Sociocultural theory;
• Today’s Lecture:
– The social origin of mental functioning
– Mediated action
– The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Tuesday 29.08.06
Oddvar.hjulstad@isp.uio.no
The social origin of mental functioning:
• ”Any function in the child`s cultural development
appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears
on the social plane, and then on the
psychological plane. First it appears between
people as an interpsychological category, and
then within the child as an intrapsycholgical
category. This is equally true with regard to
voluntary attention, logical memory, the
formation of concepts, and the development of
volition (Vygotsky 1981:163)
How to understand (and change?) the
relationship between the two planes?
Individual
Sociocultural setting
(Cultural, institutional, historical forces)
Internalization: (Example p.56)
•
•
•
•
•
•
Child tries to reach an object but cannot
Gets frustrated, makes sounds.
Adult notices child trying. Adult gets object for child.
Child learns “pointing gesture”
Nonsocial situation is transformed into social interaction.
The process by which the child comes to learn that
pointing at the object leads to a desired outcome is a
process of internalization.
• what the child has learned has transformed this external
object at which the child was pointing from a nonsocial
object into an object that is part of a social context.
James, age 5, comes into the kitchen just as his mother has
taken some cakes out of the oven. There is a loud, metallic
”Crack.” (extract from Wells 1999, xi)
James: Who did that?
Mother: I expect it was that tin contracting
James: Which tin?
Mother: The one with your pastery in
James : Why did it make that noise?
Mother: Well, When it was in the oven, it got very
hot and stretched a bit. I’ve just taken it out of the
oven, and it’s cooling down very quickly, you see,
and that noise happens when it gets smaller again
and goes back to its ordinary shape
James: Oh! Was it a different shape in the oven?
Mother: Not very different. Just a little bigger
James: Naughty little tin. You might get smacked – if you do it again
Culture ?
A system of shared
beliefs, values,
customs, behaviors,
and artifacts,
conscious and
unconscious,
transmitted across
generations through
learning.
Mediated action
• Seeing mental functioning as generated from
participation in social interaction, brings up the
issue of mediation and mediational means.
• The connection between the two planes is found
in the mediating function of cultural tools.
• Vygotsky includes a variety of sign-based tools
that function as mediational means; systems for
counting, mnemonic techniques, algebraic
symbol system, work of art, writing, schemes,
diagrams, maps.
• However, language is undoubtedly considered to
be the “tool of tools”
Mediated action
M
(Artefact)
S
(Subject)
O
(Object)
Subject and object are seen not only as ”directly” connected but simultaneously
as ”indirectly” connected through a medium constituted of artefacts (Culture).
(Cole 2003:119)
Mediated learning
•
•
•
•
”Psychological tools”
”Cultural tools”
”Mediational means”
”Cultural artefacts”
– Language
– Symbols
– representations
Artefacts
• The cultural tools are artefacts created by
human culture (s) over time. They are
used by individuals and groups for
different purposes, and they shape the
ways in which we interact with and
understand the world (Säljö 2000).
• Tools are material, symbolic, and semiotic
Development of higher and lower
(elementary)human functions
• The development of human mental functions is viewed by as their
transition from their original lower mental functions form into their
higher mental functions form.
• The differences between the two are being drawn along four major
criteria:
–
–
–
–
origins
structure
the way of functioning
the relation to other mental functions
• By origins, most lower mental functions are genetically inherited, by
structure they are unmediated, by functioning they are involuntary,
and with regard to their relation to other mental functions they are
isolated individual mental units.
• In contrast, higher mental function is socially acquired, mediated by
social meanings, voluntarily controlled and exists as a link in a broad
system of functions rather than as an individual unit.
Development of higher and lower
(elementary)human functions
Development
phase
Origin
Construction
Functioning
Process
Connectedness
Lower functions reflexes, instincts,
survival
behaviours
genetically and
biologically
inherited
mediated by
genetic biological
givens
involuntary
behaviour
physical and
biological
connectedness
Higher human
functions –
communication,
cultural activities
socio-culturally
acquired
mediated by
social situations
and meanings
social behaviour
communicative
and meaningrelated
connectedness
Vygotsky – Genetic method
“Genetic” domains:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Onto-genesis: Development by an individual
Socio-historical: Development of the society
Phylo-genesis: Development of the (human) species
Micro-genesis: Creation of ideas & concept learning
His social theory involves the interplay between 1. and 2.
Genetic domains shape Human
Development :
I. Phylo- genesis (Evolutionary)
– Elementary (Lower) functions will develop
from this path. These Elementary Functions:
• Are shared with some non-human species
• include: perception, memory, attention
• Are immediate—close to perception of experience
and do not involve mediated processes such as
representation
• Arise from direct influence of external stimuli In
humans, can be converted to higher mental
functions via sociocultural development
Genetic domains shape Human
Development :
II. Historical (sociocultural)
– Accumulated knowledge of many individuals
over many years interacting with the biological
environment (first path) contributes to human
development
III. Ontogenetic
– Development and maturation of the individual
(intrapsychological)
Cultural Tools: Developmental
Influences from the Second Path
• Humans use tools to understand and
mediate their social and physical
environments
• Tools are socially generated and
transmitted within cultures through joint
activity
The Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD)
• ZPD refers to the difference gap between what a child or person can
achieve/learn in isolation and what they can achieve/learn in cooperation with more capable peers or in collaboration with a
teacher/mentor.
• In the ZPD, the learner cannot yet function autonomously, but can
solve problems with the help of a more capable partner.
• Once the learner has appropriated the knowledge of how to solve a
particular problem, the developmental level of the child grows to
encompass that knowledge and the level of potential development
moves ahead, and the ZPD shifts.
• The process of learning involves the novice appropriating both the
tools and the knowledge to solve the problem from the master.
• This appropriation happens in the context of social interaction
between the novice and the master.
ZPD
ZPD
ZPD
• The two children have
similar performances
on a task completed
without assistance.
• With assistance, their
performance improves.
• The second child
improves even more,
and therefore has a
larger ZPD.
Schooling?
• All human activity,
regardless of context
is culturally mediated
and is inherently
social.
Schooling?
• School instruction is a
very important cultural
tool that mediates
thinking BUT:
• the only good kind of
instruction is that which
marches ahead of
development and leads it;
it must be aimed not so
much at the ripe as at the
ripening functions.”
Schooling and instructions
• “it remains necessary to
determine the lowest
threshold at which
instruction in, say,
arithmetic may begin,
since a certain minimal
rightness of function is
required. But we must
consider the upper
threshold as well;
instruction must be
oriented toward the
future, not the past.”
SNE?
• “instruction (that is
oriented) to the child’s
weaknesses rather
than his strength
(encourages) him to
remain at the
preschool stage of
development.”