The Neo Vygotskian Approach To Child Development

The innovative neo-Vygotskian approach to child development is introduced to English-speaking readers.

Now in its third edition, this classic text remains the seminal resource for in-depth information about major concepts and principles of the cultural-historical theory developed by Lev Vygotsky, his students, and colleagues, as well as three generations of neo-Vygotskian scholars in Russia and the West. Featuring two new chapters on brain development and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development, as well as additional content on technology, dual language learners, and students with disabilities, this new edition provides the latest research evidence supporting the basics of the cultural-historical approach alongside Vygotskian-based practical implications. With concrete explanations and strategies on how to scaffold young children’s learning and development, this book is essential reading for students of early childhood theory and development.

The first book to present the contemporary Vygotskian approach to learning and development from birth through adolescence to English-speaking educators.

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

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is an effort to introduce early childhood educators to Vygotsky's perspective, research on young children that has been stimulated by this perspective, and current educational practices emanating from it. The discussion is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of Vygotsky's life, the social conditions in which his ideas emerged, and factors influencing the spread of his work. Chapter 2 offers a detailed description of Vygotsky's perspective on development, including the notions of cognition as socially constructed and shared, and language as the critical link between the social and the psychological planes of human functioning. Chapter 3 focuses on Vygotsky's view of the development and significance of children's imaginative or make-believe play. Chapter 4 summarizes Vygotsky's perspective on children with serious learning and behavior problems. Chapter 5 compares Vygotsky's approach to other major theories of child development in this century, clarifying its profound implications for early childhood education. Chapter 6 addresses contemporary applications of Vygotsky's theory to teaching and learning in early childhood classrooms. Finally, chapter 7 considers Vygotsky's theory as a vision for early childhood education--one that resolves the debate over academic versus child-centered programs by advocating responsiveness to children's current capacities in ways that move development forward. Key themes of the Vygotskian approach to early childhood education are summarized. The book includes a glossary of the terms used, three resources on Vygotsky's life and contributions, seven resources on language and thought, and 13 resources on play. Contains approximately 420 references. (AA)

The contributors to this collection employ the analytic resources of cultural-historical theory to examine the relationship between childhood and children's development under different societal conditions. In particular they attend to relationships between development, emotions, motives and identities, and the social practices in which children and young people may be learners. These practices are knowledge-laden, imbued with cultural values and emotionally freighted by those who already act in them. The book first discusses the organising principles that underpin a cultural-historical understanding of motives, development and learning. The second section foregrounds children's lives to exemplify the implications of these ideas as they are played out - examining how children are positioned as learners in pre-school, primary school and play environments. The final section uses the core ideas to look at the implementation of policy aimed at enhancing children's engagement with opportunities for learning, by discussing motives in the organisations that shape children's development.

This book provides new theoretical insights to our understanding of play as a cultural activity. All chapters address play and playful activities from a cultural-historical theoretical approach by re-addressing central claims and concepts in the theory and providing new models and understandings of the phenomenon of play within the framework of cultural historical theory. Empirical studies cover a wide range of institutional settings: preschool, school, home, leisure time, and in various social relations (with peers, professionals and parents) in different parts of the world (Europe, Australia, South America and North America). Common to all chapters is a goal of throwing new light on the phenomenon of playing within a theoretical framework of cultural-historical theory. Play as a cultural, collective, social, personal, pedagogical and contextual activity is addressed with reference to central concepts in relation to development and learning. Concepts and phenomena related to ZPD, the imaginary situation, rules, language play, collective imagining, spheres of realities of play, virtual realities, social identity and pedagogical environments are presented and discussed in order to bring the cultural-historical theoretical approach into play with contemporary historical issues. Essential as a must read to any scholar and student engaged with understanding play in relation to human development, cultural historical theory and early childhood education.