Vygotsky And Education: Instructional Implications And Applications Of Sociohistorical Psychology

This volume is devoted to analyzing Vygotsky's ideas as a means of bringing to light the relevance of his concepts to education.

Author : Luis C. Moll

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Published Year : 1992

Edition : 1st Edition

Format : Paperback, 452 pages

Dimensions : 5.98 (w) x 8.98 (h) x 0.91 (d)

ISBN : 0521385792

ISBN13 : 9780521385794

Overview :

More than any other theorist, the Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) viewed education as central to cognitive development. Vygotsky set out to develop a general approach to psychology that recognized the inseparability of the individual from the social; that addressed how thinking develops under particular social and historical conditions. He argued that higher or uniquely human psychological processes developed in children through enculturation into the practices of society; through the acquisition of society's technology, its signs and tools; through the process of education. As such, human pedagogy, in all its forms, is the defining characteristic of his approach, the central concept in his system. For Vygotsky, schools and other informal educational situations represented the best cultural laboratories to study thinking. He viewed schools as socially defined systems of activities, with special modes of discourse, and with major consequences for the development of thinking. This volume is devoted to analyzing educational implications and applications of Vygotsky's ideas as a means of bringing to light the relevance of Vygotskian concepts to education and the centrality of education to Vygotskian psychology.