Talk:Lev Vygotsky

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[edit] Vygotsky - Piaget question

Is the statment in the article true/misleading: "In the West, most attention was aimed at the continuing work of Vygotsky's Western contemporary Jean Piaget." I thought this was perhaps true for Europe, but the surely the USA had more of a behaviourst focus?--Dave Catlin 08:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess, the point is that both Piaget and Vygotsky had initially been virtually unknown and then "discovered" in North America; however, Piaget was discovered earlier. So, I would say the statement imho is partially correct, and should be understood as "[at the time when Vygotsky was discovered in the North America (i.e. publication of Thought and language in 1962)] most attention was aimed at the continuing work, etc." Yasya 23:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Social Psychology question

Should Vygotsky be assiciated with Social Psychology?

I say why not; Lev's weakness(and his strength) was his social focus(some might say obsession).Dylanmiller 03:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] totalitarian Vygotsky question

New Question: For those that have read much Vygotsky: do you consider Vygotsky to be an 'advanced human thought is linguistic by nature' totalitarian?Dylanmiller 03:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand either the question or even its possible origin... I would say there is nothing totatitarian in LSV, even, on the contrary, I would say his approach is radically anti-totalitarian. Yasya 04:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Pleae formulate your questions comprehensibly if you are interested in our opinion/.

[edit] Belarussian psychologist

No, not Belarussian at all. One might call LSV a Russian or a Soviet psychologist, but definitely not a Belarussian one (despite the fact that he was born in Belarus, indeed). I am changing this into "Soviet" Yasya 04:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similarities between Piaget and Vygotsky

What are the similarities between the Piaget's Cognitive development theory and Vygotsky's Social development concept?

For some similarities as well as major differences between Piaget and Vygotsky see, e.g., Vygotsky, Thought and language, chapter 2. Yasya 20:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I miss some of Vygotsky's most brilliant insights

The most important, i think, is his notion that every thought is an internalization of two prior external events. One is the physical movement of the child. And one is the physical response from the environment. Vygotsky mentions for instance how a child learns to point with his finger. It starts with stretching out the full hand ; next comes the mother to the child's aid ; and then all is internalized as pointing - aka building up expectation "the environment moves in the mind, but not (yet) in reality"

PS: i would like to add that 17th century philosopher Spinoza , in his work Ethics , created a philosophical structure where the above notion is formalized - ofcourse you need to accept his axioma first. The proposition is then something along the lines of : if a body is associated in the mind with another body , and at some later moment one body is encountered , then "automatically" the second body is recalled in the mind. I'd have to look up the exact proposition number - maybe someone can help out? Best regards, Ron

Are these insights little known, are they of no interest, or is there another reason perhaps? woepwoep 18:19, 29 April 2006 (GMT+2)

Birthday cake example and explanation I hope my additions helped clarify the meaning of cultural mediation. If it is not clear, please let me know the problems so we can work on them-jake

[edit] Books and Articles about Vygotsky's Work

I suggest keeping only the most important monographs (btw, quite numerous, so far) in this section with rare exception given to the most outstanding articles. Yasya 06:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

This article once had a number of useful external links, now removed. IMHO an encyclopedia SHOULD provide such links as long as they lead to material that is relevant, NPOV, and accurate. Whoever removed them might consider restoring those that meet Wikipedia crieteria. frankatca; 19 Sept. 06

What exactly article do you mean? Yasya 00:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you mean. You are talking not about bibliography on Vygotsky, but the external web sources... I restored this section as well as categories and links to the article in other languages. Yasya 03:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major cleaning has started

The article, overall, has always seemed quite confusing and hardly readable to me. So, I am announcing the beginning of a major clean-up. Suggestions are welcome! Yasya 14:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Yasya, I am willing to contribute. I have studied Vygotsky's work for some time now. Let us know which direction your clean-up is taking. (Btw, did you say you had put the references back? I only see then in the History of the page. I agree that the original list is a bit too much but some source references and the link to Vygotsky's archive online seem useful to me). Jsarmi 15:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess, somebody's been very creative with the article: I reverted it to the older, 'normal' version. Please have a look at it and you'll have all the references, interwiki and other stuff restored. Generally, I think, since last September the article has improved to certain; however, there is yet a lot to do. Presently, we need to improve the quality of the sections that we have so far as well as to add several other ones, like, Defectology or Vygotsky's Brain studies, etc. I think the best strategy in doing this would be to rely on the authoritative scholarly works, those by van der Veer & Valsiner (1991, 1994), Veresov (1999), Lifanova & Vygodskaya (1996/1999) (see the reference section of the article) as well the various stuff done by Cole and Wertsch definitely being my favourites. --Yasya 17:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Critiques of Vygotsky section

Tetzchner is leaving the party: whereas his(?) criticism of "the social constructivist field of psychology in general" might well be justified in general, it has nothing to do with Vygotsky proper and overall Vygotskian paradigm psychology. A new although brief version of the critiques of Vygotsky is introduced. --Yasya 18:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I added the Tetzchner section back. It is relevant, and it comes from a published source, which is referenced.

