Theories in Education

1. SOCIO-CULTURAL
THEORY
LEV VYGOTSKY

2. Lev Vygotsky
O a seminal Russian psychologist
O best-known for his sociocultural theory and
Zone of Proximal Development
O was born in the town of Orsha, Russian
Empire(now Belarus) on November 19,
1896 and died on June 11, 1934 (aged 37)
O He was from a middle class Russian-
Jewish family. His father was a banker.
O He was raised in the city of Gomel, Belarus
where he obtained both public and private
education.

3. O In 1913, he was admitted to the Moscow State
University through a “Jewish Lottery”. There he
studied law, and in parallel, he attended lectures at
fully official, but privately funded and non degree
granting Moscow City People’s University.
O His early interests were in the arts and he mght
have aspired to be a literary critic, fascinated with
the formalism of his time.
O His main work was in developmental psychology
O He proposed a theory of the development of higher
cognitive functions in children that saw reasoning
as emerging through practical activity in a social
environment.

4. Sociocultural Theory
O Refer to the roles of factors such as
ethnicity and gender in behavior and
mental processes.
O Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory(1978)
focuses on the ways in which children’s
cognitive development is influenced by the
cultures in which they are reared and the
people who teach them.
O Focuses on the transmission of information
and cognitive skills from generation to
generation.

5. O The transmission of skills involves teaching and
learning, but Vygotsky did not view learning as a
mechanical process that can be described in
terms of conditioning. Rather, he focused more
generally on how the child’s social interaction
with adults, largely in the home, organized a
child’s learning experiences in such a way that
the child can obtained cognitive skills-- such as
computation or reading skills—and use them to
aquire information.
O Vygotsky saw the child’s functioning as adaptive,
and the child adapts to his or her social and
cultural interactions.

6. Vygotsky’sTheory differs fromthat of Piaget in a
number of important ways:
1. Vygotsky places more
emphasis on culture
affecting cognitive
development – this
contradicts Piaget’s view
of universal stages and
content of development.
(i) Hence Vygotsky assumes
cognitive development varies
across cultures, whereas
Piaget states cognitive
development is mostly
universal across cultures.
2. Vygotsky places
considerably more
emphasis on social
factors contributing to
cognitive
development.
(i) Vygotsky states cognitive
development stems from social
interactions & from guided learning
within the zone of proximal
development as children and their
partners co-construct knowledge.
In contrast, Piaget maintains that
cognitive dev’t stems largely from
independent explorations.

7. 3. Vygotsky places
more(and different)
emphasis on the role of
language in cognitive dev’t.
that results form an
internalization of language.
4. According to Vygotsky, adults
are an important source of
cognitive development. Adults
transmit their culture’s tools of
intellectual adaptation that
children internalize. In contrast,
Piaget emphasizes the
importance of peers as peer
interaction promotes social
perspective taking.
(i) Accdg. to Piaget, language
depends on thought for it’s
development(i.e. thought comes
before language). For Vygotsky,
thought and language are initially
separate systems from the beginning
of life, merging at around three years
of age, producing verbal
thought(inner speech)

8. Key concepts in Vygotsky’s Theory:
Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding
 Proximal- means “nearby” or “close”, as in the
words approximate and proximity.
 Refers to a range of tasks that the child can
carry out with the help of someone who is more
skilled. The “zone” refers to the relationship
between the child’s abilities and what she or he
can do with the help from others.
 Adults or older children best guide the child
through this zone by gearing their assistance to
the child’s capabilities.
Zone of Proximal
Development(ZPD)

9.  Vygotsky sees the ZPD as the area where the
most sensitive instruction or guidance should be
given–allowing the child to develop skills they
will then use their own –developing higher
mental functions.
 He also views interaction with peers as an
effective way of developing skills and strategies.
He suggest that teachers use cooperate learning
exercises where less competent children
develop with help from more skillful peers –
within the zone of proximal dev’t.

10. O When learning with others, the child tends to
internalize –or bring inward –the conversations
and explanations that help him or her gain skills.
O Children not only learn the meanings of words
from teachers but also learn ways of talking to
themselves about solving problems within a
cultural context.
O Outer speech becomes inner speech. What was
the teacher’s becomes the child’s. What was a
social and cultural context becomes embedded
within the child –sociocultural theory.

11. Scaffolding
O Scaffold- a temporary skeletal structure
that enables workers to fabricate a
building, bridge, or other more permanent
structure.
 Cognitive Scaffolding
• Refers to the temporary support provided by
a parent or teacher to a child who is
learning to perform a task.
• The amount of guidance decreases as the
child becomes more skilled and self-
sufficient.

12. O In Vygotsky’s theory, teachers and parents provide
children with problem solving methods that serve as
cognitive scaffolding while the child gains the ability
to function independently
 Piaget’s focus was largely maturational
-it was assumed that maturation of the brain
allowed the child to experience new levels of insights
and suddenly develop new kinds of problem solving
 Vygotsky focused on the processes in the teacher-
learner relationship.
 Cognitive Development - was about culture and
social interaction.