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Vygotsky and Educational Psychology: Some preliminary remarks
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniels, Harry |
| Copyright Year | 2005 |
| Abstract | In this short article I will discuss some of the key elements of developments in psychology that have been attributed to the work of L.S. Vygotsky. He drew attention to the way in which humans use tools, such as speech, which mediate their engagement with the world. This understanding of mediation was central to his analysis of the social, cultural and historical influences on the formation of mind. I will provide a brief summary of the key elements of this theory which carry with them radical implications for the work of applied psychologists working in education. be that they are seeking to extend the insights of the so-called cognitive revolution and yet are painfully aware of the shortcomings of so many of its products (e.g. Hirst & Manier, 1995). The research practice of experimentation in artificial situations has provided valuable insights but incurred significant costs. Context, however defined, remains under-theorised and its effects remain under-researched. Vygotsky developed a theory within which social, cultural and historical forces play a part in development. His attempts to theorise interpersonal and intrapersonal processes provide an important opening for discussions of determinism, reductionism and agency within a framework of social formation. His free-ranging cross-/multidisciplinary contribution to 20th-century intellectual life was supported by his own interpretation of both fellow Russian and European thinkers. He was developing a way of thinking that also found parallels with others beyond his place and time. This creative fusion and development of many perspectives and persuasions was cast adrift in the tragedy that befell the Soviet Union under Stalin. It was selectively moulded, transformed, developed and, in no small part, suppressed for many years. Although the texts themselves did achieve some small notoriety in unpublished form, both in the Soviet Union and the West, they only really became known in the West in the 1970s. One way of understanding Vygotsky is as a cultural psychologist. Michael Cole opens the first chapter of his recent book entitled Cultural psychology with a discussion of Wundt’s conception of a psychology comprised of two parts. One part was the then (1880) new psychology of experimentation; the other, much less widely discussed, part of Wundt’s contribution was concerned with ‘the task of understanding how culture enters into psychological processes’ (Cole, 1996, p.7). The work of the Russian school of Vygotsky, Luria and Leont’ev has influenced many of the 20th-century social theorists who sought to address this agenda. A central theme for them was that of mediation. Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) suggestion that language is ‘over populated with the intentions of others’ reminds us that the processes of mediation are processes in which individuals operate with artefacts (e.g. words/texts) which are themselves shaped by, and have been shaped in, activities within which values are contested and meaning negotiated. In this sense cultural residues reside in and constrain the possibilities for communication. Thus the mediational process is one that neither denies individual or collective agency nor denies social, cultural, historical constraint. The operational definition of those issues which are to be regarded as ‘social, cultural and historical’ affects the breadth of the conception of pedagogy. If a broad range of factors is seen to be potentially formative at the psychological level then questions must address the pedagogy of such a process of formation. There is considerable tension and debate as to the nature of such factors. The tensions are revealed in competing definitions of ‘culture’ and the labelling of contemporary theoretical approaches as, for example, either sociocultural or cultural-historical. There are similar debates about the means of mediation. Some approaches have tended to focus on semiotic means of mediation (Wertsch, 1991) whereas others have tended to focus more on the system of activity itself (Engeström, 1993). I wish to discuss the general concept of mediation within the Vygotskian thesis. Figure 1 represents the possibilities for subject–object relations. They are either unmediated, direct and in some sense natural or they are mediated through culturally available artefacts. In much of the literature the term ‘tool’ is used in place of artefact. I intend to discuss both the concept of tool as it appeared in the original writing and artefact as something that is imbued with meaning and value through its existence within a field of human activity. Educational & Child Psychology Vol 22 No 1 7 Vygotsky and educational psychology |
| Starting Page | 6 |
| Ending Page | 18 |
| Page Count | 13 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 22 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Vygotsky-and-educational-psychology-Some-preliminary-remark.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
