Vygotsky’s theory is one that I have used often in my assignments, especially when discussing early

childhood and development. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is based on the understanding that children
are social, that meaningful learning occurs in social environments that are rich in interaction, and that
learners use their prior experiences to build upon what they already know. In the past I’ve used
Vygotsky’s theories in essays and reflections to explain my own observations and support statements I
have made surrounding the social nature of learning.

In my experience with young children and learning, I’ve found that my observations can usually be
explained using Vygotsky’s ideas, so I agree with most aspects of his sociocultural theory. I personally
believe that the idea of the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’, a theory that explains the way learners
build upon prior knowledge to make sense of new experiences and construct new understandings, is
correct as I can explain my own learning experiences with this theory. Being able to explain my own
observations with these theories has also contributed to me favorable view on Vygotsky’s theories.

While I have a positive view on Vygotsky’s theories, I’ve always believed that there is no ‘one’ theory on
child development, and that each theory has strengths and limitations. Even so, I’ve never considered
Vygotsky as ‘invalid’ or ‘wrong’, because I have always thought his theories are quite strong. Through
engagement with EDC3100, I have read an interesting article by Donald Clark, titled ‘9 Reasons Why I Am
Not Social‘, which has given me a totally new way of seeing Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. While I don’t
agree with every point Clark makes, I can understand the point he makes about a child’s ‘fate’ as a result of
their social circumstance. In a way, Vygotsky’s theory does create somewhat of a stereotype of advantage
and disadvantage – children who are raised in an environment with limited social interaction could be
viewed as being less prepared or equipped to deal with the educational context. I have seen this
stereotype perpetuated – comments such as “oh, you can’t expect much, have you met his
parents/siblings?”.

It’s a side of this theory that I hadn’t considered before. In reviewing my EDC3100 peers’ reflections on
theories, I was particularly interested in Stacey Kruse’s post ‘Theories in Education – Vygotsky’s On My
Mind‘ because it relates to how I am thinking about my own practices.

“I need to revisit the many theories and take the time to reflect on how each can play a part in my area of
expertise.  Each child, each context, each specific situation brings with it such diversity and I think I owe it
to myself and to my students to bring a diversity of thought and perspective into my thinking, planning and
teaching.” – Stacey Kruse

As an early childhood educator, a significant part of my job is interpreting observations and providing
appropriate experiences for young children. To be able to do this effectively, I need to stay on top of new
theories that are constantly developing to ‘refresh’ my understandings, and be able to see my observations
through another lens. To bring diversity to the table, instead of thinking the thing I have always thought.
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was born in 1896 in Tsarist, Russia to a middle class Jewish family. At that time there
were very strict rules on where Jewish people could live, work, and how many people could be educated.
Vygotsky was privately tutored in his younger years and was fortunate enough to be admitted into Moscow
University through a Jewish lottery. His parents insisted that he apply for the Medical school but almost
immediately upon starting at Moscow University he transferred into the Law school.

The Humanities classes at Moscow University were not stimulating enough for Vygotsky so he simultaneously
enrolled in a private college, Shaniavsky, to study history and philosophy in order to obtain his aspiration of
acquiring more knowledge. Vygotsky ended up graduating from both universities just as World War I was ending
(Recker, 1996). After College, Vygotsky taught at numerous institutions for about seven years. In 1924 he wrote
his PH D thesis, The Psychology of Art.

A few years later he began a career as a psychologist and with the help of Alexander Luria and Alexei Leontiev
he “began the Vygotskian approach to psychology” (Christina, 1999). Fortunately, Vygotsky was able to write
seven books and numerous articles before he passed away from Tuberculosis in 1934. In 1936, psychology in
Russia was under the control of Stalin’s regime and unfortunately Vygotsky’s work was not one of the few that
was allowed to be taught.

About 25 years later when Stalin died and the Cold War ended, the political influence on the academics of
psychology was lessened and Vygotsky’s work was able to re-emerge into the Russian Society. It wasn’t until the
late 1980’s that his work became popular in the United States (Recker, 1996). Vygotsky is most well known for
his sociocultural theory: “This theory suggests that social interaction leads to continuous step-by-step
changes in children’s thought and behavior that can vary greatly from culture to culture” (Christina,
1999).

