Lev Vygotsky

It will be shown that at least four foundational concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory were previously formulated by Hegel, viz., (1) the unit of analysis as a key concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2) the centrality of artifact-mediated actions, (3) the definitive distinction between goal and motive in activities, and (4) the distinction between a true concept and a pseudoconcept.

Аннотация. Статья анализирует восприятие идей Л.С. Выготского в современной американской
педагогике искусства. Автор рассматривает как официальные источники, так и мнения отдельных
ученых о роли Выготского в гуманитарном знании США. Также в статье приведены примеры
практического применения идей ученого в художественном образовании США.
Abstract. Аn article analyzes different perspectives in acquiring ideas of Lev Vygotsky in the modern
system of Art Education in the USA. An author considers the official academic sources as well as
opinions of several scholars about the impact of Vygotsky’s ideas to the development of educational and
cultural studies in the USA. The article deliberates some examples of practical applications of
Vygotsky’s ideas in American Art Education.

The paper organizes the topic of signs in Lev Vygotsky's various writings into a coherent whole in order to study signs' role in child development. Vygotsky related conventional signs that have their origin in interpersonal communication, and are subject to cultural history taking place over generations during historical time, to psychological functioning of individual human beings. Vygotsky's "natural history of signs" is the study of how symbolic activity appears and develops. The paper outlines the process of inclusion of symbols within the behaviour of the child and gives an account of various changes in psychological functions and their interrelations that it brings along. In cultural development specifically human forms of behaviour appear, and children's relationship to social and material environment is changed qualitatively. Vygotsky outlines the formation of sign use and analyses its developmental steps. Vygotsky's approach explains how the use of various sign systems shapes both the cognitive processes in the person, the child, and the cognitive development as a whole. Vygotsky's approach to signs is presented within the conceptual framework of its time.

Önceki bölümde gelişimsel psikolojinin tarihini, temel kavramlarını, ilkelerini ve araştırma tekniklerini öğrendiniz. Şimdiki bölümde ise gelişimsel olguların köklerine inip onları birbirleriyle ilişkilendirerek bütünleştireceğiz. Gelişimsel olguları anlamak için gerekli olan temel biyoloji, psikoloji ve antropoloji kavramlarını tarihsel bir akış içinde hatırlayacağız. Ardından gelişimin kaynaklarını tartışan iki ana paradigmayı tanıyacağız.

Este trabalho tem por finalidade revelar os resultados de uma pesquisa bibliográfica que tem como temática as profundas relações entre o pensador russo Lev S. Vigotski (1896-1934) e a arte teatral. Para tanto apresenta os dados e a análise da biografia do autor em foco, das suas relações com o teatro e das contribuições destas na construção do seu pensamento. Apresenta um diálogo entre o teatro e a análise estética sob a forma de “crítica de leitor” proposta por Vigotski; a influência de Hamlet de Shakespeare e também da montagem simbolista realizada na Rússia por Gordon Graig/Stanislavski nos fundamentos da teoria vigotskiana sobre o pensamento e a linguagem; bem como uma aproximação deste exame na realização do monólogo (texto em cena) e o monólogo interior (construído pelo ator/personagem). Deste modo este trabalho amplia os dados e possíveis interpretações sobre a vida e obra de Vigotski, assim como aprofunda as reflexões deste autor com a prática teatral.

Palavras-chave: Vigotski, teatro, pensamentos, linguagens.

Despite their academic findings taking place more than half of a century ago, the influence of educational researchers Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky can be found in school classrooms around the world today. Let's look at how seminal theories provided by Piaget and Vygotsky are not only complementary but how they are commonly used in classroom teaching and learning.

