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He was born in Orsha, Belarus (then part of the Russian empire) and grew up in Homel (southern Belarus) in a prosperous Jewish family. Vygotsky attended Moscow University, majoring in law. He graduated in 1918 and returned to Gomel where he worked as a school teacher and studied psychology. In 1924 he moved to Moscow, working on a diverse set of projects. He died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored.
  
He was born in Orsha, Belarus (then part of the Russian empire) and grew up in Homel (southern Belarus) in a prosperous Jewish family. Vygotsky attended Moscow University, majoring in law. He graduated in 1918 and returned to Gomel where he worked as a school teacher and studied psychology. In 1924 he moved to Moscow, working on a diverse set of projects. He died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored.
   
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==Work==
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== Work ==
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According to Vygotsky, the intellectual development of children is a function of human communities, rather than of individuals. His contributions are widely respected and influential within the fields of [[developmental psychology]], [[education]], and [[child development]].
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Being a pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: the collection of his major works contains 6 volumes written over roughly 10 years. 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
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*''psychological tools'', ''mediation'', and ''internalization''
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*the ''[[zone of proximal development]]''
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and covers such diverse topics as the origin and the [[psychology of art]], development of [[higher mental function]]s, [[philosophy of science]] and [[Methodology|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]]''), etc.
   
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===[[Cultural mediation]] and internalization===
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===Zone of Proximal Development===
  
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Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture and interpersonal communication. Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions 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, 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 a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as '''internalization'''.
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Vygotsky's work includes several key concepts, the most widely-known of which is the [[Zone_of_proximal_development|Zone of Proximal Development]] (ZPD) which relates to the gap or difference between what the child can learn unaided and what he or she can learn with the help of an adult or a more capable peer. The ZPD is still not widely used in the way in which Vygotsky initially presented the idea, that is, in terms of assessment. This idea of assisting the learner is known as '''[[Instructional scaffolding|scaffolding]]'''.
  
   
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''Internalization'' can be understood in one respect 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.
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When a child works unaided on a task or problem, that individual is said to be at their [[actual development level]]. [[Potential development level]] is the level of competence a child can reach when he or she is guided and supported by another person.
  
   
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===Psychology of play===
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This concept was later developed by [[Jerome Bruner]] and influenced Bruner's related concept of [[instructional scaffolding]]. Another important Vygotskyan contribution relates to the development of language as related to thought. This concept is explored in his brilliant book ''Thought and Language'' in which Vygotsky establishes the explicit and profound connection between oral language (speech) and the development of concepts (mental constructs) and one's conscious awareness of them--providing the underlying theoretical rationale for such truisms as "If you want to learn something, teach it to someone." And for the observation that by "talking it out" we clarify an issue in our own minds.
  
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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.
   
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The famous example Vygotsky gives is of a child that wants to ride a horse but he cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but at 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)
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===Sociocultural Approach===
  
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Vygotsky's model of human development has been termed as a '''sociocultural approach'''. For him, the individual’s development is a result of his or her culture. Development, in Vygotsky’s theory, applies mainly to mental development, such as thought, language, and reasoning processes. These abilities were understood to develop through social interactions with others (especially parents) and therefore represented the shared knowledge of the culture. These abilities are developed through a process called '''internalization'''. Internalization describes how children’s social activities develop to become mental activities. When children listen and participate with parents, teachers, and peers, they begin to internalize and process new information.
  
   
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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".
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===Imaginative/Pretend Play===
  
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Lesser known, but of utmost of importance to Vygotsky, is his concept of play. Play as Vygotsky determined, is something akin to extended imagination. All play is defined by rules; there can be no play without rules. Vygotsky gives common examples of play; pretending an object is something it is not, a stick becomes a horse; or fulfilling roles of an idealized situation, Vygotsky discusses sisters at dinner 'playing' at being sisters at dinner. According to Vygotsky, play is the solitary act within which the child extends herself the farthest and is most rigorously in strict adherence to 'rules'. Vygotsky states, "...play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form; in play it is as though the child were trying to jump above the level of his normal behavior.", and "Play is the source of development and creates the zone of proximal development."
  
   
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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).
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===Translation from Russian===
  
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Vygotsky's work appeared largely forgotten after his death, mainly because it was originally published in Russian and was not often translated into English during the Cold War. At the time, most attention was aimed at the continuing work of Vygotsky contemporary [[Jean Piaget]]. However, early - albeit indirectly - influence on growing 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 later collaborator [[Alexander Luria]] which was read by early pioneers of cognitive science [[Jerome Bruner|J. S. Bruner]] and [[George A. Miller|George Miller]].
  
