Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (Лев Семенович Выготский) (November 17 (November 5 Old Style), 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet developmental psychologist whose work received widespread recognition in the Western world in the 1960s as English translations appeared. His contributions are widely respected and influential within the fields of developmental psychology, education, and child development. Vygotsky's lifelong goal was to use Marxist methodology to re-formulate psychological theories in accordance with Marxist thinking and to address social and political issues confronting the new nation as it went from feudalism to socialism. In the world of today's psychological thought, Vygotsky is known as the Mozart of Psychology.

Biography

Lev Vygotsky was born was born in Orsha, Belarus (then Russian empire), into a well-to-do family of Jewish ancestry, on November 5th, 1896. Soon after Lev's birth, his father was appointed department chief of the United Bank of Gomel and the family moved to Gomel. Vygotsky spent his childhood in Gomel. Vygotsky's mother had trained to be a teacher but saw her priority in being at home to provide a stimulating and enriching environment for her eight children. Vygotsky completed his primary education at home with his mother and a private tutor and then entered public school for his secondary education. When a child, Vygotsky read Torah. Possessing an exceptional reading speed and memory he was an excellent student in all subjects at school.

Vygotsky graduated from secondary school with a gold medal at the age of seventeen. He entered the University of Moscow and initially studied Medicine, then switched to Law. Vygotsky continued his self-directed studies in philosophy. After graduating from the University of Moscow, Vygotsky returned to Gomel to teach Literature and Philosophy. In Gomel, he married Rosa Smekhova, and they had two daughters. Vygotsky set up a research laboratory at The Teacher's College of Gomel.

In 1924, he made a presentation at the Second All-Russian Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad. He discussed and compared methods of reflexological and psychological investigation. Vygotsky's presentation was very well received, and he was offered a position at the Psychological Institute of Moscow. In the same year, he moved to Moscow, to work on a diverse set of projects. In that period he lived in the basement of the Institute and had the opportunity to read masses of archived materials. In 1925, Vygotsky finished his dissertation on The Psychology of Art. Vygotsky instigated special education services in Russia and re-structured the Psychological Institute of Moscow. An area of a high priority for the Vygotsky was always the psychology of education and remediation and his lifelong interest in children with learning disabilities led him to form the "Laboratory of Psychology for Abnormal Childhood" in Moscow. Vygotsky was also being recognised as leading a transformational school of thought, which was turning psychology from a field of activity into a discipline of inquiry. His philosophical analysis of the foundations of psychology in his work "The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology" saw his reputation further enhanced. Unfortunately, Vygotsky contracted tuberculosis from his younger brother, whom he was caring for and died in 1934 at the age of thirty-eight. He wrote over 180 papers, some of which were published fifty years after his earthly life.

Work and Key Ideas

Vygotsky's scientific investigations can be relatively divided into three essential areas that are interrelated and interconnected:

[[Human Development]}, i.e., development of an individual human being. Vygotsky uses the genetic/dialectical/developmental method in explaining human growth. He develops theories on The zone of proximal development and scaffolding.
Historical cultural theory, i.e., the dialectics of the development of an individual as well as of the humankind. Vygorsky claims that higher mental functioning in the individual emerges out of social processes. He also claims that human social and psychological processes are fundamentally shaped by cultural tools, or mediational means. He uses the terms mediation and internalization.
Development of human thought and language in ontogenesis and philogenesis, i.e., at the level of individual development and at the level of mankind development. He uses the term psychological tools. Vygotsky covers such diverse topics as the origin and the development of higher mental functions, philosophy of science and methodology of psychological research, the relationship between learning and human development, concept formation, language and thought, psychology of art, play as a psychological phenomenon, the study of learning disabilities and abnormal human development. In all these theories, Vygotsky uses the dialectical approach as a method of investigation. He also denotes the dialectics of these developments.

Human Development: The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding

According to Vygotsky, children learn by internalizing the results of interactions with adults. This interactive learning is most effective in helping children cross the zone of proximal Proximal means nearby) development, the gap between what they are already able to do and what they are not quite ready to accomplish by themselves.

