Sociocultural Theory II: NeoVygotskian Perspectives

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Sociocultural Theory IINeo-Vygotskian
Perspectives

• Culture, Literacy, and Human Development
• (Developed by 194 Team)

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Neo-Vygotskians

• Mike Cole
• Barbara Rogoff
• Situate Las Redes

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Mike Cole

• University Professor of Communications, UCSD
• Mediational theory of mind
• Cognitive development
• The role of culture in human development
• Important Books
• Soviet developmental psychology (1978)
• Cultural psychology A once and
• future discipline (1996)

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Putting culture in the middle
Artifact

• An artifact is an aspect of the material world
  that has been modified over the history of its
  incorporation into goal-directed human action
  (Cole, 1996, p. 117).

Subject
Object
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Putting culture in the middle

• Primary artifacts correspond closely to the
  concept of artifact as matter transformed
• Secondary artifacts consist of representations
  of primary artifacts and of modes of actions
  using primary artifacts
• Tertiary artifacts imagined worlds where rules,
  conventions, and outcomes appear directly
  practical

Primary artifacts correspond closely to the
concept of artifact as matter transformed (e.g.,
axes, clubs, pencils, board games). Secondary
artifacts consist of representations of primary
artifacts and of modes of actions using primary
artifacts (e.g., recipes, constitutions, game
rules). Tertiary artifacts imagined worlds
where rules, conventions, and outcomes appear
directly practical (e.g., 5th Dimension).
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Putting culture in the middle

• Artifacts are the fundamental constituents of
  culture.
• Artifacts and systems of artifacts exist as such
  only in relation to something else variously
  referred to as a situation, context, activity,
  and so on.
• Mediated activity has multidirectional
  consequences it simultaneously modifies the
  subject in relation to others and the subject/
  other nexus in relation to the situation as a
  whole, as well as the medium in which self and
  other interact.

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Barbara Rogoff

• Professor of Developmental
• Psychology, UCSC
• Collaboration
• Learning through observation
• Children's opportunities to participate in
  cultural activities
• Roles of adults as instructors or guides
• Important Books
• Apprenticeship in thinking (1990)
• The cultural nature of human development
  (2003)

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Development as transformation of participation in
cultural activities

• Human development is a process in which people
  transform through their ongoing participation in
  cultural activities, which in turn contribute to
  changes in their cultural communities (Rogoff,
  2003, p.37)

Human development is a process in which people
transform through their ongoing participation in
cultural activities, which in turn contribute to
changes in their cultural communities (Rogoff,
2003, p.37)
Continued movement
Change
Joint activity
Mutually constituted
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Development as transformation of participation in
cultural activities

• In contrast to theories of development that
  focus on the individual and the social or
  cultural context as separate entities, the
  cultural-historical approach assumes that
  individual development must be understood in, and
  cannot be separated from, its social and
  cultural-historical context (Rogoff, 2003, p.50)

Human development is socially constitute,
culturally imbued, and historically situated. To
understand how human beings develop is to
consider the complex, robust context from which
individuals emerge, a context that is constructed
by the activities of people.
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Development as transformation of participation in
cultural activities

• In the emerging sociocultural perspective,
  culture is not an entity that influences
  individuals. Instead, people contribute to the
  creation of cultural processes and cultural
  processes contribute to the creation of people.
  Thus, individual and cultural processes are
  mutually constituting rather than defined
  separately from each other (Rogoff, 2003, p.51)

Co-constitution of the individual cultural
process
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So given these understandings of culture,
mediation, artifacts, and joint activity, how do
we begin to document the practices and processes
that make-up Las Redes?