APPLICATION OF VYGOTSKY THEORY IN UK

Application of Vygotsky Theory in UK

Application of Vygotsky Theory in UK

Introduction

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a literary scholar turned psychologist. He was an integrative thinker who conducted research and analyzed theoretical issues during a brief postrevolutionary career in Russia (1924-1934). Vygotsky focused on understanding the development of higher forms of cognition as those processes are influenced by culture— specifically, the signs and symbols of one's culture. In his 10-year career, Vygotsky wrote on the cognitive difficulties of disabled children, developed a single-subject research method, analyzed thinking and speech, and developed his theory of cognitive development, which he designated as cultural-historical. He did not refer to his theory as sociocultural because that term does not reflect the child's developmental history.

Vygotsky addressed new questions for psychology that also are relevant in contemporary society. His goal was to understand the whole of human consciousness, including thinking, feeling, will, and an understanding of oneself. In his perspective, the signs and symbols of a culture, such as speech, concepts in academic subjects, numerical systems, and advanced mathematical constructs, are instrumental in cognitive development. Vygotsky's contributions include a description of the stages, from early childhood to adolescence, in learning to use signs and symbols to master one's thinking; the importance of speech and the stages of speech in relation to thinking; the development of thinking in concepts and the pivotal role of conceptual thinking in developing higher forms of cognition; and the role of adults and teachers in fostering the child's cognitive development.

Important to Vygotsky's work was his extensive reading in several fields, including literature, psychology, philosophy, and ethnography. Reviewing the anthropological literature on early societies, Vygotsky concluded that primitive or elementary processes (involuntary attention, simple perception, and natural memory) are universal across cultures. However, higher forms of thinking vary, depending on the available symbol systems in the culture and the culture's form of reasoning with the symbols. Other early influences on his thinking were the philosopher Benedict Spinoza, who believed that rational thinking could conquer unwelcome passions, and the philosopherG. W. F. Hegel, who maintained that reality is not static but rather is always in flux. Vygotsky's writings reflect these beliefs in his statements about the essential role of conceptual thinking in understanding the world and oneself and in his description of cognitive development as constantly undergoing change. A third key influence was the view of Alexander Potebnya, a philologist, that language is a tool of thinking.

Although Vygotsky is widely cited in current publications in the United Kingdom, the major principles of his work are largely unknown. They are his single-subject research method, the principles of his theory, and his view of education.

Research Method

A major theme in Vygotsky's work was research methodology, which he maintained was essential to developing an objective understanding of human cognition. An important initial step in research, in his view, is to determine the essence or essential characteristics of the phenomenon to be studied.

Agreeing with the belief that humans had developed higher forms of thinking in ...