With the ever-increasing usage of screen time, studies have shown that a delay in child cognitive development is becoming more prominent than ever before (Margalit, 2016). According to Dr. Aric Sigman, fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, extended screen time exposure ultimately can lead to the harming of one’s ability to focus, concentrate, develop awareness of other people’s attitudes, holding conversations as well as build and use a large lexicon (Margalit, 2016). For example, Dr. Jim Taylor (2012), professor at the University of San Francisco, states that television has changed a child’s attention span by displaying various fragmented visual stimuli which ultimately fragments their attention and discourages efforts of imagination. The internet is just as bad, if not worse, as it too prevents long periods of attention and concentration as well as inhibits the ability to acquire the skill of memorization. Just like the process of forming habits, the mind, too, in this case is being trained to be at constant fragmentation. As a result, children cannot stay focused in classrooms for a long period of time as their brain has been trained to be distracted every so often by various stimuli. This poses a problem for teachers who, like me, teach block sessions (sessions that run for 84 minutes). With every few minutes passing, students are squirrelling in their seats, resting their heads on their desks, fidgeting with their pencils, and longing for a break. Therefore, if children are struggling to meet the expectations of the traditional educational teaching pedagogy and setting, educators must adapt to meet each individual’s zone of proximal development (ZPD), a Vygotskian concept regarding the developmental phases a child undergoes through guidance in learning by a skilled adult.

Imagine walking into the game of Super Mario- walls covered in scenes from the video game, 3D coins and a mystery box hanging from the ceiling, a race track running through the center of the classroom, and the tune of Super Mario playing through your ears. Level after level you are trying to win the game and collect as many stars as possible. With the intensity of the music, the action between levels, and the chance to collaborate with a friend, what more can a student ask to enjoy learning? If student minds need to be stimulated and awakened periodically throughout the class period, then a room transformation can be one of the ways to complete the task. Hope and Wade King (2018), two highly acclaimed educators who have coined the slogan “set the stage to engage”, define room transformations as a change in the classroom environment that enables and activates students’ awareness to new stimuli that promote various skills of learning. In this paper I will discuss the connection between the cognitive development of children influenced by sociocultural environments to the student engagement theory developed by Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Additionally, this paper will examine the role of emotion that interconnects with the way in which children are involved in particular situations and how it affects their ability to learn, the effectiveness of this innovative teaching pedagogy, as well as its application into the modern-day classroom.

Bu yazıda, yapılandırmacı öğrenme kuramı (yapılandırmacılık / yapılandırmacı yaklaşım / constructivism) tarihsel ve felsefî kökeniyle beraber ele alınarak, örnekleriyle kısaca açıklanmıştır. Yazıda, Piaget ve Vygotsky'nin görüşlerine yer verilmiş, Vygotsky'nin Yakınsal Gelişim Alanı (Zone of Proximal Development) kavramı da ifade edilmiştir.

Our understanding of the cross-cultural aspects of personal epistemology is limited. In particular, cross-cultural comparisons of elementary school teachers’ and students’ personal epistemology have received very little theoretical or empirical attention. The current chapter aims to examine German and U.S. elementary schools in terms of their philosophical and practical similarities and differences in personal epistemology. Both theoretical and empirical work will be reviewed to support a more holistic model of personal epistemology, the Educational Model of Personal Epistemology. In light of this model, we discuss our expectations for differences and similarities in the epistemic climate of elementary classrooms in the U.S. and Germany. Drawing from this discussion, we suggest that researchers should approach cross-cultural research in personal epistemology from a more holistic standpoint, employ a diversity of methods, and obtain a solid understanding of the educational context under study. Regarding educational implications, we propose a possible fusion of the educational philosophies held in the U.S. and Germany concerning the implementation of teacher training and classroom education. Finally, we recommend that fostering evaluativistic thinking (i.e., a way of knowing that focuses on the evaluation and decision-making among differing viewpoints) should be a main goal for education starting at the elementary level to ensure students’ future roles as productive citizens in Western societies and stress the role of the teacher in this endeavor.

