Sociocultural Theory

simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978) has become the foundation of much research and
theory in cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly what has
become known as sociocultural theory.

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Vygotsky’s theory comprises concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and
the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky believed cognitive development is influenced by cultural and social factors. He

emphasized the role of social interaction in the development of mental abilities e.g., speech
and reasoning in children.

Vygotsky strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of “making
meaning.”

Cognitive development is a socially mediated process in which children acquire cultural

values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more
knowledgeable members of society.

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The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or
greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and
modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the
gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance).

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The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity
of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of
higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher
mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others.

According to Vygotsky, adults in society foster children’s cognitive development by

engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Adults convey to children how their
culture interprets and responds to the world.

They show the meaning they attach to objects, events, and experiences. They provide the
child with what to think (the knowledge) and how to think (the processes, the tools to think
with).

Vygotsky’s theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and
teachers or peers. Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective educational strategies
based on Vygotsky’s ideas.

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Scaffolding involves the teacher providing support structures to help students master skills
just beyond their current level. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and students take turns
leading discussions using strategies like summarizing and clarifying. Both scaffolding and
reciprocal teaching emphasize the shared construction of knowledge, in line with Vygotsky’s
views.

Vygotsky highlighted the importance of language in cognitive development. Inner speech is

used for mental reasoning, and external speech is used to converse with others.

These operations occur separately. Indeed, before age two, a child employs words socially;
they possess no internal language.

Once thought and language merge, however, the social language is internalized and assists
the child with their reasoning. Thus, the social environment is ingrained within the child’s
learning.

Effects of Culture

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Vygotsky emphasized the role of the social environment in the child’s cognitive
development.

Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for intellectual development
called “elementary mental functions” (Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory
abilities). These develop throughout the first two years of life due to direct environmental
contact.

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Elementary mental functions include –

o Attention

o Sensation

o Perception

o Memory

Eventually, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are developed
into more sophisticated and effective mental processes, which Vygotsky refers to as “higher
mental functions.”

Tools of intellectual adaptation

Each culture provides its children with tools of intellectual adaptation that allow them to use
basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively.

Tools of intellectual adaptation is Vygotsky’s term for methods of thinking and

problem-solving strategies that children internalize through social interactions with the
more knowledgeable members of society.

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For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture
determines the type of memory strategy we develop.

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For example, in Western culture, children learn note-taking to aid memory, but in pre-literate
societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in a string to remember,
carrying pebbles, or repeating the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by
the beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person
develops and, therefore, socio-culturally determined.

Therefore, intellectual adaptation tools vary from culture to culture – as in the memory
example.

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their
own learning and discovering and developing new understandings/schema.

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However, Vygotsky emphasized social contributions to the development process, whereas
Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social
interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal
instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to

understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher)
and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs
poorly in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or
demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the corner/edge pieces, and
provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself, and offers encouragement
when she does so.

As the child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more
independently. According to Vygotsky, this social interaction involving cooperative or
collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

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To understand Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of
the main principles of Vygotsky’s work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone
of Proximal Development (ZPD).

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More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone
who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, concerning a
particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not
necessarily the case. Often, a child’s peers or an adult’s children may be the individuals
with more knowledge or experience.

For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teenage music groups,
how to win at the most recent PlayStation game, or how to correctly perform the newest
dance craze – a child or their parents?

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. To support employees in their learning
process, some companies are now using electronic performance support systems.

Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide students
through learning. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more
knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.

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Zone of Proximal Development

The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of
Vygotsky’s work, the zone of proximal development.

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This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve
independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a
skilled partner.

Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to

learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop – but not to their full potential.

He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal
development (ZPD) – and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other
learners that this gap can be bridged.

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The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development,
what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can
do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals.

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Social interaction, therefore, supports the child’s cognitive development in the ZPD, leading
to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two
important features.

The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings
of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other.

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The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but
as children’s mastery of a task increases, so the adult tends to withdraw their own
contributions in recognition of the child’s increasing success.

For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself
and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following
interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to
future jigsaws.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just
beyond the individual’s capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of
our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

As a result of shared dialogues with more knowledgeable others, who provide hints,
instructions, and encouragement, the child can internalize the ‘how to do it’ part of the task
as part of their inner or private speech. The child can then use this on later occasions when
they tackle a similar task on their own.

Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most
sensitive instruction or guidance should be given – allowing the child to develop skills they
will then use on their own – developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky also views peer interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies.
He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent
children develop with help from more skillful peers – within the zone of proximal
development.

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Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD

Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture
should be placed in particular areas of a doll’s house.

Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a similar situation before they
attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) while others were allowed to work on
this by themselves (Piaget’s discovery learning).

Freund found that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed the
greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task.

The conclusion is that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater
understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).

Vygotsky and Language

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions for communication
purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man’s greatest tool for communicating with the
outside world.

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According to Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in cognitive

development:

1.
1. It is the main means by which adults transmit information to children.
2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.

Vygotsky (1987) differentiates between three forms of language:

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 1.
1. Social speech, which is external communication used to talk to others (typical
from the age of two);
2. Private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and
serves an intellectual function;
3. Private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility as it takes on a
self-regulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from
the age of seven).

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For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life,
merging at around three years of age.

At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and
speech becomes representational.

As children develop mental representation, particularly the skill of language, they start to
communicate with themselves in much the same way as they would communicate with
others.

When this happens, children’s monologues are internalized to become inner speech. The
internalization of language is important as it drives cognitive development.

“Inner speech is not the interiour aspect of external speech – it is a function in itself. It
still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words.

But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words
dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure
meanings.”

(Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149)

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Private Speech

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Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the
moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking.

Thus, in Vygotsky’s view, private speech was the earliest manifestation of inner speech.
Indeed, private speech is more similar (in form and function) to inner speech than social
speech.

Private speech is “typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed

to the self (not to others) for the purpose of self-regulation (rather than
communication).”

(Diaz, 1992, p.62)

Private speech is overt, audible, and observable, often seen in children who talk to
themselves while problem-solving.

Conversely, inner speech is covert or hidden because it happens internally. It is the silent,
internal dialogue that adults often engage in while thinking or problem-solving.

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In contrast to Piaget’s (1959) notion of private speech representing a developmental dead-
end, Vygotsky (1934, 1987) viewed private speech as:

“A revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and

preintellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental
functioning.” (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005: p. 1)

In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and

Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the
environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984).

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Through private speech, children collaborate with themselves, in the same way a more
knowledgeable other (e.g., adults) collaborate with them to achieve a given function.

Vygotsky sees “private speech” as a means for children to plan activities and strategies,
aiding their development. Private speech is the use of language for self-regulation of
behavior.

Therefore, language accelerates thinking/understanding (Jerome Bruner also views

language in this way). Vygotsky believed that children who engage in large amounts of
private speech are more socially competent than children who do not use it extensively.

Vygotsky (1987) notes that private speech does not merely accompany a child’s activity but
acts as a tool the developing child uses to facilitate cognitive processes, such as
overcoming task obstacles, and enhancing imagination, thinking, and conscious awareness.

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Children use private speech most often during intermediate difficulty tasks because they
attempt to self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their thoughts (Winsler et al.,
2007).

The frequency and content of private speech correlate with behavior or performance. For
example, private speech appears functionally related to cognitive performance: It appears
at times of difficulty with a task.

For example, tasks related to executive function (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), problem-
solving tasks (Behrend et al., 1992), and schoolwork in both language (Berk & Landau,
1993), and mathematics (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007).

Berk (1986) provided empirical support for the notion of private speech. She found that
most private speech exhibited by children serves to describe or guide the child’s actions.

Berk also discovered that children engaged in private speech more often when working
alone on challenging tasks and when their teacher was not immediately available to help
them.

Furthermore, Berk also found that private speech develops similarly in all children
regardless of cultural background.

There is also evidence (Behrend et al., 1992) that those children who displayed the
characteristic whispering and lip movements associated with private speech when faced
with a difficult task were generally more attentive and successful than their ‘quieter’
classmates.

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Vygotsky (1987) proposed that private speech is a product of an individual’s social
environment. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there exist high positive
correlations between rates of social interaction and private speech in children.

Children raised in cognitively and linguistically stimulating environments (situations more

frequently observed in higher socioeconomic status families) start using and internalizing
private speech faster than children from less privileged backgrounds.

