone or with deaf children that cannot hear her. Gradually, however, self-talk is used more as a tool for self-directed and self-regulating behavior. Around the time the child starts school, her self-talk is no longer present, not because it has disappeared but rather because speaking has been appropriated and internalized. Self-talk "develops along a rising not a declining, curve; it goes through an evolution, not an involution. In the end, it becomes inner speech” (Vygotsky, 1987). Inner speech develops through its differentiation from social speech.

Speaking has thus developed along two lines, the line of social communication and the line of inner speech, by which the child mediates and regulates her activity through her thoughts which in turn are mediated by the semiotics (the meaningful signs) of inner speech. This is not to say that thinking cannot take place without language, but rather that it is mediated by it and thus develops to a much higher level of sophistication. Just as the birthday cake as a sign provides much deeper meaning than its physical properties allow, inner speech as signs provides much deeper meaning than the lower psychological functions would otherwise allow. Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. ...

Inner speech is not comparable in form to external speech. External speech is the process of turning thought into words. Inner speech is the opposite, it is the conversion of speech into inward thought. Inner speech for example contains predicates only. Subjects are superfluous. Words too are used much more economically. One word in inner speech may be so replete with sense to the individual that it would take many words to express it in external speech.

Influence and development of Vygotsky's ideas

In the Soviet Union, Russia, and East Europe

In the Soviet Union, the work of the group of Vygotsky's students known as the Kharkov School of Psychology was vital for preserving the scientific legacy of Lev Vygotsky and identifying new avenues of its subsequent development. The members of the group laid foundation for the Vygotskian psychology systematic development in such diverse fields as the psychology of memory (P. Zinchenko), perception, sensation and movement (Zaporozhets, Asnin, A. N. Leont'ev), personality (L. Bozhovich, Asnin, A. N. Leont'ev), will and volition (Zaporozhets, A. N. Leont'ev, P. Zinchenko, L. Bozhovich, Asnin), psychology of play (G. D. Lukov, D. El'konin) and psychology of learning (P. Zinchenko, L. Bozhovich, D. El'konin), as well as the theory of step-by-step formation of mental actions (Gal'perin), general psychological activity theory (A. N. Leont'ev) and psychology of action (Zaporozhets). Kharkov School of Psychology (Харьковская психологическая школа) is a tradition of developmental psychological research conducted in the paradigm of Lev Vygotskys sociocultural theory of mind and Leontievs psychological activity theory. ... Pyotr Ivanovich Zinchenko (Пётр Иванович Зинченко) (1903-1969) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev and one of the major representatives of the Kharkov School of Psychology. ... Alexander Vladimirovich Zaporozhets (Russian: Александр Владимирович Запорожец; 1905-1981) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev. ... Vladimir Ilyich Asnin (Владимир Ильич Аснин) (1904-1956), Soviet developmental psychologist, a representative of Kharkov School of Psychology, head of the Department of psychology at the Kharkov State pedagogical institute in 1944—1950. ... Alexei Nikolaevich Leontev (Russian: ) (1903-1979), is the founder of activity theory. ... Vladimir Ilyich Asnin (Владимир Ильич Аснин) (1904-1956), Soviet developmental psychologist, a representative of Kharkov School of Psychology, head of the Department of psychology at the Kharkov State pedagogical institute in 1944—1950. ... Alexei Nikolaevich Leontev (Russian: ) (1903-1979), is the founder of activity theory. ... Alexander Vladimirovich Zaporozhets (Russian: Александр Владимирович Запорожец; 1905-1981) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev. ... Alexei Nikolaevich Leontev (Russian: ) (1903-1979), is the founder of activity theory. ... Pyotr Ivanovich Zinchenko (Пётр Иванович Зинченко) (1903-1969) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev and one of the major representatives of the Kharkov School of Psychology. ... Vladimir Ilyich Asnin (Владимир Ильич Аснин) (1904-1956), Soviet developmental psychologist, a representative of Kharkov School of Psychology, head of the Department of psychology at the Kharkov State pedagogical institute in 1944—1950. ... Pyotr Ivanovich Zinchenko (Пётр Иванович Зинченко) (1903-1969) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev and one of the major representatives of the Kharkov School of Psychology. ... Activity theory (AT) is a Soviet psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in behaviourism. ... Alexei Nikolaevich Leontev (Russian: ) (1903-1979), is the founder of activity theory. ... Alexander Vladimirovich Zaporozhets (Russian: Александр Владимирович Запорожец; 1905-1981) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev. ...

In the West

In the West, most attention was aimed at the continuing work of Vygotsky's Western contemporary Jean Piaget. Vygotsky's work appeared virtually unknown until its "rediscovery" in the 1960s, when the interpretative translation of Thought and language (1934) was published in English (in 1962; revised edition in 1986, translated by A. Kozulin and, as Thinking and speech, in 1987, translated by N. Minick). In the end of the 1970s, truly ground-breaking publication was the major compilation of Vygotsky's works that saw the light in 1978 under the header of Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Jean Piaget [] (August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying children and his theory of cognitive development. ...