Durante los años 60 del siglo XX, surgieron teorías pedagógicas que partían de los aportes del Constructivismo de Jean Piaget y de Lev Vygosky. Paulo Freire, David Ausubel y otros seguían el camino emprendido décadas antes por éstos dos fundamentales psicólogos. Asimismo, los años 60 es la época germinal del desarrollo de las tecnologías de cómputo, reservadas en esos tiempos sólo a iniciados. Un colaborador de Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert, Matemático y activista en Sudáfrica a favor de los derechos de los grupos sociales segregados, comienza a percibir la importancia que tendría el cómputo en la educación de los niños. Crea un lenguaje de programación dirigido específicamente a los niños de nombre Logo y desarrolla una propuesta teórica a la que llama Construccionismo. Este trabajo busca establecer de forma crítica, cuáles son los aportes de Papert a la educación y comparar la relación de su producción, con los aportes de Jean Piaget y Lev Vygosky, tratando de discernir si Construccionismo es un concepto sólido y si no son en realidad los aportes fundamentales de Papert la propia experiencia del lenguaje Logo. Finaliza éste trabajo con la herencia actual de sus aportes en voces de quienes han desarrollado nuevos entornos pedagógicos para las TIC en la educación.

This paper intends to give an overview of Vygotsky’s those core concepts that could possibly be extended and plausibly applied to adult learning. Discovering how adult learners learn is not a new thing among academicians. Since centuries, researchers have been exploring and investigating the impacts of various theories of learning and development on adult learning in various contexts because these theories, by and large, have revolutionized the world and their impacts can easily be seen in academia today. Such theories have not just provided information and insight towards learning attitudes and aptitudes of the learners only but also expanded the horizon of knowledge and learning as well. Many researchers and educators believe that the processes of learning and understanding exist at the interface of people’s biography and the sociocultural environment in which they live. However, only a few studies have addressed adult learning through the sociocultural lens. While Vygotsky centered on the development of children from birth through adolescence, his core concepts are also being extended and applied to adult learning as well in the arenas of both formal and informal learning. This paper, divided into three parts, discusses the central concepts of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory, particularly, focusing its those major components that could be extended to adult learning, in its first part, while throws light on the relationship between Sociocultural theory and adult learning in general context, in the second part, and deals with sociocultural theory and two common aspects of adult ESL learning in its final part.
Keywords: Sociocultural theory, Adult learning, ZPD, Scaffolding, Sense, feedback

Οι θεωρίες της γνωστικής ανάπτυξης θέτουν ως στόχο τους την ερμηνεία του τρόπου με τον οποίο στοιχεία του περιβάλλοντος μετατρέπονται σε νοητικές δομές στην πορεία ανάπτυξης ενός παιδιού.  Η παρούσα εργασία διερευνά τη διαφορετικότητα, αλλά και τη συμπληρωματικότητα, δύο βασικών θεωριών για τη γνωστική ανάπτυξη στη βρεφική και νηπιακή ηλικία: τη θεωρία του J. Piaget και τις θεωρίες του πολιτισμικού πλαισίου.

Lugar: Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

Fechas y horarios: Seminario reprogramado para el primer semestre de 2016.

Duración: 30 hs.

Informes sobre inscripción: http://www.psico.unlp.edu.ar/posgrado_secretaria

This fundamentally novel intellectual biography offers a 21st-century account of the life and times of Lev Vygotsky, who has long been considered a pioneer in the field of learning and human development. The diverse Vygotskian literature has created many distinct images of this influential scientist, which has led many researchers to attempt to unearth ‘the real Vygotsky’. Rather than join this quest to over-simplify Vygotsky’s legacy, this book attempts to understand the development of ‘the multiple Vygotksies’ by exploring a number of personae that Vygotsky assumed at different periods of his life. Based on the most recent archival, textological and historical investigations in original, uncensored Russian, the author presents a ground-breaking account that is far from the shiny success story that is typically associated with ‘the cult of Vygotsky’.

This book will be an essential contribution to Vygotskian scholarship and of interest to advanced students and researchers in history of psychology, history of science, Soviet/Russian history, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of science.

