Introducing Vygotsky

Sandra Smidt takes the reader on a journey through the key concepts of Lev Vygotsky, one of the twentieth century’s most influential theorists in the field of early education. His ground-breaking principles of early learning and teaching are unpicked here using every-day language, and critical links between his fascinating ideas are revealed. Introducing Vygotsky is an invaluable companion for anyone involved with children in the early years. The introduction of Vygotsky’s key concepts is followed by discussion of the implications of these for teaching and learning. Each chapter also includes a useful glossary of terms. This accessible text is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from real-life early years settings and the concepts discussed include: mediation and memory culture and cultural tools mental functions language, concepts and thinking activity theory play and meaning. Essential reading for all those interested in or working with children, Introducing Vygotsky emphasises the social nature of learning and examines the importance of issues such as culture, history, language, and symbols in learning.

Vygotksy's legacy is an exciting but often confusing fusion of ideas. An Introduction to Vygotksy provides students with an accessible overview of his work combining reprints of key journal and text articles with editorial commentary and suggested further reading. Harry Daniels explores Vygotsky's work against a backdrop of political turmoil in the developing USSR. Major elements include use of the "culture" concept in social development theory and implications for teaching, learning and assessment. Academics and students at all levels will find this an essential key source of information.

Examine the work of five groundbreaking education theorists—John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky—in relation to early childhood. Theories of Childhood provides a basic introduction to each theorist and explains the relationship of theory to practice and its impact on real children, teachers, and classrooms. This edition reflects current academic learning standards and includes new understandings of Vygotsky's work. It is a popular guide to help early childhood professionals be aware of the theories behind good child care practices. It is also a widely-used text in undergraduate programs, community college courses, and training workshops that focus on early development and education. Carol Garhart Mooney has been an early childhood educator for more than forty years. She is also the author of Theories of Attachment, Use Your Words, and Swinging Pendulums.

This thoroughly updated third edition provides students with an accessible overview of Vygotsky’s work, combining reprints of key journal and text articles with rich editorial commentary. Lev Vygotsky provided the twentieth century with an enticing mix of intellectual traditions within an attempt to provide an account of the social formation of the mind. His legacy is an exciting, but at times challenging fusion of ideas. Retaining a multi-disciplinary theme, Introduction to Vygotsky, 3rd edition begins with a review of current interpretations of Vygotksy’s original work. Harry Daniels goes on to consider the development of Vygotsky’s work against a backdrop of political turmoil in the developing USSR. Major elements explored within the volume include the use of the 'culture' concept in social development theory, the development of means of describing social life, the concept of mediation, and implications for teaching, learning and assessment This book will be essential reading for Vygotskian students in developmental psychology, education and social sciences, as well as to students on specialised courses on cultural, cross-cultural and socio-cultural psychology, philosophical psychology, philosophy of science, history of psychology and Soviet/Russian history.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Since it was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1962, Lev Vygotsky's highly original exploration of human mental development has become recognized as a classic foundational work of cognitive science. Vygotsky analyzes the relationship between words and consciousness, arguing that speech is social in its origins and that only as children develop does it become internalized verbal thought. Now Alex Kozulin has created a new edition of the original MIT Press translation by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar that restores the work's complete text and adds materials that will help readers better understand Vygotsky's meaning and intentions. Kozulin has also contributed an introductory essay that offers new insight into the author's life, intellectual milieu, and research methods. Lev S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) studied at Moscow University and acquired in his brief lifespan a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the social sciences, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, literature, and the arts. He began his systematic work in psychology at the age of 28, and within a few years formulated his theory of the development of specifically human higher mental functions. He died of tuberculosis ten years later, and Thought and Languagewas published posthumously in 1934. Alex Kozulin studied at the Moscow Institute of Medicine and the Moscow Institute of Psychology, where he began his investigation of Vygotsky and the history of Soviet psychology. He emigrated in 1979 and is now Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology) at Boston University. He is the author of Psychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology(MIT Press 1984).

This 2003 book comprehensively covers all major topics of Vygotskian educational theory and its classroom applications.

The great Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky has long been recognized as a pioneer in developmental psychology. But somewhat ironically, his theory of development has never been well understood in the West. Mind in Society should correct much of this misunderstanding. Carefully edited by a group of outstanding Vygotsky scholars, the book presents a unique selection of Vygotsky’s important essays, most of which have previously been unavailable in English. The Vygotsky who emerges from these pages can no longer be glibly included among the neobehaviorists. In these essays he outlines a dialectical-materialist theory of cognitive development that anticipates much recent work in American social science. The mind, Vygotsky argues, cannot be understood in isolation from the surrounding society. Man is the only animal who uses tools to alter his own inner world as well as the world around him. From the handkerchief knotted as a simple mnemonic device to the complexities of symbolic language, society provides the individual with technology that can be used to shape the private processes of mind. In Mind in Society Vygotsky applies this theoretical framework to the development of perception, attention, memory, language, and play, and he examines its implications for education. The result is a remarkably interesting book that is bound to renew Vygotsky’s relevance to modern psychological thought.