In this passage, Vygotsky describes ZPD: "Most of the psychological investigations concerned with school learning measured the level of mental development of the child by making him solve certain standardised problems. The problems he was able to solve by himself were supposed to indicate the level of his mental development at the particular time ... We tried a different approach. Having found that the mental age of two children was, let us say eight, we gave each of them harder problems than he could manage on his own and provided slight assistance ... We discovered that one child could, in cooperation, solve problems designed for twelve year olds, while the other could not go beyond problems intended for nine year olds. The discrepancy between a child's mental age [indicated by the static test] and the level — he reaches in solving problems with assistance — is the zone of his proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1986, p.186-7). Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which relates to the gap or difference between child's existing abilities and what she/he can learn with the guidance of an adult or a more capable peer. While commonly quoted by educators, the ZPD is still not widely used the way in which Vygotsky initially presented the idea, specifically how it relates to assessment. The Zone of proximal development uses two levels to gauge a child's ability and potential. A child's actual development level is when he or she can work unaided on a task or problem. This sets a baseline for the child's knowledge and is traditionally what is assessed and valued in schools. The Potential development level is the level of competence a child can reach when he or she is guided and supported by another person. This idea of a significant adult — guiding a child through the ZPD — is known as scaffolding.

By saying "to scaffold," Lev Vygotsky mainly meant to structure participation in learning encounters in order to foster a child's emerging capabilities. Scaffolds can be provided in a few ways: by a mentor, by the objects or experiences of a certain culture, by child's past learning. Vygorsky wrote: "The only good instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it. It must be aimed not so much at the matured as at the maturation fuctions. It remains necessary to determine the lowest threshold at which instruction may begin, since a certain maturity of functionsis required. But we must consider the upper threshold as well: instruction must be oriented toward future, not the past. This concept has been further developed by prominent US psychologist Jerome Bruner. Developmental psychologists who have observed how parents scaffold their child's emergent capabilities have identified a number of steps that contribute to effective scafolding. They emphasize that adults cannot simply build it alone. They must construct it with the child and help the child through it (Bruner, 1982). The steps are the following: Arouse interest; simplify the task; scaffold the task itself; interpret the activity; solve problems; teach enthusiasm. According to Vygotsky and his adherents, the intellectual development of children is a function of human communities rather than of individuals.

Psychology of play

Lesser known, but a direct correlate to the ZPD and of utmost importance to Vygotsky, was his concept of play. Play was a moment where social rules were put into practice - a horse would behave as horse even though it was a stick. These types of rules always guided a child's play. Vygotsky even once described two sisters at dinner "playing" at being sisters at dinner. Vygotsky believed that play contained all developmental levels in a condensed form. Therefore, to Vygotsky, play was akin to imagination where a child extends her/himself to the next level of her/his normal behavior, thereby creating a zone of proximal development for her/himself. In essence, Vygotsky believed "play is the source of development." Psychology of play was later developed by Vygotsky's student Daniil El'konin.

Historical-cultural Development: Cultural mediation and internalization

Vygotsky describes human cognitive development as a collaborative process, which means that the learning process of individuals goes through social interactions. Children acquire cognitive skills as part of their induction into a way to life. Shared activities help them internalize their society's modes of thinking and behaving. Moreover, social interaction not only helps children remember, it may even be the key to memory formation. In addition to these ideas, Vygotsky also forwarded the notion that culture and community play a decicive role in early development.

Vygotsky is well-known for his model being termed sociocultural approach. For him, a child's development is a direct result of her/his culture. For Vygotsky, development applied primarily to mental development, such as thought, language, reasoning processes and mental functions. However, Vygotsky observed that these abilities developed 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, namely speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge that effected a child's construction of her/his knowledge. The specific knowledge gained by a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.

