Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

In what sense and proportion can culture and society influence the cognitive development of the kids? Is there some kind of relationship between cognitive development and the complex collaborative process that carried out by adults in the education and learning (specific and general) that receive the little ones?

Similarly, what are the main implications of the Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory for education and cognitive assessment of children?

Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural Theory of Vygotsky emphasizes the proactive participation of minors with the environment that surrounds them, being the cognitive development fruit of a collaborative process. Lev Vygotsky (Russia, 1896-1934) argued that children develop their learning through social interaction: they go acquiring new and better cognitive skills as a logical process of their immersion in a mode of lifetime.

Those activities that are carried out in a shared way allow children to internalize the thought and behavioral structures of the society that surrounds them, appropriating them.

Learning and "Proximal Development Zone"

According to Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, the role of adults or more advanced peers is to support, direct and organize the learning of the child. minor, in the step before he may be able to master these facets, having internalized the behavioral and cognitive structures that the activity demands. This orientation is more effective in offering help to the little ones to cross the development zone proximal (ZDP), which we could understand as the gap between what they are already capable of doing and what they still cannot achieve on their own.

Children who are in the ZPD for a specific task are close to being able to perform it autonomously, but they still need to integrate some key to thinking. However, with the proper support and guidance, they are able to do the job successfully. To the extent that collaboration, supervision, and accountability for learning are covered, the child progresses adequately in the formation and consolidation of new knowledge and learning from it.

The metaphor of scaffolding

There are several followers of Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory (for example: Wood, 1980; Bruner and Ross, 1976) who have brought up the metaphor of the ‘scaffolding'To refer to this learning mode. The scaffolding consists of temporary support from adults (teachers, parents, guardians ...) who provide the little one with the aim of carrying out a task until the child is able to carry it out without outside help.

One of the researchers who starts from the theories developed by Lev Vigotsky, Gail ross, she practically studied the scaffolding process in childhood learning. Instructing children between the ages of three and five, Ross used multiple resources. She used to control and be the center of attention of the sessions, and she used slow and dramatized presentations to the students in order to show that the achievement of the task was possible. Dr. Ross thus became the one in charge of anticipating everything that was going to happen. She controlled all parts of the task that the children worked on to a degree of complexity and magnitude commensurate with each other's prior abilities.

The way in which he presented the tools or objects that were the object of learning allowed children to discover how to solve and carry out the task themselves, more effectively than if they had only been told how to fix it. It is in this sense that Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory points out the "zone" between what people can understand when something is shown to them in front of them, and what they can generate in a autonomous. This zone is the zone of proximal development or ZPD that we had mentioned before (Bruner, 1888).

Sociocultural Theory: in context

The Sociocultural Theory of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky has far-reaching implications for education and the assessment of cognitive development. ZPD-based tests, which highlight the potential of the child, represent an invaluable alternative to standardized tests of intelligence, which tend to emphasize the knowledge and learning already made by the child. Thus, many children benefit from counseling sociocultural and open that Vygotsky developed.

Another of the fundamental contributions of the contextual perspective has been the emphasis on the social aspect of development. This theory defends that the normal development of children in a culture or in a group belonging to a culture may not be an adequate norm (and therefore cannot be extrapolated) to children from other cultures or societies.

• We recommend you read: "Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development"

Bibliographic references:

• Daniels, H. (Ed.) (1996). An Introduction to Vygotsky, London: Routledge.
• Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (eds.) (1994). The Vygotsky Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Yasnitsky, A., van der Veer, R., Aguilar, E. & García, L.N. (Eds.) (2016). Vygotsky Revisited: A Critical History of His Context and Legacy. Buenos Aires: Miño and Dávila Editores.