week 9: vygotsky's sociocultural theory and applications

vygotsky argues that development is primarily driven by a child’s social role within their culture - rejects the individualistic view of the child

• learning before development

• language is social even at the earliest stages of development

• thought develops in a social context

  • prelinguistic child thinks without language

  • language comes from a child’s social grouping

• thought and language merge - thought becomes verbal and child gains internal monologue

elementary functions = mental functions shared by animals and infants

• attention/memory, basic perceptual capacity etc

• develop during first two years through interaction with environment

higher functions = mental functions unique to human infants

• problem solving, joint attention, reasoning etc

• develop after language by interacting with more knowledgeable people

cognition as a cultural process

• any function in cultural development appears on two planes

  • social/interpsychological - between people

  • psychological - within child

• higher mental functions are cultural because they involve socially evolved and socially organised cultural tools

• language is the driving force behind development because it allows participation in social dialogues

cognition as an interpsychological process

• higher mental functions learnt through social interaction - guidance by more competent partner and shared activity in culturally relevant tasks

• eg random accidental grasp becomes pointing due to parent’s interpretation, so function of movement changes from random to communicative

cognition as an intrapsychological process

• higher mental functions become internalised by the individual due to social interactio

• child is active in this process through private speech

• constructivist

zone of proximal development = distance between independent problem solving ability and ability to problem solve with others’ help

• only interactions in zpd will result in cognitive change - performance assisted by child using self directed speech and repeating instructions

private speech = used by young children for self guidance

• increases with task difficulty

• later becomes inner speech/internal verbal dialogue

• importance of language - helps children think about mental activities

guided participation = shared endeavours between more expert and less expert ppts

intersubjectivity = process where two people begin a task with different understanding and arrive at shared understanding

scaffolding = adjusting support offered in a teaching session to fit child’s level of performance

peers can act as more capable partners if:

• more knowledgeable

• adjust help to fit into less mature peer’s zpd

• work cooperatively

• can help create dialogic classroom where peers use jigsaw teaching, assisted discovery etc

strengths of approach:

• emphasised role of context in development - social/cultural/historical

  • piaget criticised for child as isolated

• emphasised cultural variation in cognitive skill

  • piaget argued cognition was universal

  • advanced symbolic thinking takes on different forms depending on cultural context

• emphasised role of teaching in cognitive development

  • parents/peers/siblings interactions with children promote advances in complexity of learning

limitations of approach

• is vygotsky overstating the role of verbal dialogue in development?

  • this is a western ideal

• biological contributions largely ignored

• vague on mechanism of internalisation and evidence for this