This theory proposes that the development of a child depends heavily on their social interactions with the
people around them. This interaction will lead to the age-appropriate changes and development, for which
is necessary, depending on culture of which the child lives in. There are four major principles of
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: children construct knowledge, learning can lead development,
development cannot be separated from its social context, and language plays a central role in mental
development (Recker, 1996).

First, Vygotsky thought that children constructed knowledge; they don’t just mirror what they see in order
to learn. Instead, they learn by creating their own portrayal of the new information in order to make sense
of it themselves. Children use their previous knowledge in order to construct new knowledge based on their
individual perception of the new information that they are learning. Second, Vygotsky believed that
learning can lead the development process.

Learning and development are interrelated processes in that teaching the child leads to that child’s
development and continuous change. Vygotsky explains this principle more in depth in his theory of the
“Zone of Proximal Development,” which focuses on what the child can do with the assistance of others
rather than individually. He argued that if the child could do something with assistance today, then they
would be able to do it by themselves tomorrow which in turn leads to the child’s development.

Vygotsky believed that the best way to teach the child was to aim at the higher end of the child’s Zone of
Proximal Development by providing activities that are slightly too complicated for the child to learn on his
or her own but within his or her ability to complete with the assistance of others. The Zone of Proximal
Development lead to the idea of scaffolding, an interactive way of teaching the child by first working with
them to complete a task and then gradually the child will be able to complete the task on his or her own.

If scaffolding is done correctly it will guide the child to be able to master new tasks and activities on their
own, therefore leading their development. Third, Vygotsky stated that development cannot be separated
from its social context. He believed that one’s social context not only influences their attitudes and beliefs,
but also how and what they think. Vygotsky and some colleagues created studies to observe, “how the
social context effected the thinking, perception, and memory of the Uzbeks. Like anthropologists, who had
studied other preliterate cultures, Vygotsky discovered that Western logic is not universal” (Recker, 1996).

Other cultures have ways of thinking and organizing ideas that may not be appropriate for the Western
civilization but are completely suitable for their particular culture. One’s social context has a major role in
their development regardless of what cultural or social environment they are apart of. Finally, Vygotsky
believed that language plays a central role in mental development. He argued that language is an
instrument for thinking and therefore the most important tool, “It is language that all cultures have passed
on the higher mental functions that enable us to make sense of our world” (Recker, 1996).

Language is the process by which one generation teaches another generation new information. A child is
taught a new skill when a teacher tells them, using language, what he or she wants them to do. The child
then constructs the knowledge that he or she will learn based on the language that is used by the teacher.
Overall, the four major principles of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory confirm that social interaction fronts
the continuous development in children. Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is both similar and
contrasting to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.

Piaget believed that “Cognitive development is a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of
maturation and experience. Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience
discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment. The continual
process of resolving these discrepancies moves the child’s intelligence into a more mature understanding”
(Recker, 1996). Cognitive development is a continual process of understanding new information through
maturing and experiencing new events in the world and building on top of the knowledge one already knows.

Piaget helped to explain this through the concepts of: assimilation, the process of acquiring new information into
ones previously existing understanding and knowledge, and accommodation which involves adapting or changing
ones previous understanding based on obtainment of new information (Cherry, 2012). Piaget observed his own
children to see how they processed new information and made sense of the world. He discovered, that as a child
matured, the mental processes they went through were very predictable.

He then organized these mental processes into 4 stages: the sensorimotor period, the preoperational period, the
concrete operational period, and the formal operational period. The sensorimotor period starts at birth and lasts
until approximately two years of age. Infants learn mostly through trial and error, they start to realize that their
actions can affect things in the world around them and begin to have a sense of object permanence. The
preoperational period begins at age two and ends at roughly age 7.

Children in this stage can engage in symbolic play and mentally represent objects, but may have a difficult time
focusing on more than one aspect of a situation, due to their egocentric thinking. Children in the concrete
operational period generally range in the ages of about 7 to 11 years. They are capable of thinking more logically
about concrete events and are able to understand the concepts of conservation and reversibility. Lastly, the formal
operational period occurs at about 11 years of age. When young adults enter this stage they are able to think in a
more abstract manner and begin to use more deductive reasoning (Cherry, 2012).