   
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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.
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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. 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 [[behaviourism]], 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 [http://moodle.ed.uiuc.edu/wiked/index.php/Apprenticeship Apprenticeships].
  
   
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===Thinking and Speaking===
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Works of Vygotsky are also studied today by linguists regarding language and its influence on the formation of the perception of reality.
  
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Perhaps Vygotsky's most important contribution concerns the inter-relationship of language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book ''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 ([[metacognition]]). It should be noted that Vygotsky described inner speech as being qualitatively different than 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.
   
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The infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with her mother. She learns that pointing can be a tool and that pointing can be accompanied by cries and gurgles to express what she wants. Through this activity with her caregivers she learns that sounds are signs with which to conduct social interaction and soon the child begins to ask for the names of objects.
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Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. As she grows into her second year, the child uses this tool to guide her own activities in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud". Initially, self-talk is still very much a tool of social interaction, tapering away to negligible levels when the child is alone or with deaf children that cannot hear her. Gradually, however, self-talk is used more as a tool for self-directed and self-regulating behavior. Around the time the child starts school, her self-talk is no longer present, not because it has disappeared but rather because speaking has been appropriated and internalized. 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). Inner speech develops through its differentiation from social speech.
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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.
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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.
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== Influence and development of Vygotsky's ideas ==
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=== In the Soviet Union, Russia, and East Europe ===
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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 foundation for the Vygotskian psychology systematic development in such diverse fields as the psychology of memory ([[Pyotr Zinchenko|P. Zinchenko]]), perception, sensation and movement ([[Alexander Zaporozhets|Zaporozhets]], [[Vladimir Asnin|Asnin]], [[Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev|A. N. Leont'ev]]), personality ([[Lidiya Bozhovich|L. Bozhovich]], [[Vladimir Asnin|Asnin]], [[Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev|A. N. Leont'ev]]), will and volition ([[Alexander Zaporozhets|Zaporozhets]], [[Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev|A. N. Leont'ev]], [[Pyotr Zinchenko|P. Zinchenko]], [[Lidiya Bozhovich|L. Bozhovich]], [[Vladimir Asnin|Asnin]]), psychology of play (G. D. Lukov, [[Daniil El'konin|D. El'konin]]) and psychology of learning ([[Pyotr Zinchenko|P. Zinchenko]], [[Lidiya Bozhovich|L. Bozhovich]], [[Daniil El'konin|D. El'konin]]), as well as the theory of step-by-step formation of mental actions ([[Pyotr Gal'perin|Gal'perin]]), general psychological [[activity theory]] ([[Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev|A. N. Leont'ev]]) and psychology of action ([[Alexander Zaporozhets|Zaporozhets]]).
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=== In the West ===
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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; [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262720108 revised edition in 1986], translated by A. Kozulin and, as [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030642441X 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 [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674576292 Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes].
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Vygotsky's views are reported to have influenced development of a wide range of psychological and educational theories such as [[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 [[Jerome Bruner]], Michael Cole, James V. Wertsch, Sylvia Scribner, Vera John-Steiner, [[Ann Brown|Ann L. Brown]], Courtney Cazden, Gordon Wells, René van der Veer, Jaan Valsiner, Pentti Hakkarainen, Seth Chaiklin, Alex Kozulin, Nikolai Veresov, Anna Stetsenko, [[Kieran Egan]], [[Fred Newman]], David McNeill and [[Lois Holzman]], to mention but a few.
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==Critiques of Vygotsky==
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[[Tetzchner]]<ref>von Tetzchner, Stephen. "Utvecklingspsykologi". Studentlitteratur, 2005; ISBN 91-44-02800-8, pp. 205-206</ref> raises critique of the social constructivist field of psychology in general, pointing out that these theoreticians (including Vygotsky) pay little or no attention to the systematical exploration of objects most commonly exhibited by infants.
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Also, a child may be interested in other people, but it takes time before it realizes that it can actually use these people to solve the problems it encounters. Even when a child is able to ask for help, it's not always interested in receiving any. In particular, two- to three-year-olds tend to want to do things on their own.
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Furthermore, Tetzchner writes that social constructivist psychologists mostly have focused on language and cultural activities that include cooperation, such as playing and eating. However, ''"A theory about cognitive development must comprise both the exploration the child does on its own'' and ''the knowledge mediated through cooperation with adults"'' (Tetzchner, 2005: 206).
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==Secondary literature==
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'''Major monographs about Vygotsky's Work'''
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*Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London.
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*Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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*Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky. A quest for synthesis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
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*Newman, F. & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist. London: Routledge.
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*Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.) (1994). The Vygotsky Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
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*Daniels, H. (Ed.) (1996). An Introduction to Vygotsky, London: Routledge.
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*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.
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*Veresov, N. N. (1999). Undiscovered Vygotsky: Etudes on the pre-history of cultural-historical psychology. New York: Peter Lang.
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'''Articles and books related to Vygotsky'''
