Last Updated on February 24, 2023 by Mike Robinson
The Sociocultural Theory of Vygotsky is an emerging theory in psychology that looks at the important contributions that society makes to individual development. This theory highlights the interaction between the development of people and the culture in which they live. It suggests that human learning is very much a social process.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a Soviet psychologist and the founder of the theory of cultural and social development in humans. He is considered one of the most influential psychologists in history.
Sociocultural Theory of Vygotsky
His primary contributions to the field of evolutionary psychology formed the cornerstone of numerous studies and subsequent theories about cognitive development in recent years, particularly those pertaining to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.
The Importance of Social Context
Vygotsky’s theories emphasize the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition. He strongly believed that the community plays a central role in the process.
Vygotsky contends that learning is a universal and essential component of the process of culturally organized development. Especially in terms of human psychological function. Conversely, Piaget claimed that children’s development must come before their learning.
In other words, social learning comes before development.
Vygotsky developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive growth. His theories were created more or less at the same time as Jean Piaget, the Swiss epistemologist.
The issue with Vygotsky is that his theories are unfinished because he developed them at age 20 and passed away at 38. Additionally, translations from Russian of some of his writings are still ongoing.
According to Vygotsky, individual development cannot be understood without the social and cultural context in which one is immersed. The superior mental processes of the individual (critical thinking, decision-making, reasoning) originate in social processes.
The Effects of Culture: Intellectual Adaptation Tools
Vygotsky, like Piaget, believed that children are born with the fundamental knowledge and abilities necessary for intellectual development.
Attention, sensation, perception, and memory are described as “elementary mental functions” by Vygotsky. According to Vygotsky, these mental functions progress toward more complex and useful mental processes through interaction with the sociocultural environment.
For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the type of memory strategy that we develop.
In our culture, we usually learn to take notes to help our memory. Still, in pre-literate societies, other strategies must have been used, such as tying knots on a string to remember a specific number or repeating loudly what we wanted to remember.
Vygotsky uses the term “intellectual adaptation tools” to refer to the culturally specific methods that help kids use their basic cognitive abilities more effectively and adaptively.
He was adamant that the beliefs, values, and intellectual coping mechanisms of the culture in which each person grows up impact cognitive functions. As a result, these adaptation tools differ from culture to culture.
Social Influences on Cognitive Development
Another aspect of the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky, like Piaget, theorized that young children are curious and are actively involved in their own learning and in the discovery and development of new concepts.
However, Vygotsky placed more emphasis on social contributions to the development process, while Piaget emphasized the discovery initiated by the child himself.
According to Vygotsky, much of the children’s learning occurs through social interaction with a tutor. This tutor is the one who molds and shapes the behaviors of the children and gives them verbal instructions. This is known as “cooperative dialogue” or “collaborative dialogue.”
The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (usually the parents or the teacher). The child then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their own actions.
Take a young girl who is given her first puzzle as an example. If left on her own, the girl won’t be able to successfully finish the puzzle.
Her father shows her some simple techniques, like finding all the pieces of the edges and corners. He then gives the girl a few pieces to put together while cheering her on when she completes the task successfully.
As the girl becomes more competent at completing puzzles, the father allows her to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this type of social interaction that involves collaborative or cooperative dialogue promotes cognitive development.
Next Development Area
An important concept in the sociocultural theory Vygotsky is the so-called Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which has been defined as:
“The distance between the actual level of development determined by the ability to independently solve the problem and the level of potential development determined through the resolution of a problem under the guidance of an adult or in collaboration with another, more capable partner”
Lev Vygotsky sees interaction with peers as an effective way to develop skills and strategies. It suggests that teachers should use learning exercises in which less competent children develop with the help of more skilled students in the near development zone.
If the right help is given to a student who is working in the Near Development Zone of a task, the student will feel motivated enough to finish it.
The ZPD is now used interchangeably with the word “scaffolding” in literature. It’s crucial to note that since Wood first coined the phrase in 1976, Vygotsky never used it in his writings.
According to Wood’s theory of scaffolding, a teacher’s action in a teaching-learning interaction is inversely related to the learner’s skill level. The harder the task is for the learner, the more actions he will need from the teacher.
