Lev Vygotsky, the
Russian psychologist, died young at 37 in 1934, but is as influential as any
living educational psychologist. In 'Thought and Language' and 'Mind
in Society', along with several other texts, he presents a psychology
rooted in Marxist social theory and dialectical materialism. Development is a
result two phenomena and their interaction, the ‘natural’ and the ‘social’, a
sort of early nature and nurture theory.
Social
constructivism
Ultimately the strength of Vygotsky’s
learning theory stands or falls on his social constructivism, the idea that
learning is fundamentally a socially mediated and constructed activity. This is
a detailed recasting of Marxist theory of social consciousness applied to
education. Psychology becomes sociology as all psychological phenomena are seen
as social constructs. In one sense he pre-empts the rigidity of Piaget’s bad science
by positing a theory of development that is more flexible in terms of how and
when child development takes place and less dependent on internal natural
development and more on mediation.
Mediation
This is the cardinal idea in his psychology
of education, that knowledge is constructed through mediation, yet it is not
entirely clear what mediation entails and what he means by the ‘tools’ that we
use in mediation. In many contexts, it simply seems like a synonym for
discussion between teacher and learner. However he does focus on being aware of
the learner’s needs, so that they can ‘construct’ their own learning experience
and changes the focus of teaching towards guidance and facilitation, as
learners are not so much ‘educated’ by teachers as helped to construct their
own learning.
Language
and learning
In particular, it
was his focus on the role of language, and the way it shapes our learning and
thought, that defined his social psychology and learning theory. Behaviour is
shaped by the context of a culture and schools reflect that culture. He goes
further driving social influence right down to the level of interpersonal
interactions. Then even further, as these interpersonal interactions mediate
the development of children’s higher mental functions, such as thinking,
reasoning, problem solving, memory, and language. Here he took larger
dialectical themes and applied them to interpersonal communication and
learning.
However, Vygotsky has a pre-Chomsky view of
language, where language is acquired entirely from others in a social context.
We now know that this is wrong, and that we are, to a degree, hard-wired for the
acquisition of language. Much of his observations on how language is acquired
and shapes thought is therefore out of date. The role, for example, of ‘inner
speech’ in language and thought development is of little real relevance in
modern psycholinguistics. Habermas and others, provide much more relevant ideas
on the role of language in learning.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
He prescribes a method of instruction that keeps the learner in the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD), an idea that was neither original to him nor even
fully developed in his work. The ZPD is the difference between what the learner
knows and what the learner is capable of knowing or doing with mediated
assistance. To progress, one must interact with peers who are ahead of the game
through social interaction, a dialectical process between learner and peer. Bruner
though the concept was contradictory in that you don’t know what don’t yet know. And if it simply means not pushing
learners too far through complexity or cognitive overload, then the
observation, or concept, seems rather obvious. One could even conclude that
Vygotsky’s conclusion about mediation through teaching is false. Teaching, or
peer mediation, is not a necessary condition for learning. A great deal is made
of social performance being ahead of individual performance in the ZPD but
there is no real evidence that this is the case. Bruner, as stated, was to
point out the weakness of this idea and replace it with the much more practical
and useful concept of ‘scaffolding’.
Special needs
He had a specific interest in what we now call ‘special needs’ and was sympathetic
to most of these students being taught in mainstream education but not
necessarily with the same curriculum and in the same classes. However, his
simplistic identification of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ defects is crude and the use the term ‘defectology’ and the
‘defect’ or ‘deficit’ model it entails, is way out of line with modern language
and thinking.
Play
At around 3, when the faculty of
imagination develops, children use imaginative play to deal with acts they
cannot physically perform. Objects can be mentally transformed into concepts, a
doll a real person, the stick a rifle. They internalise these ‘pivots’ so that
the imagination can ‘play’ and therefore learn how to deal with the world
through thought and thought experiments. Rules and roles are also rehearsed
through play, so that behaviour becomes self-regulated. This is interesting but
by no means original.
Conclusion
The oft-quoted,
rarely read Vygotsky appeals to those who see instruction, and teaching, as a
necessary condition for learning and sociologists who see social phenomena as the
primary determinant factor in learning. As a pre-Chomsky linguist, his theories
of language are dated and much of his thought is rooted in now discredited
dialectical materialism. For Vygotsky,
psychology becomes sociology as all psychological phenomena are seen as social
constructs, so he is firmly in the Marxist tradition of learning theory. One
could conclude by saying that Vygostsky has become ‘fashionable’ but not as relevant
as his reputation would suggest.
Bibliography
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition:
Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
Van der Veer, R., &
Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A Quest for Synthesis.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Archive
including downloadable translated texts.
2 comments:
Have mostly read Vygotsky through secondary sources and so am not an expert to comment on it. However, I think there is still some merit to the social construction angle (though not at the expense of science and empiricism). Culture, community and class are not just abstract concepts--they are kinds of "content" that we come in contact with on a daily basis. There is spaced repetition and practice of "this content" when you live in among a community and are nurtured with certain types of world view from a young age. Most of us don't live by empirical data alone; we are also driven in our pursuit of knowledge by some of our belief systems. And these belief systems are to a great extent formed by peer interaction. If you are born as an upper caste Hindu, you are quite likely to retain caste bias although rationally you may know it is not the right thing to do. These biases are likely to interfere with the way you process some information. So we can't rule out the social aspect of learning.
I agree but what we have in extreme social constructivism is the idea that all knowledge is a social construct, as defined by them. This, I think, is false. It has its roots in Marx but is still a commonly held belief in education - that ALL knowledge is a social construct. For example, is the fact that 2+2=4 asocial construct? Is 'gender' a wholly social construct?
Post a Comment