Development of Thought and Language: Individual and historical perspectives

Another important Vygotsky contribution concerns the inter-relationship of language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book Thought and Language, establishes the explicit and profound connection between speech, (both silent inner speech and oral language) and the development of mental concepts and cognitive awareness metacognition. It is through inner speech and oral languge Vygotsky argued, that thoughts and mental constructs (a child's intellectual being) are formed. A child's conscious awareness of these and their being impressed upon the human psyche provide an underlying theoretical rationale for such truisms as: "If you want to learn something, teach it to someone", "the one who does the talking, does the learning", "I talked myself into it"; and the observations of our need to "talk it out" and "think out loud."

Vygotsky's scholarly legacy and the continuation of his scientific ideas

In the Soviet Union, the ideas of Vygotsky were developed largely under the banner of activity theory that was introduced and systematically developed by such Vygotsky's students and colleagues as Alexei Leont'ev, P. Zinchenko, Zaporozhets, D. El'konin, as well as Gal'perin, Davydov, Smirnov, Talyzina. "Thought and Language" was first published in English in the early 1960s. However, although it generated some interest, it was not until 16 years later in 1978, with the publication of "Mind in Society," that the importance of his contribution was first noticed and the value placed on his work began to grow (Newman and Holzmann, 1993, 1995).

The Basic Writings of Lev Vygotsky and Future Generations

Today's editors (Robert Rieber et al) of Lev S. Vygotsky write: "More than seventy decades after his death, the visionary work of Vygotsky continues to have a profound impact on psychology, sociology, education, and other varied disciplines. Russian therapist, scholar, and cultural theorist developed works in various fields The cultural-historical approach, The role of language in creating the mind, The development of memory and perception, Defectology (abnormal psychology/learning disabilities/special education), The Zone of Proximal Development.

Each section features an insightful introduction exploring relevant aspects of Vygotsky's life and illuminating the revolutionary historical context in which these writings were conceived. Together, they reflect the studies he was conducting at the time of his death and the pathbreaking clinical observations that made his reputation. Today's readers of Vygotsky are impressed and inspired by his insights, his optimism, his prescience, and his humanity. Vygotsky's papers are relevant for students of developmental psychology, language, special education, and the history of these fields."

Vygotsky and the issues of contemporary psychology

In the West, most attention was aimed at the continuing work of Vygotsky's Western contemporary Jean Piaget. Early - albeit indirectly - influence on growing the cognitive science community in the United States was already apparent in the late 1950s and early 1960s through the work of Vygotsky's student and collaborator Alexander Luria which was read by early pioneers of cognitive science J. S. Bruner and George Miller. However, 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.

By the 1980s, Vygotsky's work became well known in the United States in part due to the opening of the Soviet Union due to glasnost. According to some US scholars (M. Cole, J.Bruner), Vygotsky formulated a meta-psychology that encompassed the phylogeny, cultural history, ontogeny and moment to moment dynamics of human psychological functioning as a life long process of becoming. Vygotsky's work became extremely influential because it offered a way of reconciling the competing notions of maturation by which a child is seen as an unfolding flower best left to develop on his or her own, and environmentalism, in which a child is seen as a blank slate onto which must be poured knowledge. His views are influential on activity theory, distributed cognition, and Cognitive Apprenticeships.

Vygotsky's ideas in education

Vygotsky's ideas have important implications for education and psychological testing. Tests that focus on a child's potential for learning provide a valuable alternative to standard intelligence tests that assess what the child has already learned. Many children may benefit from the sort of expert guidance Vygotsky prescibes. Dynamic Tests based on Vygotsky's ideas and theories emphasize potential rather than present achievement. In contrast with traditional "static" tests that measure a child's current abilities, these tests seek to capture the dynamic nature of intelligence by measuring learning processes directly rather than through the products of past learning. Dynamic tests contain items up to two years above a child's current level of competence. Examiners help the child when necessary by asking leading and orienting questions, giving examples or demonstrations, and offering feedback; thus, the test itself is a learning situation. According to Vygotsky, adults and more advanced peers must help direct and organize a child's learning before the child can master and internalize it. Responsibility for directing and monitoringlearning shifts to the child — much as, when an adult teaches a child to float, the adult first supports the child in the water and then lets go gradually as the child's body relaxes into a hirizontal position. Works of Vygotsky are also studied today by linguists regarding language and its influence on the formation of the perception of reality. His work has also been influential on second language acquisition theory.