Based on Hegel and Marx, Vygotsky considered the use of tools and signs as mediating activities. A typical mediating activity is the one in which human beings transform objects or phenomena into means of action. In order to do that human beings must work with the objective characteristics of the objects in relation to the activity goals. The transformation of something into a mediation inside the activity requires the development of the mental capacity to work with indirect relations between the human needs which generates the activity and each specific component of the entire process that leads to the achievement of a good final result. In this sense, activity puts in movement, at the same time, the external reality and the psychological processes. However, we must consider that human activity is collective in its most basic forms and its success depends on the development of efficient processes of communication as much as on the use of powerful tools. The use of signs and the development of systems of signs generate the complexification of inter-psychical and intra-psychical functions. At this point the retroactive effect of all this process on the motive of human actions has to be considered. On the one hand it is true that an activity is always motivated by needs but, on the other hand, the use and the transformation of systems of tools and signs generates historically new kinds of human needs beyond the level of subsistence. From the dialectical perspective this is a crucial aspect to be considered by educational projects which intend to promote the expansion of the horizons of students’ life and society views. Marx wrote in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts that “The rich human being is simultaneously a human being necessitated of a totality of exteriorization of life, a human being in whom their own realization exists as inner necessity, as need.” There is a dialectical relation between human powers and human needs: human needs required the development of human powers, however, the opposite is also true, that is to say, human necessities have been developed, transformed and created by the development of human powers. Both, the powers and the needs, exist objectively inside social relations and cultural phenomena. The challenge of education is to reproduce this dialectical relation between powers and needs in the process of the individual’s development.  The possibility of intentional social production of needs is something proved everyday. The most expressive contemporary demonstration of this possibility is the creation of needs by the market and the culture of consumerism. From the perspective of the historical-critical pedagogy, education must develop in all learners a critical attitude towards this alienating process. At the same time, education can create needs connected to the highest levels of human cultural production as science, arts and philosophy. This pedagogical issue can be particularly illuminated by the historical and cultural dialectic between needs and activities. The process of teaching sciences, arts and philosophy does not have to be limited to the satisfaction of the needs that learners bring with them from their everyday life. Of course one of the tasks of education is to develop the self-awareness of these everyday needs recognizing their origins and how they can promote or block the development of individuality. However, education can be more than this, it can generate new necessities for the learners by the process of working with school contents situated beyond the limits of everyday life. In this sense, instead of being a process of adaptation to the status quo, education would be a production of dissatisfaction with the manipulated life in the contemporary capitalist society.

The ontological resonance between Peirce and Vygotsky is an area of increasing interest within cultural-historical activity theory, arguably deserving of considered scrutiny and elucidation. Premised on conceptual pluralism and variance in sociolinguistic and sociocultural perspectives, this article proposes a Peirce–Vygotsky synergy for multimodal analysis. Following a discussion of its theoretical basis, the logical fusion of deduction and abduction is designated to authorise this synergy. Through the word-image complementarity in a storybook, it exemplifies how this synergy can afford a profound account of semiotic mediation. Exploratory as it is, the article accentuates the Peirce–Vygotsky confluence in research into communication and representation.

In its four parts – “Political Economy”, Sexuality”, “Aesthetics” and “Philosophy” – the book unravels the epistemes generated by socialist society and political economy and witnesses the extent to which certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of anti-capitalist critique in continental thought since 1960-s, institutions of civil society and present theoretical provisions of emancipation — are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition.
By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

This thesis presents work toward a novel theory of human thinking. I argue that through ontogenesis the origins of cognition in situated-action are scaffolded by language and, in the process, the functional architecture of cognition, through a series of developmental changes, becomes dramatically restructured. 

The theory is developed with reference to several existing attempts to come to terms with this process, in cognitive modelling, philosophy and theoretical psychology. To test and develop these theories a novel approach to cognitive modelling is developed that allows current thinking in this area to be tested with greater clarity than was previously possible.