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Indeed, children raised in environments characterized by low verbal and social exchanges
exhibit delays in private speech development.

Children’s use of private speech diminishes as they grow older and follows a curvilinear
trend. This is due to changes in ontogenetic development whereby children can internalize
language (through inner speech) to self-regulate their behavior (Vygotsky, 1987).

For example, research has shown that children’s private speech usually peaks at 3–4 years
of age, decreases at 6–7, and gradually fades out to be mostly internalized by age 10 (Diaz,
1992).

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and disappears with age not because it
becomes socialized, as Piaget suggested, but because it goes underground to constitute
inner speech or verbal thought” (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985).

Educational Implications
Vygotsky’s approach to child development is a form of social constructivism, based on the
idea that cognitive functions are the products of social interactions.

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Social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs through
social interactions within a cultural and historical context.

Vygotsky emphasized the collaborative nature of learning by constructing knowledge

through social negotiation. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible
to separate learning from its social context.

Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others,
then integrated into the individual’s mental structure.

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 Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social
level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and
then inside the child (intrapsychological).

This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of
concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between
individuals.

(Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)

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Teaching styles grounded in constructivism represent a deliberate shift from traditional,
didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-
centered approach.

Traditionally, schools have failed to foster environments where students actively participate
in their own and their peers’ education. Vygotsky’s theory, however, calls for both the
teacher and students to assume non-traditional roles as they engage in collaborative
learning.

Rather than having a teacher impose their understanding onto students for future recitation,
the teacher should co-create meaning with students in a manner that allows learners to take
ownership (Hausfather, 1996).

For instance, a student and teacher might start a task with varying levels of expertise and
understanding. As they adapt to each other’s perspective, the teacher must articulate their
insights in a way that the student can comprehend, leading the student to a fuller
understanding of the task or concept.

The student can then internalize the task’s operational aspect (“how to do it”) into their inner
speech or private dialogue. Vygotsky referred to this reciprocal understanding and
adjustment process as intersubjectivity.”

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ZPD

Because Vygotsky asserts that cognitive change occurs within the zone of proximal
development, instruction would be designed to reach a developmental level just above the
student’s current developmental level.

Vygotsky proclaims, “learning which is oriented toward developmental levels that have
already been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint of the child’s overall development. It
does not aim for a new stage of the developmental process but rather lags behind this
process” (Vygotsky, 1978).

Appropriation is necessary for cognitive development within the zone of proximal

development. Individuals participating in peer collaboration or guided teacher instruction
must share the same focus to access the zone of proximal development.

“Joint attention and shared problem solving is needed to create a process of cognitive,
social, and emotional interchange” (Hausfather,1996).

Furthermore, it is essential that the partners be on different developmental levels and the
higher-level partner be aware of the lower’s level. If this does not occur or one partner
dominates, the interaction is less successful (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

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Vygotsky’s theories also feed into the current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting
that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help
less advanced members operate within their ZPD.

Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective strategies to access the

zone of proximal development.

Reciprocal Teaching

A contemporary educational application of Vygotsky’s theory is “reciprocal teaching,” used

to improve students” ability to learn from text.

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In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills:
summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher’s role in the process is
reduced over time.

Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers.
This two-way communication becomes an instructional strategy by encouraging students to
go beyond answering questions and engage in the discourse (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather,
1996).

A study conducted by Brown and Palincsar (1989) demonstrated the Vygotskian approach
with reciprocal teaching methods in their successful program to teach reading strategies.

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The teacher and students alternated turns leading small group discussions on a reading.
After modeling four reading strategies, students began to assume the teaching role.

The results showed significant gains over other instructional strategies (Driscoll, 1994;
Hausfather,1996).

Cognitively Guided Instruction is another strategy to implement Vygotsky’s theory. This

strategy involves the teacher and students exploring math problems and then sharing their
problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue (Hausfather,1996).

Based on Vygotsky’s theory, the physical classroom would provide clustered desks or tables
and workspace for peer instruction, collaboration, and small-group instruction. Learning
becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and teacher.

Like the environment, the instructional design of the material to be learned would be
structured to promote and encourage student interaction and collaboration. Thus the
classroom becomes a community of learning.