Critical Thinking on Lev Vygotsky's legacy

Lev Vygotsky was the Man of his Era. He called himself the Son of the Silver Age (considering Golden Age the 19th century). He was very enthusiastic for the October Revolution in Russia, in 1917. Some of his scientific and educational papers were full of citations from Leon Trotsky. In the 1930s, when Stalinist slogans became more popular and influential, moreover, Leon Trotsky was banned as an enemy to socialism, Vygotsky’s situation became politically unfavorable. His colleagues and students were frightened and they scared to defend him further in his endeavors to use Marxian approach (that is Trotskist approach) in addressing the social and political problems of the Silver Age, in building a just society, which was going from feudalism to socialism.

The Collected Works of Lev S. Vygotsky in the English Language

Volume 1

Problems of General Psychology
Prologue to the English Edition, Jerome Bruner
The Development of Vygotsky’s Thought: An Introduction, Norris Minick
Thinking and Speech
Lectures on Psychology
Afterword to the Russian Edition, A. R. Luria

Volume 2

The Fundamentals of Defectology (Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities)
Vygotsky and Soviet Russian Defectology: An Introduction, Jane Knox and Carol B. Stevens
Part I: General Problems of Defectology
Part II: Special Problems of Defectology
Part III: Questions at the Forefront of Defectology

Volume 3

Problems of the Theory and History of Psychology
Some Major Themes in Vygotsky’s Theoretical Work. An Introduction, René van der Veer
On Vygotsky’s Creative Development, A. N. Leont'ev
Part 1: Problems of the Theory and Methods of Psychology
Part 2: Developmental Paths of Psychological Knowledge
Epilogue, M. G. Yaroshevsky and G. S. Gurgenidze

Volume 4

The History of the Development of the Higher Mental Functions
The Question of Multilingual Children

Volume 5

Child Psychology
Pedology of the Adolescent

Volume 6

Scientific Legacy
Tool and Sign in the Development of the Child
The Teaching about Emotions. Historical-Psychological Studies
On the Problem of the Psychology of the Actor’s Creative Work

Vygotsky's Writings Chronologically

1924 Presentation of the paper "Methodology of reflexological and psychological research at the Second Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad
1925 Doctoral thesis 'Psychology of Art' Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior
1926 published Pedagogical Psychology/Educational Psychology
1927 Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology: A Methodological Investigation
1929 The Problem of the Cultural Development of the Child
1930 Primitive Man and his Behaviour, The socialist alteration of man
1931 Adolescent Pedagogy
1933 Play and its role in the Mental Development of the Child
1934 Thinking and Speech

Vygotsky's texts online

Lev Vygotsky archive @ marxists.org.uk: all major works (in English)
Lev Vygotsky's Psychology of Art (in Russian)

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Bruner, J.S. The organization of action and the nature of adult-infant transaction. In: M.von Cranach and R.Harre (eds). The analysis of action. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Cheyne A.& Tarulli, D.,1996 Dialogue, Difference, and the "Third Voice" in the Zone of Proximal Development http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/ZPD.html
Cole, M. & Wersch, J. 1994 Beyond The Individual-Social Antimony In Discussions Of Piaget And Vygotsky http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/colevyg.htm
Cole, M. Cultural psychology: A once and future descipline. Cambridge, MA:Belknap Press.
Gielen, U.P. and Jeshmaridian, S. (1999). Lev S. Vygotsky: The man and the era. International Journal of Group Tensions. Volume 28, Numbers ¾, p. 273-301.
Schütz, R., 2004 VYGOTSKY & LANGUAGE ACQUISITION http://www.english.sk.com.br/sk-vygot.html/ http://www.sk.com.br/sk-vygot.html
Smagorinsky P. The Social Construction of Data: Methodological problems of investigating learning. In: The Zone of Proximal Development http://Psych.Hanover.Edu/Vygotsky/Smagor.html
Van der Veer, J., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1986). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934)

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