Vygotsky's views are reported to have influenced development of a wide range of psychological and educational theories such as activity theory, distributed cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, second language acquisition theory, gesture theory, etc. Strong influences of Vygotskian thought can be found in the work of a number of scholars such as Jerome Bruner, Michael Cole, James V. Wertsch, Sylvia Scribner, Vera John-Steiner, Ann L. Brown, Courtney Cazden, Gordon Wells, René van der Veer, Jaan Valsiner, Pentti Hakkarainen, Seth Chaiklin, Alex Kozulin, Nikolai Veresov, Anna Stetsenko, Kieran Egan, Fred Newman, David McNeill and Lois Holzman, to mention but a few. Activity theory (AT) is a Soviet psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in behaviourism. ... History Distributed cognition is a school of psychology developed in the 1990s by Edwin Hutchins. ... Constructivist approaches to human learning have led to the development of a theory of cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1987; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). ... Second language acquisition, or SLA, is the process by which people learn languages in addition to their native language(s). ... Military signalmen use hand and body gestures to direct flight operations aboard aircraft carriers. ... Jerome S. Bruner (b. ... Ann Leslie Brown (1943-1999) was an educational psychologist who developed methods for teaching children to be better learners. ... Kieran Egan, (born 1942) has written on issues in education and child development, with an emphasis on the uses of imagination and the intellectual stages (Egan calls them understandings) that mark different ages from birth to adulthood. ... Fred Newman is a controversial philosopher, psychotherapist, playwright and political activist. ... Lois Holzman is a cofounder with Fred Newman of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy and the Institutes current director. ...

Critiques of Vygotsky

Tetzchner^[1] raises critique of the social constructivist field of psychology in general, pointing out that these theoreticians (including Vygotsky) pay little or no attention to the systematical exploration of objects most commonly exhibited by infants.

Also, a child may be interested in other people, but it takes time before it realizes that it can actually use these people to solve the problems it encounters. Even when a child is able to ask for help, it's not always interested in receiving any. In particular, two- to three-year-olds tend to want to do things on their own.

Furthermore, Tetzchner writes that social constructivist psychologists mostly have focused on language and cultural activities that include cooperation, such as playing and eating. However, "A theory about cognitive development must comprise both the exploration the child does on its own and the knowledge mediated through cooperation with adults" (Tetzchner, 2005: 206).

Secondary literature

Major monographs about Vygotsky's Work

• Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London.
• Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky. A quest for synthesis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Newman, F. & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist. London: Routledge.
• Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.) (1994). The Vygotsky Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Daniels, H. (Ed.) (1996). An Introduction to Vygotsky, London: Routledge.
• Vygodskaya, G. L., & Lifanova, T. M. (1996/1999). Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, Part 1, 37 (2), 3-90; Part 2, 37 (3), 3-90; Part 3, 37 (4), 3-93, Part 4, 37 (5), 3-99.
• Veresov, N. N. (1999). Undiscovered Vygotsky: Etudes on the pre-history of cultural-historical psychology. New York: Peter Lang.

Articles and books related to Vygotsky

• Cole, M. & Wertsch, J. Beyond the individual-social antinomy in discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky
• Ratner, C. Historical and contemporary significance of Vygotsky's sociohistorical psychology
• Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology, Reitzels
• Danielsen, E. (1996). Vygotsky, Psykologiens Mozart, DPF
• Strandberg, L. (2006). Vygotskij i praktiken, Nordsteds Akademika forlag

References

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Vygotsky, Lev (1934). Thinking and Speaking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Written 1934: Edited and translated in 1962 by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar

See also

• Ecological Systems Theory

Ecological Systems Theory, also called Development in Context or Human Ecology theory, specifies four types of nested environmental systems, with bi-directional influences within and between the systems. ...

Vygotsky's texts online

In English

• XMCA Research Paper Archive Scolarly articles on Vygotskian psychology
• Lev Vygotsky archive @ marxists.org: all major works (in English)

In Russian

• Психология искусства (1922)
• Сознание как проблема психологии поведения (1924/5)
• Исторический смысл психологического кризиса (1927)
• Проблема культурного развития ребенка (1928)
• Орудие и знак в развитии ребенка (1930)
• История развития высших психических функций (1931)
• Лекции по психологии (1. Восприятие; 2. Память; 3. Мышление; 4. Эмоции; 5. Воображение; 6. Проблема воли) (1932)
• Проблема развития и распада высших психических функций (1934)
• Мышление и речь (idem, idem, idem) (1934)
• Конкретная психология человека

External links

• Vygotsky Resources Archive of resource links.
• The Vygotsky Project Summaries of, and links to, Vygotsky articles.
• Vygotsky Centennial Project Collected articles exploring Vygotsky's work.
• The Mozart of Psychology Vygotsky article with extensive references.
• Dorothy "Dot" Robbins Vygotsky memorial site with many papers and resources.
• East Side Institute Vygotsky-inspired research and training center in NYC.