My approach builds upon the work of Andy Clark, Daniel Dennett, Merlin Donald and, ultimately, Lev Vygotsky, but it goes further in developing a detailed model of the process by which language (speech) is internalised in order to play a functionally restructuring role in human cognition. In particular I emphasize how the internal and external dimensions of language interact over different time scales. Further I argue it can be used to help explain how truly human thinking is born, and some of what is unique about that thinking.

An extensive historical survey is undertaken of the context in which some of the major previous theories of thinking have been developed and I use this to assess the reasons these models have only entertained a minor role for natural language in cognitive architecture. I also use this historical backdrop to explain why only limited previous work has been done with cognitive models in this area. Two cognitive robotics models are presented and discussed that shed light on how language may be internalised. These are used to develop a theoretical model of language internalisation more generally, and the stages of cognitive reorganisation this entails.

The thesis is completed by the use of the new model to tackle some significant problems in recent literature on the scientific understanding of consciousness. I argue this model can also help to explain findings about certain disorders of thought from the psychopathological literature.

У статті доводиться, що Л.С. Виготський створив нову, справжню методологію, застосування якої дало змогу отримати і, головне, проінтерпретувати абсолютно нові  й дуже важливі наукові факти. Аналізуються методологічні основи та вимоги до психологічних досліджень. Історико-генетичний погляд як на будь-яке психологічне  явище, так і на психологію особистості в цілому, є першою методологічною вимогою будь-якого психологічного дослідження. Друга вимога стосується самого аналізу (тлумачення) наукових фактів. Оскільки предмет дослідження (будь-яке психічне явище) існує в дійсності виключно в рамках цілісності, аналіз, щоб бути науковим і об’єктивним, мусить не втрачати цю цілісність. По-третє, головна причина редукції в сучасній психології полягає в тому, що реальні дослідження часто «зсуваються» з власне психологічного предмету. Наступним методологічним положенням є необхідність спеціального психологічного аналізу артефактів. Л. С. Виготський з’ясував і довів, що психічне детермінується психічним, адже потреби й мотиви – суто психічні явища. Інші речі – соціальне, духовне, біологічне, – безумовно, вступають у взаємодію з потребами, але самі ніколи не детермінують їх. Це є дійсно психологічна детермінація – вплив цілого (психіки) на всі її складові частини. Істотною умовою тут виступає присвоєння культурного досвіду, опосередковане взаємодією з іншими людьми. Наголошується, що культурно-історична психологія особливим чином досліджує допомагальну взаємодію дорослого і дитини. У просоціальному плані – плані винесеного зовні, інтерпсихічного функціонування – вперше з’являється вища психічна функція, що переходить потім у внутрішній, згорнутий, інтрапсихічний план.

Vygotsky’s project needs to be grasped as a yet unnamed type of an approach which, in continuing the revolutionary spirit of Marxism, moved beyond the old divide between theory and practice and instead, embodied their unity in a peculiar blend with distinct philosophical, theoretical and ethical/ideological underpinnings. The goal of creating
new psychology for a society that itself needed to be created on principles of social justice and equality guided this approach and turned it into a critical-practical project of social transformation and change. The main argument advanced in this paper is that at the core of Vygotsky’s method is the novel transformative onto-epistemology, coupled with the socio-political ethos of equality and justice, which challenge ideology of adaptation and control. I discuss this set of issues in light of a transformative activist stance that puts premium on researchers’ commitments and value orientations.

