While Piaget emphasized individuals’ interaction with their environment, Vygotsky argued that development can only be understood within a social frame work. Individual and his culture are intricately interwoven through the process of interaction. And historical analysis of cultural changes account for developmental changes among children of different generations.
Concepts of Vygotsky theory
Culture: all opportunities and assistance a person gets for cognitive development are rooted in the culture to which he belongs.
Inter mental to intra mental: person learns high level of mental functions through external activities. Eg. Initially child moves around and explores the environment but gradually he learns to manipulate environment to suit his purpose, finding easier and smarter solutions to problems. Eg. Child crawling to take a toy verses child asking an adult to give the toy.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): it is the distance between actual, unassisted development and the level of potential development under more capable/efficient adults and peers. ZPD helps the organization and internalization of existing developmental competence of a child which becomes operational at higher mental level
Scaffolding : the process of providing continuous support to a child in his learning process and cognitive understanding of the world and then gradually withdrawing the support until the child is finally on his own.
Participants