Piaget believed that these stages represented a qualitative change in cognition, each stage builds off of the
preceding stage, and that the stages were culturally invariant (Recker, 1996). For both Piaget and Vygotsky,
“challenge, readiness, and social interaction are central to the theories… However, the two perspectives differ on
the role of language in cognitive development, the relative value of free exploration versus more structured and
guided activities, the relative importance of interactions with peers versus adults, and the influence of culture”
(McDevitt; Ormond, 2009).

The theories are similar in their beliefs of the importance of challenging the child, the child’s readiness, and social
interactions of the child. Piaget believes that the child is motivated to learn new things through new challenges
during free exploration in order to develop to the next stage. Whereas Vygotsky believes that a teacher needs to
be the one to challenge the child using the Zone of Proximal Development in a more structured activity for the
child to overcome new challenges. Social interaction is very important in both theories as well.

However, Piaget believes that children develop more in social interactions with ones peers to assimilate and
accommodate new information being learned. Vygotsky believes that it is more important for the child to interact
with adults and teachers in order to learn new information. The biggest contrasting ideals in these two theories are
the role of language in cognitive development and the influence on culture on the development of the child. In
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, two of the major principles are focused on how development cannot be
separated from its social context, and how language plays a central role in mental development.

Piaget believes that almost all children regardless of culture and social context will eventually pass through all of
the stages of cognitive development and that language does not play a significant role in cognitive development.
Overall, the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky agree in many aspects of the mental development in children but also
disagree about a few very significant factors in childhood development that cannot be over looked. In conclusion,
I agree with most of the aspects of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.

I specifically agree with his theory of the Zone of Proximal Development and the idea of scaffolding. I have a
three-year-old niece whom I am very close with and I have also been a nanny for children under the age of four
for the past three years; in my opinion, this theory truly is the best way to help a child achieve a new level of
mastery in new tasks and skills. For example, my niece got a new arts and crafts kit for her birthday last month
and we decided to make puppets out of paper bags.

In order to do this, I had to show her how to tear the paper at the slightly cut lines very carefully in order not to rip
them, then how to use the glue stick to place the design on the bag, and finally to push “super hard” so that we
could make sure our designs would stick to the puppet. We made one puppet together and then I gave her the
materials to make another one and left the room to make a phone call and when I got back she was almost done
with her very own puppet.
Not only is Vygotsky’s theory applicable to my life because of my niece and other children in it, but also because
it relates to my Communicative Disorders major at CSULB. As a future speech pathologist I will be focusing a lot
on language learning. A big part of helping children with language disorders is understanding the idea of a
dynamic assessment for each individual child. “Vygotsky argued that ‘the only appropriate way of understanding
and explaining … forms of human mental functioning is by studying the process, and not the outcome of
development’” (Yildirim, O 2008).

This idea is extremely important for speech pathologists, especially when dealing with special needs children or
with children of different languages and cultural backgrounds. It is vital in the profession I hope to go into to
understand the process of how a child learns in order to best prepare a strategy to ensure the best possible
outcome of the development of the child. All in all, several of Vygotsky’s theories and ideas are still very relative
today and are very relevant to my life.

Works Cited

Cherry, K. (2012, January 10). About. com. Retrieved from [Link] about.
com/od/piagetstheory/a/keyconcepts. htm Cherry, K. (2012, June 18). Piaget. Retrieved from [Link]
about. com/od/behavioralpsychology/l/bl-piaget-stages. htm Christina, G. (1999, May 10). Muskingumedu.
Retrieved from [Link] muskingum. edu/~psych/psycweb/history/vygotsky. htm McDevitt, T. M. , ; Ormond,
J. (2009). Cognitive development. Prentice Hall. Retrieved from [Link] prenhall.
com/chet_mcdevitt_childdevel_3/47/12219/3128086. cw/index. html Recker, M. (1996, May 03). Utah state
university.

Retrieved from [Link] usu. edu/~mimi/courses/6260/theorists/vygotsky/vygobio. html Recker, M. (1996, May