Tetzchner should reread Vygotsky's Thinking and Speech, specifically, the part where he describes experiments conducted by R. Levina under the supervision of Vygotsky (the list of specific references available upon request). There, Vygotsky is discussing exactly what Tetzchner is saying he never did: the experiments on problem-solving in small children , i.e. the "exploration the child does on its own". The changing role of speech--from "egocentric" to internal speech is the issue that Vygotsky discusses at length. This is just one example out of a great many. Tetzchner might be right about "the social constructivist field of psychology in general", but has no clue about Vygotsky's work, specifically. It is both a published source and a referenced one, but still - totally irrelevant. All respect to Tetzchner, yet - deleted. --Yasya 22:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
How about adding some summary of published refutation of Tetzchner to the article, instead of just deleting a large section, based on what seems to be your own original research ?
Indeed, my research has a lot to do with the topic discussed. Anyway, none of the arguments presented here was not published. Yet again, I need to say that I believe the source in question is irrelevant for a number of reasons. However, I am ready to admit that I am wrong if anybody convinces me in the opposite. Unfortunately, I can not read in Swedish and would love if anybody could direct me to a relevant English-language source by this author. Apart from a bit obscure second-hand rendering of Tetzchner's criticue of "social constructivism", there is one direct quotation from the original text. Here it is: "A theory about cognitive development must comprise both the exploration the child does on its own and the knowledge mediated through cooperation with adults". -- To keep the ball rolling and as the evidence of the published and referenced studies on the topic, here is an article written by Vygotsky's student who personally conducted the experiments in 1931 that are described in Vygotsky's "Thinking and speech" (1934). As a response to Tetzchner's critique of--presumably--Vygotsky consider, please, the following. Quote: "At first the study was conducted without any interference on the part of the investigator. This was done so that we would have an opportunity to observe the child's natural behaviour. If the child did not complete the task, the experimenter began to provide instructions, etc." (p. 283). The article was first published in Russian in the journal of Voprosy psikhologii, 1968, No. 4, pp. 105-115. However, since I believe Russian still remains a somewhat exotic language in the West--and even in the field of Vygotskian studies!--consider, please, translation into English first published by James Wertsch in 1979. Here it is: Levina, R. E. (1981). Vygotsky's ideas about the planning function of speech in children. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 279-299). Armont, NY: Sharpe. One might also want to consider the references to the article. I will be happy to discuss the relevance of Tetzchner's critique whatsoever with respect to this source. --Yasya 22:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not have time to delve into the matter for now, and will leave it up to your judgement to do as you please with the article. But I still think the critique section of the article is lacking. The most common criticism I have seen against him is criticism from more Piaget-oriented theorists who think he puts too much emphasis on the social part of the development of concepts, and too little on the childs individual exploration of the world around it and/or the childs biological development. Regardless if their opinions are based on misunderstanding of Vygotsky or not, I think this form of critique is common enough to merit mention.

[edit] Needed 2 say

There seems to be a mistake in when Vygotsky died. According to the page at the moment, he died of Tuberculosis in 1934. However, throughout the text, most of the reference to his work is to 1978.

[[ The latter dates refer the dates of the English translations; Vygotsky did die in Russia in 1934. Frankatca 17:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC) ]]

Thought this should be mentioned, though I don't know too much about it all yet —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.53.56.116 (talk) 20:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

For the history of Vygotsky's translations into English see Influence and development of Vygotsky's ideas in the West. --Yasya 14:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Bibliography?

This article would be improved by an explicit bibliography of Vygotsky's published work. And known [English] translations.

Should the following be listed, for which Vygotsky is an author?

Thought and Language by Lev Semenovich Vygotsky

Educational Psychology (Classics in Soviet Psychology Series) by L.S. Vygotsky

Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes by L. S. Vygotsky, Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, and Sylvia Scribner

The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky: Volumes 1, 2 & 3: Problems of the Theory and History of Psychology (Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics) by L.S. Vygotsky, Robert W. Rieber, and Jeffrey Wollock

And the following, for which Vygotsky is the principal subject?

Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments: 4 Volume Set (Critical Assessments) by Peter Lloyd

Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist (Critical Psychology) by Lois Holzman

The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole, and James V. Wertsch

Vygotsky's Psychology-Philosophy: A Metaphor for Language Theory and Learning (Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics) by Dorothy Robbins

Lev Vygotsky (Continuum Library of Educational Thought) by Rene Van Der Veer

The Essential Vygotsky (Vienna Circle Collection) by Robert W. Rieber and David K. Robinson

Vygotsky and Pedagogy by Harry Daniels

Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind by James V. Wertsch

Parallel Paths to Constructivism: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky by Susan Pass

Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural Context (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) by Alex Kozulin, Boris Gindis, Vladimir S. Ageyev, and Suzanne M. Miller

Frankatca 17:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vygotsky and adult learning theory

As I read though "Mind in Society, the development of higher psychological processes" (Vygotsky, 1978), I am impressed with the idea that much of his work could potentially be applied to adult learning theory as well. We tend to revert back to 19th century learning models when we are in higher education environments. I wonder what Vygotsky would have thought of this. I welcome comments and feedback. Echoecharlie (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)