This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (Russian: Лев Семёнович Выготский) (November 17 (November 5 Old Style), 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet developmental psychologist and the founder of cultural-historical psychology. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... 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. ... is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Old Style redirects here. ... Year 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar). ... is the 162nd day of the year (163rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Soviet redirects here. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... 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

Lev Vygotsky, psychologist, was born in 1896 in Orsha, in the Russian Empire (today in Belarus). Vygotsky was tutored privately by Solomon Ashpiz and graduated from Moscow State University in 1917. Later, he attended the Institute of Psychology in Moscow (1924–34), where he worked extensively on ideas about cognitive development, particularly the relationship between language and thinking. His writings emphasized the roles of historical, cultural, and social factors in cognition and argued that language was the most important symbolic tool provided by society. Vygotsky 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. ... The subject of this article was previously also known as Russia. ... Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russian: Московский государственный университет имени Ðœ.Ð’.Ломоносова, often abbreviated МГУ, MSU, MGU) is the largest and the oldest university in Russia, founded in 1755. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or Tuberculosis) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Work

A pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: his major works span 6 volumes, written over roughly 10 years, from his Psychology of Art (1925) to Thought and Language [or Thinking and Speech] (1934). 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 psychological tools, mediation, internalization and the zone of proximal development. His work covered 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). Vygotsky, is now an ifluence to the early childhood today. This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... 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 is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ... Meethodology is defined as the analysis of the principles of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline, the systematic study of methods that are, can be, or have been applied within a discipline or a particular procedure or set of procedures [1]. It should be noted that methodology is... Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom. ... 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 historically within particular cultural groups, as well as individually 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 children through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization. Interpersonal communication is the process of sending and receiving information or communication with another person. ... Cultural mediation - one of the fundamental mechanisms of distinctly human development according to cultural-historical psychological theory introduced by Lev Vygotsky and developed in the work of his numerous followers worldwide. ...

Internalization can be understood in one res == [[Link title'''Bold text']]pect 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 who wants to ride a horse but he cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but 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...

Thought and Language

Perhaps Vygotsky's most important contribution concerns the inter-relationship of language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book Thought and Language, (alternative translation: 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. It should be noted that Vygotsky described inner speech as being qualitatively different from 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.

An infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with its main care-givers, e.g., pointing, cries, and gurgles can express what is wanted. How verbal sounds can be used to conduct social interaction is learned through this activity, and the child begins to utilize/build/develop this faculty: using names for objects, etc.

Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. The child guides personal behavior by using this tool in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud." Initially, self-talk is very much a tool of social interaction and it tapers to negligible levels when the child is alone or with deaf children. Gradually self-talk is used more as a tool for self-directed and self-regulating behavior. Then, because speaking has been appropriated and internalized, self-talk is no longer present around the time the child starts school. 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, pg 57). 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, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into 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 Eastern 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 a foundation for Vygotskian psychology's 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, his theory of cognitive development and for his epistemological view called genetic epistemology. He created in 1955 the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and...

Vygotsky's views are reported to have influenced development of a wide range of psychological and educational theories such as Ecological Systems Theory, 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 Urie Bronfenbrenner, 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, Dorothy Robbins, Nikolai Veresov, Anna Stetsenko, Kieran Egan, Fred Newman, David McNeill and Lois Holzman, to mention but a few. 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. ... 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 is the process by which people learn languages in addition to their native language(s). ... For gestures in computing, see mouse gesture. ... Urie Bronfenbrenner (April 29, 1917-September 25, 2005) was a renowned psychologist and a co-founder of the U.S. national Head Start program. ... 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. ...

Western scholars have also begun to apply the Vygotskian paradigm to the domain of moral development. In Educational Psychology, first published in English in 1997,Vygotsky devotes a chapter to the discussion of moral development and moral education. Vygotsky viewed moral development as involving similar processes as other areas of cognitive development. Examples of scholars applying Vygotskian theory to moral development include Mark Tappan and Val D. Turner.

Critics of Vygotsky

The school of Vygotsky and, specifically, his cultural-historical psychology was much criticized during his lifetime as well as after his death. By the beginning of the 1930s the school was defeated by Vygotsky's scientific opponents who criticized him for "idealist aberrations", which at that time equaled with the charge in disloyalty to the Communist Party and frequently entailed very serious consequences not only for the academic work but also for freedom and even life itself. As a result of this criticism of their work a major group of Vygotsky's students including Luria and Leontiev had to flee from Moscow to Ukraine where they established the Kharkov school of psychology. Later the representatives of the school would, in turn, in the second half of the 1930s criticize Vygotsky himself for his interest in the cross-disciplinary study of the child that was developed under the umbrella term of paedology (also spelled as pedology) as well as for his ignoring the role of practice and practical, object-bound activity and arguably his emphasis on the research on the role of language and, on the other hand, emotional factors in human development. Much of this early criticism of the 1930s was later discarded by these Vygotskian scholars themselves. Another line of the critique of Vygotsky's psychological theory comes from such major figure of the Soviet psychology as Sergei Rubinshtein and his followers who criticized Vygotsky's notion of mediation and its development in the works of students. 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. ... Alexander Romanovich Luria Александр Романович Лурия (July 16, 1902-1977) was a famous Russian neuropsychologist. ... 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. ...

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.
• Daniels, H., Wertsch, J. & Cole, M. (Eds.) (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky
• Van der Veer, Rene (2007). Lev Vygotsky: Continuum Library of Educational Thought. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8409-3. 

Vygotsky's texts online

In English

• 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

• 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.
• XMCA Research Paper Archive Various articles on Vygotskian psychology
• Cole, M. & Wertsch, J. Beyond the individual-social antinomy in discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky
• Garai, L. Another crisis in the psychology: A possible motive for the Vygotsky-boom.
• Garai, L. Vygotskian implications: On the meaning and its brain
• Ratner, C. Historical and contemporary significance of Vygotsky's sociohistorical psychology
• Sociocultural Theory wiki, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Video about Vygotsky
• Vygotsky's Developmental Theory: An Introduction 4-minute clip from a documentary film used primarily in higher education.
• Annotated bibliography of scholarly histories on Vygotsky, Advances in the History of Psychology, York University