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*Cole, M. & Wertsch, J. [http://robertexto.com/archivo13/beyond_piaget_vigotsky.htm/ Beyond the individual-social antinomy in discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky]
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*Ratner, C. [http://robertexto.com/archivo13/historical_and_vigot.htm/ Historical and contemporary significance of Vygotsky's sociohistorical psychology]
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*Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology, Reitzels
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*Danielsen, E. (1996). Vygotsky, Psykologiens Mozart, DPF
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*Strandberg, L. (2006). Vygotskij i praktiken, Nordsteds Akademika forlag
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==References==
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Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
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Vygotsky, Lev (1934). Thinking and Speaking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Written 1934: Edited and translated in 1962 by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar
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== See also ==
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*[[Ecological Systems Theory]]
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== Vygotsky's texts online ==
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'''In English'''
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*[http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/index.html XMCA Research Paper Archive] Scolarly articles on Vygotskian psychology
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*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/ Lev Vygotsky archive @ marxists.org]: all major works (in English)
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'''In Russian'''
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*[http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/vygotskii_lev/vygotskii_lev_psihologiya_iskusstva/ Психология искусства] (1922)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-1-soznanie_kak_problema_psc_i_povedeniya.pdf Сознание как проблема психологии поведения] (1924/5)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-2-istoricheskiy_smysl_psihologicheskogo_krizisa.pdf Исторический смысл психологического кризиса] (1927)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-3-problema_kul'turnogo_razvitiya_rebenka.pdf Проблема культурного развития ребенка] (1928)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-9-orudie_i_znak_v_razvitii_rebenka.pdf Орудие и знак в развитии ребенка] (1930)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-4-istoriya_razvitiya_vysshyh_psih_funkciy.pdf История развития высших психических функций] (1931)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-6-lekcii_po_psihologii.pdf Лекции по психологии] (1. Восприятие; 2. Память; 3. Мышление; 4. Эмоции; 5. Воображение; 6. Проблема воли) (1932)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-5-problema_razvitiya_i_raspada_vysshih_psih_funkciy.pdf Проблема развития и распада высших психических функций] (1934)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-7-myshlenie_i_rech.pdf Мышление и речь] ([http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vygotsky=ps_pzv_cheloveka=ann.htm ''idem''], [http://www.koob.ru/vigodsky_v_l/vihotskij_mishlenie_i_rech ''idem''], [http://filosof.historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000763/index.shtml ''idem'']) (1934)
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*[http://yanko.lib.ru/books/psycho/vugotskiy-psc_razv_chel-8-konkretnaya_psihologiya_cheloveka.pdf Конкретная психология человека]
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== External links ==
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*[http://www.kolar.org/vygotsky/ Vygotsky Resources] Archive of resource links.
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*[http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/vygotsky/ The Vygotsky Project] Summaries of, and links to, Vygotsky articles.
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*[http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/project2.htm Vygotsky Centennial Project] Collected articles exploring Vygotsky's work.
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*[http://faculty.cmsu.edu/drobbins/index.html Dorothy "Dot" Robbins] Vygotsky memorial site with many papers and resources.
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*[http://www.eastsideinstitute.org/vygotsky.html East Side Institute] Vygotsky-inspired research and training center in NYC.
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[[Category:1896 births|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:1934 deaths|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Deaths by tuberculosis|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Developmental psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Russian psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Russian scientists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Jewish scientists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Belarusian scientists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Educational psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[Category:Russian educationists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
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[[ca:Lev Vygotski]]
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[[da:Lev Vygotskij]]
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[[de:Lew Semjonowitsch Wygotski]]
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[[el:Λεβ Βιγκότσκι]]
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[[es:Lev Vigotsky]]
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[[fa:لو ویگوتسکی]]
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[[fr:Lev Vygotski]]
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[[is:Lév Vígotskíj]]
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[[he:לב ויגוצקי]]
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[[nl:Lev Vygotsky]]
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[[no:Lev Vygotskij]]
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[[nn:Lev Vygotskij]]
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[[pl:Lew Wygotski]]
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[[pt:Lev Vygotsky]]
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[[ru:Выготский, Лев Семёнович]]
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[[sk:Lev Semionovič Vygotskij]]
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[[fi:Lev Vygotski]]
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[[zh:利維·維谷斯基]]
 
==Publications==
  
==Publications==
 
===Books===
  
===Books===
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*[http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/vygotskii_lev/vygotskii_lev_psihologiya_iskusstva/ Lev Vygotsky's ''Psychology of Art'' (in Russian)]
  
*[http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/vygotskii_lev/vygotskii_lev_psihologiya_iskusstva/ Lev Vygotsky's ''Psychology of Art'' (in Russian)]
   
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[[Category:Psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
  
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[[Category:Russian psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
  
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[[Category:Educational psychologists|Vygotsky, Lev]]
  
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==References==
  
   
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Shaffer, David R (2000) Developmental Psychology 6th Ed., Belmont CA, Thomson Learning Inc.
  
