ES2122: Theorising Early Childhood
Week 9: Vygotsky (1)
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module outline.
Last updated 23.11.11.
Biography (1896 – 1934)
1917
Graduated
simultaneously from Law faculty of
1917-1923
Taught
literature and psychology at school in
Taught
psychology at the teacher training institute
Founded
a journal that presented literary and art critique
1923-1934
Founded
the
Directed
the Moscow Education Department for Physically
Defective and Mentally Retarded Children
Taught
various courses in the
Undertook
medical training
Developed
a research culture that reflected his interests in a variety of fields
·
Critique
of the method and history of psychology
·
Psychology
of art
·
Mental
retardation
·
Clinical
neurology
Focused on Paedology
(developmental and educational psychology) towards the end of his life. This work was decreed to be
‘reactionary bourgeois science’ by Stalinist Party bosses in 1930s and it was
forbidden to discuss or disseminate this aspect of his work in
Context of Vygotsky’s
work
Started
his work after the Russian Revolution of 1917
Contemporary
of:
a) Pavlov and Watson (stimulus-response theories of behaviour)
Focus on the simple ‘building blocks’ of human activity
and the ‘rules’ by which these elements combine to produce more complex
behaviour
b) Wertheimer and Koffka (founders of the
Gestalt psychology movement)
Emphasis upon the complexity of human intellect and
behaviour as a ‘whole’
Vygotsky
disagreed with both schools of thought and explicitly set out to address the
‘crisis in psychology’ that he believed they presented. Challenged the
prevailing notions of his contemporaries that:
·
Understanding
human psychological functions can be achieved from principles derived from
studies of animal behaviour
·
The
properties of adult intellectual functions arise from maturation alone
Marxist theory of human
intellectual functioning
Vygotsky
believed that the methods and principles of dialectical and historical
materialism overcame the deficiencies of his contemporaries’ ideas in
psychology
·
All
phenomena are constantly in a process of motion and change, and the struggles
this provokes lead to growth and development
·
Social
existence informs individual consciousness, and historical changes in society
produce changes in ‘human nature’.
Humans develop as historical, social beings, and so the liberation of
individuals and liberation of society are interdependent
Perceived
learning as a profoundly social process, and emphasised the role of language
and dialogue in ‘mediated’ cognitive growth. Mere exposure to stimulating
material is not sufficient for learning and development: instruction, teaching
and/or ‘mediated’ cognition are the means through which development is advanced.
Development ‘unfolds [in] the individual mind within a
cultural-historical context’ (Vygotsky, 1929: 67)
Socialist Alteration of Man
Reiterated
Marxist emphasis upon the way in which the individual’s development is informed
and shaped by his/her society
Each historically defined form of material production has
its corresponding form of spiritual production, and this, in turn, signifies
that human psychology, which is the direct instrument of this intellectual
production, assumes its specific form at a certain stage of development (Engels, 1894 cited in Vygotsky, 1994/1930: 177)
[He] emphasised the social interaction and mutual
influence of individuals both contemporaneously and generationally,
which both propagate the development of the individual’s mental systems and
personality and the wider cultural repertoire of abilities, possibilities and
processes through history (Moran and John-Steiner, 2003: 4)
Not
necessarily a pessimistic prospect
As a
Russian Socialist, Vygotsky was confident that
capitalism would inevitably be destroyed:
this liberation would lead to the enhancement of human’s powers over
nature and the social relationships between people
This
enhanced social context would lead in turn to enhanced
individual development because the mechanism of individual development is
rooted in society and culture. The social is prior to the individual.
The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each
single individual. In its reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations (Marx, 1959: 244)
This
belief justifies Vygotsky’s assertion that:
We become ourselves through
others (Vygotsky, 1994/1930: 39)
The Relationship between the
Social and the Individual
Vygotsky
believed that the internalisation of culturally produced sign systems brings
about behavioural transformations and forms a bridge between early (simple) and
later (increasingly more complex) forms of individual development.
·
An
individual’s mental life expresses itself in interaction with others
·
Social
interaction is principally constituted and mediated by signs and language
Therefore
what gets internalised into the child’s thought are the meanings and forms generated
in signs and verbal exchanges, which are themselves products of the broader
cultural-historical system.