Scaffolding

Also, Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development on learners is relevant to instructional

concepts such as “scaffolding” and “apprenticeship,” in which a teacher or more advanced
peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

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A teacher’s role is to identify each individual’s current level of development and provide
them with opportunities to cross their ZPD.

A crucial element in this process is the use of what later became known as scaffolding; the
way in which the teacher provides students with frameworks and experiences which
encourage them to extend their existing schemata and incorporate new skills,
competencies, and understandings.

Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child’s learning, to move from what
they already know to new knowledge and abilities.

Scaffolding requires the teacher to allow students to extend their current skills and
knowledge.

During scaffolding, the support offered by an adult (or more knowledgeable other) gradually
decreases as the child becomes more skilled in the task.

As the adult withdraws their help, the child assumes more of the strategic planning and
eventually gains competence to master similar problems without a teacher’s aid or a more
knowledgeable peer.

It is important to note that this is more than simply instruction; learning experiences must be
presented in such a way as to actively challenge existing mental structures and provide
frameworks for learning.

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Five ways in which an adult can “scaffold” a child’s learning:

1. Engaging the child’s interest

2. Maintaining the child’s interest in the task e.g., avoiding distraction and providing clear
instructions on how to start the task.
3. Keeping the child’s frustration under control e.g., by supportive interactions, adapting
instructions according to where the child is struggling.
4. Emphasizing the important features of the task

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 5. Demonstrating the task: showing the child how to do the task in simple, clear steps.

As the child progresses through the ZPD, the necessary scaffolding level declines from 5 to
1.

The teacher must engage students’ interests, simplify tasks to be manageable, and
motivate students to pursue the instructional goal.

In addition, the teacher must look for discrepancies between students” efforts and the
solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the act
(Hausfather, 1996).

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Challenges to Traditional Teaching Methods

Vygotsky’s social development theory challenges traditional teaching methods. Historically,

schools have been organized around recitation teaching.

The teacher disseminates knowledge to be memorized by the students, who in turn recite
the information to the teacher (Hausfather,1996).

However, the studies described above offer empirical evidence that learning based on the
social development theory facilitates cognitive development over other instructional
strategies.

The structure of our schools does not reflect the rapid changes our society is experiencing.
The introduction and integration of computer technology in society has tremendously
increased the opportunities for social interaction.

Therefore, the social context for learning is transforming as well. Whereas collaboration and
peer instruction were once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships
can now be formed from distances through cyberspace.

Computer technology is a cultural tool that students can use to meditate and internalize
their learning. Recent research suggests changing the learning contexts with technology is
a powerful learning activity (Crawford, 1996).

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If schools continue to resist structural change, students will be ill-prepared for the world they
will live.

Critical Evaluation
Vygotsky’s work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that Piaget’s has, partly
due to the time-consuming process of translating Vygotsky’s work from Russian.

Also, Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective does not provide as many specific hypotheses to
test as Piaget’s theory, making refutation difficult, if not impossible.

Perhaps the main criticism of Vygotsky’s work concerns the assumption that it is relevant to
all cultures. Rogoff (1990) dismisses the idea that Vygotsky’s ideas are culturally universal
and instead states that scaffolding- heavily dependent on verbal instruction – may not be
equally useful in all cultures for all types of learning.

Indeed, in some instances, observation and practice may be more effective ways of
learning certain skills.

There is much emphasis on social interaction and culture, but many other aspects of
development are neglected, such as the importance of emotional factors, e.g., the joys of
success and the disappointments and frustration of failure act as motivation for learning.

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Vygotsky overemphasized socio-cultural factors at the expense of biological influences on
cognitive development. This theory cannot explain why cross-cultural studies show that the
stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all
cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of
maturation.

Vygotky’s theory has been applied successfully to education. Scaffolding has been shown
to be an effective way of teaching (Freund, 1990), and based on this theory, teachers are
trained to guide children from what they can do to the next step in their learning through
careful scaffolding.

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Collaborative work is also used in the classroom, mixing children of different levels of ability
to make use of reciprocal / peer teaching.

Vygotsky vs. Piaget

Unlike Piaget’s notion that children’s cognitive development must necessarily precede their
learning, Vygotsky argued, “learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of
developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function” (1978, p. 90). In
other words, social learning precedes (i.e., come before) development.

