Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Part 1 Learning and development in play
- Part 2 Cultural–historical theories of play and learning
- Part 3 Learning and development as cultural practice
- 11 Views on child development matter
- 12 A revolutionary view of child development
- 13 Children's development as participation in everyday practices
- 14 A cultural–historical view of play, learning and development
- Glossary
- References
- Index
12 - A revolutionary view of child development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Part 1 Learning and development in play
- Part 2 Cultural–historical theories of play and learning
- Part 3 Learning and development as cultural practice
- 11 Views on child development matter
- 12 A revolutionary view of child development
- 13 Children's development as participation in everyday practices
- 14 A cultural–historical view of play, learning and development
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
[T]he development of the child is a dialectical process in which a transition from one state to another is accomplished not along an evolutionary, but along a revolutionary path.
(Vygotsky, 1998: 193)INTRODUCTION
One of Vygotsky's (1998) many contributions to theorising learning and development centred on the view that child development should be ‘a single process of self-development’ (p. 189): he articulated a theory that focused on a holistic model of development that included the dialectical relations between psychological, biological and cultural dimensions as noted through motives, cognition and the social situation of development. Vygotsky presents a revolutionary view of child development in Child Psychology, the fifth volume of his collected works, and although his theory requires further interpretation (see Kravtsova, 2005; Veresov, 2006), it represents a conceptualisation that has inspired many to research and theorise in new ways (Karpov, 2005). Karpov (2005) states that ‘Unfortunately, he [Vygotsky] presented this model in an abbreviated and schematic fashion, which makes it difficult to understand’ (p. 41).
In order to understand the complexity of Vygotsky's theory of child development it is important to go beyond isolating and explaining single concepts – such as the zone of proximal development – as this approach gives a limited reading of his theory. Karpov (2005) states that
Many reviewers present Vygotsky's theory as a set of separate ideas (such as the idea of mediation, psychological tools, higher mental processes, zones of proximal development, scientific concepts, etc.) without showing (or even understanding) that these ideas are interrelated as basic components of Vygotsky's holistic theory (p. 12).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Early Learning and DevelopmentCultural-historical Concepts in Play, pp. 165 - 188Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010