Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky

credited with developing the sociocultural approach

- cognitive development is embedded within a culture

- emphasized cognitive development is guided by interaction with social others

- emphasized what makes people different thinkers rather than universals

- humans share some elementary psych processes with animals

- he sought to explain higher order psychological processes

- believed higher order processes had their origins in social interaction

sociocultural approach/theory

the approach that emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture

- it is affected by the beliefs, values, and tools of the culture a child is reared in

* without social others, the mind wouldn't develop to its capacity

elementary psychological processes

basic psychological processes: perception, attention, memory

higher order psychological processes

abstract thinking

to accurately characterize a child's knowledge, it is essential to consider...

... the child's actual competence in independent performance and the child's potential competence in interaction with social others (adults)

actual competence

what their mental age is: problems they can solve

potential competence

difficult task presented- able to solve or not with the assistance of an experienced other

zone of proximal development (ZPD)

range of cognitive function a child is capable of (what they are going to learn)

- teachers aim instruction to students in the ZPD to advance their knowledge (need to figure out where students are in their cognitive development: work with groups to focus on their level like catching them up)

bottom of ZPD

lowest level of performance (child's ability independently)

top of ZPD

highest level of performance (what child is capable of with help from adult expert)

scaffolding

aid that allows a child to succeed at more complex problems

- occurs when experts are sensitive to abilities of a novice and respond contingently (depending on their status, teacher may change their teaching style towards them) to the novices responses in learning

- novice gradually increases understanding of problem

chutes and ladders example

targets scaffolding

- dice used to compute moves

- did mothers teach their children arithmetic strategies?

- mom's behavior varied with the competence of their child (throughout the game, the mom teaches their kid through scaffolding which makes their circle (actual competence) bigger

--> do this to see what they know and provide strategies based on that (until they can do it on their own)

puzzle example

targets scaffolding

- adults can give support and then gradually reduce it such as modeling: "see this straight edge? that means it's an edge piece"

co-construction

both adults and children jointly determine the degree to which children can function independently

- children are able to solve problems will elicit more support

--> more skilled children need less support

two levels Vygotsky said cognitive functioning occurs on

first level: inter-mental

second level: intra-mental

first level of cognitive functioning: inter-mental

between people who are involved in social interaction

second level of cognitive functioning: intra-mental

within the individual; initially perform cognitive tasks with support from social partner

- over time, internalizes processes and can do on their own