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Vygotsky’s theory differs from that of Piaget in several important ways:

Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive

development.

Unlike Piaget, who emphasized universal cognitive change (i.e., all children would go
through the same sequence of cognitive development regardless of their cultural
experiences), Vygotsky leads us to expect variable development depending on cultural
diversity.

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This contradicts Piaget’s view of universal stages of development (Vygotsky does not refer
to stages like Piaget does).

Hence, Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget
states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.

Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors

contributing to cognitive development.

1. Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive
development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of
proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge.

In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from

independent explorations in which children construct knowledge.
2. For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think
and what they think about.

The importance of scaffolding and language may differ for all cultures. Rogoff (1990)
emphasizes the importance of observation and practice in pre-industrial societies
(e.g., learning to use a canoe among Micronesian Islanders).

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Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in

cognitive development.

According to Piaget, language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes
before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from
the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner
speech).

In Piaget’s theory, egocentric (or private) speech gradually disappears as children develop
truly social speech, in which they monitor and adapt what they say to others.

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Vygotsky disagreed with this view, arguing that as language helps children to think about
and control their behavior, it is an important foundation for complex cognitive skills.

As children age, this self-directed speech becomes silent (or private) speech, referring to
the inner dialogues we have with ourselves as we plan and carry out activities.

For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.

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According to Vygotsky, adults are an important source of cognitive

development.

Adults transmit their culture’s tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize.

In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social
perspective-taking.

References
Behrend, D.A., Rosengren, K.S., & Perlmutter, M. (1992). The relation between private
speech and parental interactive style. In R.M. Diaz & L.E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From
social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 85–100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berk, L. E. (1986). Relationship of elementary school children’s private speech to

behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance. Developmental
Psychology, 22(5), 671.

Berk, L. & Garvin, R. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income

Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20(2), 271-286.

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Berk, L. E., & Landau, S. (1993). Private speech of learning-disabled and normally
achieving children in classroom academic and laboratory contexts. Child Development, 64,
556–571.

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Cannella, G. S., & Reiff, J. C. (1994). Individual constructivist teacher education: Teachers
as empowered learners. Teacher education quarterly, 27-38.

Crawford, K. (1996) Vygotskian approaches to human development in the information era.

Educational Studies in Mathematics, (31),43-62.

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Further Reading

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

FAQs

What is Vygotsky’s Theory

Vygotsky believed that cognitive development was founded on social interaction. According
to Vygotsky, much of what children acquire in their understanding of the world is the product
of collaboration.

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How is Vygotsky’s theory applied in teaching and learning?

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Vygotsky’s theory has profound implications for classroom learning. Teachers guide, support,
and encourage children, yet also help them to develop problem-solving strategies that can
be generalized to other situations.

Children learn best not when they are isolated, but when they interact with others,
particularly more knowledgeable others who can provide the guidance and encouragement
to master new skills.

What was Vygotsky’s best know concept?

Lev Vygotsky was a seminal Russian psychologist best known for his sociocultural theory.
He constructed the idea of a zone of proximal development, which are those tasks which are
too difficult for a child to solve alone but s/he can accomplish with the help of adults or more
skilled peers.

Vygotsky has developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. He developed

his theories at around the same time as Jean Piaget was starting to develop his ideas
(1920’s and 30″s), but he died at the age of 38, and so his theories are incomplete –
although some of his writings are still being translated from Russian.

Like Piaget, Vygotsky could be described as a constructivist, in that he was interested in

knowledge acquisition as a cumulative event – with new experiences and understandings
incorporated into existing cognitive frameworks.

However, while Piaget’s theory is structural (arguing that physiological stages govern
development), Vygotsky denies the existence of any guiding framework independent of
culture and context.

No single principle (such as Piaget’s equilibration) can account for development. Individual
development cannot be understood without reference to the social and cultural context within
which it is embedded. Higher mental processes in the individual have their origin in social
processes.

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What is Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory?

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Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory is often referred to as the Sociocultural Theory.

Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory posits that social interaction is fundamental to

cognitive development. Vygotsky emphasized the influence of cultural and social contexts on
learning, claiming that knowledge is constructed through social collaboration.

His most known concept, the Zone of Proximal Development, refers to the difference
between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance.

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