Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology

ISBN-13: 9780521360517 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication date: 11/30/1990 Pages: 452 Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d) The seminal work of Russian theorist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) has exerted a deep influence on psychology over the past 30 years. Vygotsky was an educator turned psychologist, and his writings clearly reflected his pedagogical concerns. For Vygotsky, schools and other informal educational situations represent the best cultural laboratories to study thinking. He emphasized the social organization of instruction, writing about the "unique form of cooperation between the child and the adult that is the central element of the educational process." Vygotsky's emphasis on the social context of thinking represents the reorganization of a key social system and associated modes of discourse, with potential consequences for developing new forms of thinking. This volume is devoted to analyzing Vygotsky's ideas as a means of bringing to light the rele