   
 
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{{enWP|Lev Vygotsky}}

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Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (Лев Семенович Выготский) (November 12 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Belarusian developmental psychologist, discovered by western psychology in the 1960s. In developmental psychology his theories are often compared and contrasted with those of one of his contemporaries, Jean Piaget.

Biography

He was born in Orsha, Belarus (then part of the Russian empire) and grew up in Homel (southern Belarus) in a prosperous Jewish family. Vygotsky attended Moscow University, majoring in law. He graduated in 1918 and returned to Gomel where he worked as a school teacher and studied psychology. In 1924 he moved to Moscow, working on a diverse set of projects. He died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored.

Work

Being a pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: the collection of his major works contains 6 volumes written over roughly 10 years. 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

and covers 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), etc.

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 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 a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.

Internalization can be understood in one respect 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 that wants to ride a horse but he cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but at 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.

Thinking and Speaking

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

The infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with her mother. She learns that pointing can be a tool and that pointing can be accompanied by cries and gurgles to express what she wants. Through this activity with her caregivers she learns that sounds are signs with which to conduct social interaction and soon the child begins to ask for the names of objects.

Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. As she grows into her second year, the child uses this tool to guide her own activities in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud". Initially, self-talk is still very much a tool of social interaction, tapering away to negligible levels when the child is alone or with deaf children that cannot hear her. Gradually, however, self-talk is used more as a tool for self-directed and self-regulating behavior. Around the time the child starts school, her self-talk is no longer present, not because it has disappeared but rather because speaking has been appropriated and internalized. 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). 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.

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 East 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 foundation for the Vygotskian psychology 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).

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.

Vygotsky's views are reported to have influenced development of a wide range of psychological and educational theories such as 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 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, Nikolai Veresov, Anna Stetsenko, Kieran Egan, Fred Newman, David McNeill and Lois Holzman, to mention but a few.

Critiques of Vygotsky

Tetzchner[1] raises critique of the social constructivist field of psychology in general, pointing out that these theoreticians (including Vygotsky) pay little or no attention to the systematical exploration of objects most commonly exhibited by infants.

Also, a child may be interested in other people, but it takes time before it realizes that it can actually use these people to solve the problems it encounters. Even when a child is able to ask for help, it's not always interested in receiving any. In particular, two- to three-year-olds tend to want to do things on their own.

Furthermore, Tetzchner writes that social constructivist psychologists mostly have focused on language and cultural activities that include cooperation, such as playing and eating. However, "A theory about cognitive development must comprise both the exploration the child does on its own and the knowledge mediated through cooperation with adults" (Tetzchner, 2005: 206).

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.

Articles and books related to Vygotsky

References

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Vygotsky, Lev (1934). Thinking and Speaking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Written 1934: Edited and translated in 1962 by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar

See also

Vygotsky's texts online

In English

In Russian

External links

ca:Lev Vygotski da:Lev Vygotskij de:Lew Semjonowitsch Wygotski el:Λεβ Βιγκότσκι es:Lev Vigotsky fa:لو ویگوتسکی fr:Lev Vygotski is:Lév Vígotskíj he:לב ויגוצקי nl:Lev Vygotsky no:Lev Vygotskij nn:Lev Vygotskij pt:Lev Vygotsky ru:Выготский, Лев Семёнович sk:Lev Semionovič Vygotskij fi:Lev Vygotski sv:Lev Vygotskij tpi:Lev Vygotsky zh:利維·維谷斯基

Publications

Books

  • Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) Thought and Language, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.


Papers

  • Vygotsky, L.S. (1967) Play and its role in the mental development of the child, Soviet Psychology 12: 62-76.



Further reading

  • Piaget, J. (2000). "Commentary on Vygotsky". New Ideas in Psychology, 18, 241-59.

External links


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  1. ↑ von Tetzchner, Stephen. "Utvecklingspsykologi". Studentlitteratur, 2005; ISBN 91-44-02800-8, pp. 205-206
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