Adjusting the interventions of the one who teaches and monitors the learner’s difficulties seems to be a decisive element in acquiring and constructing knowledge.
The concept of “scaffolding” is a metaphor that refers to the use of scaffolding by the teacher. As the knowledge is built and they perform the tasks better, the scaffolding is removed, and then the apprentice can complete the task alone.
It is important to note that the terms “cooperative learning,” “scaffolding,” and “guided learning” are used in the literature as if they had the same meaning.
An example of a near-development zone
Laura has entered the university this semester and has decided to sign up for an introductory tennis course. The class consists of learning and practicing a different shot every week.
The weeks go by, and she and the other students in the class learn to backhand appropriately. During the week in which they must learn to hit with the right hand, the monitor realizes that Laura is very frustrated because all her right shots go into the net or beyond the baseline.
The monitor examines her stance and form. He realizes she has perfect posture, is ready to rotate her torso properly, and hits the ball precisely at the correct height.
However, he realizes that she holds the racket in the same way he would if he were doing a backhand. So, he shows her how to reposition his hand to make a right-handed hit, emphasizing that she should keep her index finger parallel to the racket.
The monitor models a good movement to show it to Laura and then helps her and assists when changing the way she grabs the racquet. With a little practice, Laura learns to do it perfectly.
In this case, Laura was in the next development zone for a successful forehand. I was doing everything else correctly; I just needed some support, training, and scaffolding from someone who knew more than her to help her get it right.
When that assistance was provided, she was able to achieve her goal. If they have adequate support at the right times, the rest of the students can also accomplish tasks that would otherwise be too difficult for them.
Evidence of Vygotsky’s Theories
Lisa Freund is an evolutionary psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist who tested Vygotsky’s theories in 1990. She carried out a study in which a group of children had to decide what furniture they should place in specific areas of a doll house.
Some children were able to play with their mothers in a similar situation before attempting to perform the task independently (zone of proximal development). Other children were allowed to work alone from the beginning.
The latter, “learning by discovery,” is a phrase from Piaget. The phrase describes the idea that kids learn more effectively and quickly by actively exploring and doing things independently. Both child groups made a second attempt on their own after the initial attempt.
Freund discovered that those children who had previously worked with their mothers, that is, those who had worked in the zone of proximal development, showed a great improvement when comparing their first attempt at the task with the second.
Children who had worked alone from the beginning got worse results on the task. The conclusion of this study is that guided learning within the zone of proximal development led to a better resolution of the task than learning by discovery.
Sociocultural Theory of Vygotsky and Language
Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions with the aim of communicating. He saw language as the best tool of human beings, a way of communicating with the outside world. According to Vygotsky, language has two critical roles in cognitive development:
- It is the primary means by which adults transmit information to children.
- The language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.
Vygotsky differentiates between three forms of language:
- Social speech, which is the external communication method to talk to others (typical at the age of two),
- Private speech (typical at the age of three years) addresses oneself and has an intellectual function.
- Internal speech, which is a less audible private language and has a self-regulating function (typical at the age of seven),
According to Vygotsky, thought and language are two distinct systems that first separate at birth. They eventually come back together around the age of three.
At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and speech becomes representational. When this happens, children’s monologues become internal speech. The internalization of language is important since it leads to cognitive development.
Vygotsky was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech, considering it the transition point between social speech and internal speech, the moment in development at which language and thought come together to form verbal thought.
In this way, from Vygotsky’s point of view, private speech is the earliest manifestation of internal speech. Undoubtedly, private speech is more similar (in its form and function) to internal speech than social speech.
Criticisms of Vygotsky’s Work
Vygotsky’s work has not received the same intense scrutiny as Piaget’s due to the enormous amount of time that must be spent translating it from Russian.
Additionally, this Russian psychologist’s sociocultural perspective does not offer as many concrete, testable hypotheses as Piaget’s theories, making it challenging, if not impossible, to refute him.
Also read Grooming: A Risk for Minors on the Internet.
The idea that the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky applies to all cultures is perhaps the main criticism of his work. It’s possible that not all cultures use scaffolding the same way or that not all cultures find it equally useful.
