Revisiting Vygotsky For Social Change

This book adds critical and social perspectives to Vygotsky's initial principles to expand his legacy to global contemporary needs such as a critical reflection from the perspective of social change, ethical-political situations of action power, and awareness of the social environment to actively change the existing forms of life.

Research that seeks to understand and promote change can benefit from new ways of thinking about agency.

This book frames a series of protests occurred in Brazil from 2013 to 2016 as exemplary cases of global trends in contentious politics to analyze the tension between two forms of collective action: the militant (militante) and the prefigurative activist (ativista). Building on sociology, political science, and psychology, it explores the relationship between protestors' activities and conceptions of political participation with their subjectivity and agency. The protest cycle triggered by the June 2013 events in Brazil gave strength and popularity to repertoires and strategies of collective action uncommon and innovative. Those praxes defied political parties' conventions, highlighted the limitations of militant unionist tradition, and brought prefigurative activism to the Brazilian left-wing agenda. In this book, Andre Luis Leite de Figueirêdo Sales combines theoretical tools and traditions from South and North America to build an interdisciplinary approach to Political Psychology and answer the question: what psycho-political differences lie behind the disparate forms of political action adopted by militantes (militants) and ativistas (prefigurative activists) in Brazil? Inspired by books of short stories, the chapters discuss different aspects of the distinction between militancy and prefigurative activism. On them, the author deals with problems such as: how are the ongoing changes in Brazilian protest culture connected with the rising popularity of autonomist movements across the globe? What differences does it make rooting protest strategies in principles like resistance or refusal? How does the culture informing militants and prefigurative activists' conduct affect their political goals and horizons? How does militant and prefigurative activist culture relate to militants and prefigurative activists' forms of political consciousness? A Political Psychology Approach to Militancy and Prefigurative Activism: The Case of Brazil will be a valuable tool for social movement researchers from different disciplines interested in understanding how can subjectivity be, at the same time, a determiner of activities performed in collective action, and determined by these same transformative deeds.

This book opens up a critical dialogue within and across the theoretical traditions of critical psychology and cultural-historical psychology. It explores and addresses fundamental issues and problems within both traditions, with a view to identifying new avenues for productive discussion and cooperation between these two important movements in contemporary psychology. Accordingly, the book gathers contributions from a range of internationally respected researchers from both fields who have demonstrated a willingness to look critically, and self-critically, at their theoretical allegiances and trajectories. This book provides readers with the opportunity to both appreciate and reflect on fundamental differences of perspective across the ‘cultural-historical’/’critical’ psychology divide and, thereby, to consider and debate key issues facing the discipline of psychology more generally.

This book presents procedures and research techniques that are based on critical perspectives of Psychology and Education. The content is characterized by innovations on the relationship between the researcher and the investigated context, and it problematizes different perspectives and approaches to the psychological phenomenon proposing new understandings of the subject, the world, the social and the field of investigation itself as a permanent dialectical movement. The book reports to Marxist-based perspectives - especially to Vygotsky's ideas and concepts. Therefore, it assumes the comprehension that in order to understand the phenomenon in its historical dimension it is necessary to put it into motion seeking to access the genesis of the manifestations evidenced at the moment of the investigation. That is, the historicity that characterizes the process of constitution of the human psyche can only be apprehended in its movement, thus, what matters is the process and not the product of its development. Nevertheless, apprehending phenomena in movement is a challenge for researchers interested in human processes within the scope of relationships or practices of professionals and/or subjects of various scenarios, which leads to the need to problematize the different moments of research and their dimension in the theoretical and practical fields. Which methodological techniques or procedures allow the apprehension of the meaning movement produced by the subjects in the investigated scenarios? To what extent does dialectical materialism derived from Marxism support the apprehension and analysis of research information of this nature? What other theoretical-methodological perspectives, related to Cultural-Historical Psychology, offer subsidies to these investigations? The theoretical perspectives based on the Social and Cultural analysis focus on the understandings of collective contexts precisely because of the subject view constituted in the inter-subjective relations that it undertakes - which adds even more complexity to the investigative processes. From this perspective, both the subject and other participants transform themselves during the investigation, such transformation needs to be permanently reflected and included in the research objectives and purposes, in order to follow the movement of the meanings in the expressed phenomenon.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Marxism and Education is an international and interdisciplinary volume, which provides a thorough and precise engagement with emergent developments in Marxist theory in both the global South and North. Drawing on the work of authoritative scholars and practitioners, the handbook explicitly shows how these developments enable a rich historical and material understanding of the full range of education sectors and contexts. The handbook proceeds in a spirit of openness and dialogue within and between various conceptions and traditions of Marxism and brings those conceptions into dialogue with their critics and other anti-capitalist traditions. As such, it contributes to the development of Marxist analyses that push beyond established limits, by engaging with fresh perspectives and views that disrupt established perspectives.

The teacher’s role is to create opportunities that intrinsically motivate children to externalize their thoughts. Human beings have multiple means of expression: this is powerful when children have the opportunity to have a real voice. The realities of children’s experiences in their local communities are powerful resources for the language curriculum and help to create an understanding of the value the languages and cultures of children and teachers bring from a multicultural perspective. Thus, teachers can help children develop their cultural and linguistic identities to promote multiculturalism, multilingualism, and translingualism so they can thrive in a complex and changing world. The Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development approaches language and literacy development from a socio-cultural and linguistic perspective. This book offers global perspectives on language and literacy from international experts working with both children and educators. It offers readers a diversity of voices and experiences of professionals in the field that can inform their teaching and research. Covering topics such as critical literacy, emotional engagement, and multilingual resources, this major reference work is an indispensable resource for administrators and educators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, biblio-therapists, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

This book’s research is on online pedagogical approaches devised by teacher educators and researchers to circumvent a face-to-face curriculum delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge faced by educators was that they were uncertain of how to use digital technologies in teaching, learning and assessment productively. This book reports on case studies on teaching student teachers with technology in a way that advanced not only communication but also the cognitive growth of students in relation to disciplinary knowledge. The scholars from South African universities used both conceptual and empirical methodologies, mostly in qualitative set-ups. The scholarly contributions in this book are varied. They cover theoretical nuances for ICT use in education, considerations for the use of computers in the classroom, pedagogical thinking and pedagogical integration of ICTs in education, affordances of iPads in visible teaching and learning, supporting student cognition in Languages, Mathematics, Science, Engineering Graphics and Design with ICTs. The use of software applications such as GeoGebra and Excel in teaching and learning mathematics is researched, among others. The rich discussions that emerged from their research enable academics to learn from ‘others’ innovative moments that came as a result of pandemic pressure. The recommendations in this book can be used in blended learning beyond the COVID-19 era, as curriculum delivery methods are bound to change. The value of this book is that it reports on pedagogical innovations in using digital technologies in teacher education. Researchers have an opportunity to learn from this book how to deal with the tantalising teaching and learning problem of our time: How can the use of digital technology transform teaching and learning in general and teacher education in particular?