The core argument in this paper is that all research schools and theoretical frameworks carry with them – and, importantly, also within them, as their inherent dimensions – particular ethical orientations (systems of values and ethical endpoints) tailored to and derivative from socio-political and ultimately, practical projects in which research uniquely gains its concreteness and meaning. These projects can be differentiated along the axis either of supporting (explicitly or implicitly) the status quo by taking it for granted and not challenging its reigning assumptions or, alternatively, aiming at transcending it through resistance and social transformation. These systems of values and orientations, or a sociopolitical ethos, indelibly color all other elements and dimensions of inquiries such as their ontologies and epistemologies, forming a unified ethico-onto-epistemology. Cultural-historical theory, under certain expansions and upgrades, is a paradigmatic case for advancing this position, with Hedegaard's works seen as sharing Vygotsky's broadly defined sociopolitical ethos which sheds light on her approach's significance and promise. To establish the centrality of ethico-onto-epistemology, a revision of the constitutional framework that could enable it, away from assumptions of passivity, accommodation, and adaptation, is required. A Transformative Activist Stance paves the way to understand knowledge production as always embedded within activist pursuits of broad social projects beyond the narrow confines of academia while embracing transformative agency grounded in political imagination and commitment to resistance and radical social transformation.
available at:  https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.gc.cuny.edu/science/article/pii/S2210656118300953

Lew Siemionowicz Wygotski (1896–1934), wybitny rosyjski psycholog, uważał, że prawdziwa edukacja nie polega na samym przyswajaniu określonej wiedzy, ale na rozwijaniu u dzieci umiejętności uczenia się. Zdolność do jasnego i kreatywnego myślenia, planowania, realizowania planów i komunikacji z innymi jest o wiele ważniejsza od stanu posiadanych zasobów wiadomości. Przyswajanie wiedzy i kompetencji jest nieporównywalnie łatwiejsze, jeśli wiemy, jak się uczyć. Zasadniczym zadaniem nauczyciela wychowawcy jest zatem konstrukcja „rusztowania”, na którym powstanie, samodzielnie budowany przez ucznia, pałac wiedzy o świecie.

The mental, the mind, psychology, brain science, and evolutionary, developmental, and comparative psychology, as well as the philosophical analysis of action and thought, are all topics that interact in complex ways with social theory. This interaction, and its difficulties, reach back to the beginnings of sociology, with Comte's rejection of the "psychology" of his own time. There is a sense in which these relations stabilized in the mid-twentieth century, during the behavioral science revolution. The failure of this revolution, and the success of the cognitive revolution in psychology that followed, along with the demise of Freudianism as a serious account of the person, destabilized these relations and returned us to the issues of the past. In this chapter I will give a brief and very general account of this past, identifying the main rivals to the psychology that became the de facto standard view in social science, and explaining their relevance today.

This accessible collection of essays critically examines Vygotsky’s scientific legacy. The book is solidly grounded in the "revisionist revolution" context and encourages constructive questioning of Vygotsky’s theory of human development. It tackles thought-provoking issues such as the true value of his scholarship, the possible falsification of his scientific legacy, and the role of political factors and the Communist parties in the worldwide dissemination of his work. It is essential reading on Vygotskian psychology and of interest to students and researchers in developmental psychology, history of psychology, history of science, Soviet/Russian history, philosophical science and education.

Resumo: Com base em Vygotsky (1930, 1934) e em pesquisadores atuais que discutem a organização colaborativo-crítica dos contextos de formação contínua na escola, este artigo discute a relação entre colaboração, contradição e os contextos de formação contínua como lócus de inserção de transformações na escola. Entende a formação de formadores como um coletivo que, por meio de relações mútuas e dialéticas entre todos os participantes do contexto escolar (professores, gestores, alunos) e fora dele (pesquisadores), juntos discutem a realidade específica da escola em relação às mudanças socioculturais e políticas do mundo e colaborativamente agem para a transformação da escola e da sociedade. Palavras-chave: Formação contínua de educadores; Colaboração e transformação; Formação de formadores; Agência; Questões metodológicas. Abstract: Based on Vygotsky (1930, 1934) and on current researchers who discuss collaborative-critical relations in continuing education schools contexts, this article points at collaboration and contradiction relations as a locus for school transformation. It understands educators' continuing education as a collective organization that, by means of mutual and dialectics relationships among all participants (principal, coordinators, teachers, students) and the ones outside school (researchers), discuss the school specific reality, the world, sociocultural and political changes and, collaboratively act to transform the school and the society. .