Every function in the development of the child appears
on the stage twice, on two planes. First, on the social plane,
and then on the psychological; first, between people, and then, inside the child (Vygotsky, 1987, vol. 3: 145)
Main tenets of Vygotsky’s theory (Davydof, 1995)
·
Development
takes place in collective activity
·
Development
takes places during changes in the social situations of a person’s life
·
Individual
development is the internalisation of external culture
·
Signs
and symbols play an essential role in the process of internalisation
In
contrast to Piaget, who emphasises the invariant logic of growth, Vygotsky explicitly challenges the maturational emphasis of
traditional psychological perspectives on human development. Instead, he wants
to emphasise the centrality of culturally patterned ‘dialogue’ or interaction
in the enablement of growth
In general we may say that the relations between the
higher mental functions were at one time real relations among people (Vygotsky, 1991: 37)
Vygotsky
rejected the ‘stereotypical’ development within a limited range of
possibilities proposed by Piaget, which he dismissed as merely a description of
maturation. Instead, Vygotsky presented development
as:
a complex dialectical process which is characterised by
complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of various functions,
metamorphosis or qualitative transformations of some forms into other, complex
interlacement of processes of evolution and involution, and a complex process of
external and internal factors, and a complex process of surmounting difficulties
and of adaptation (Vygotsky, 1991: p.
33)
Process of Internalisation
Internalisation
of higher psychological functions is an operation that reconstructs the
individual’s initial mimicry of external activity
All mental functions are first experienced socially,
learned in interaction with others, then internalised to be conducted
psychologically without the need for external object support.[…] Once
internalised, these mental functions interact with each other to form more
flexible, complex functional systems (Moran and John-Steiner, 2003: 40)
This
process of personal transformation leads to the creation of knowledge/cultural
artefacts which will then be appropriated by others – resulting in cultural transformation
This process
is dependent on the use of signs and language
… the most significant moment in
the course of intellectual development, which gives birth to the purely human
forms of practical and abstract intelligence, occurs when speech and practical
activity, two previously completely independent lines of development, converge (Vygotsky,
1986: 24)
The
early years become a significant transitional moment in the person’s
development. Language gives greater freedom to the child’s operations as s/he
can formulate plans, investigate alternative plans etc..
This means their actions are increasingly less spontaneous and impulsive, and
the child can become self-conscious, purposeful and reflective about their
behaviour
The specifically human capacity for language enables
children to provide for auxiliary tools in the solution of difficult tasks, to
overcome impulsive action, to plan a solution to a problem prior to its
execution, and to master their own behaviour (Vygotsky,
1978: 28)
References
Bruner,
J. (1997) Celebrating Divergence: Piaget and Vygotsky
Human Development 40 pp. 63-73
Davydov,
V.(1995) The influence of Vygotsky
Educational Researcher 24 (3) pp. 12-21
Marx, K.
(1959) Marx, Karl. 1959. Toward the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in:
Feur, L. (ed) Marx and Engels,
Basic Writings
Marx, K.
and Engels, F. (1846) The German Ideology
Moran,
S. and John-Steiner, V. (2003) ‘Creativity in the making: Vygotsky’s
contribution to the dialectic of creativity and development’ SEE THE MODULE OUTLINE FOR THE FULL
REFERENCE – IT’S TOO LONG TO WRITE IN FULL HERE!
Vygotsky,
L.S. (1929) ‘Concrete Human Psychology’ Soviet
Psychology 27 (2) pp. 523-577
Vygotsky,
L. S. (1978) Mind in Society
Vygotsky,
L. S. (1991) Genesis of the Higher Mental Functions in: Light, P. and Sheldon,
S. and Woodhead, M. (eds.) (1991) Learning
to Think
Vygotsky,
L.S. (1994/1930) ‘The Socialist Alteration of Man’ in Van der
Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. (eds. ) (1994) The Vygotsky
Reader
Vygotsky,
L.S. (1994/1934) ‘Academic concepts in school aged children’ in Van der Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. (eds.) (1994) The Vygotsky Reader