Sociocultural theory;

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Sociocultural theory

• Todays Lecture
• The social origin of mental functioning
• Mediated action
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
• Tuesday 29.08.06
• Oddvar.hjulstad_at_isp.uio.no

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The social origin of mental functioning

• Any function in the childs cultural development
  appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears
  on the social plane, and then on the
  psychological plane. First it appears between
  people as an interpsychological category, and
  then within the child as an intrapsycholgical
  category. This is equally true with regard to
  voluntary attention, logical memory, the
  formation of concepts, and the development of
  volition (Vygotsky 1981163)

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How to understand (and change?) the relationship
between the two planes?

• Individual
• Sociocultural setting
• (Cultural, institutional, historical forces)

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Internalization (Example p.56)

• Child tries to reach an object but cannot
• Gets frustrated, makes sounds.
• Adult notices child trying. Adult gets object
  for child.
• Child learns pointing gesture
• Nonsocial situation is transformed into social
  interaction.
• The process by which the child comes to learn
  that pointing at the object leads to a desired
  outcome is a process of internalization.
• what the child has learned has transformed this
  external object at which the child was pointing
  from a nonsocial object into an object that is
  part of a social context.

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James, age 5, comes into the kitchen just as his
mother has taken some cakes out of the oven.
There is a loud, metallic Crack. (extract from
Wells 1999, xi)

• James Who did that?
• Mother I expect it was that tin contracting
• James Which tin?
• Mother The one with your pastery in
• James Why did it make that noise?
• Mother Well, When it was in the oven, it got
  very
• hot and stretched a bit. Ive just taken
  it out of the
• oven, and its cooling down very quickly,
  you see,
• and that noise happens when it gets smaller
  again
• and goes back to its ordinary shape
• James Oh! Was it a different shape in the oven?
• Mother Not very different. Just a little bigger
• James Naughty little tin. You might get smacked
  if you do it again

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Culture ?

• A system of shared beliefs, values, customs,
  behaviors, and artifacts, conscious and
  unconscious, transmitted across generations
  through learning.

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Mediated action

• Seeing mental functioning as generated from
  participation in social interaction, brings up
  the issue of mediation and mediational means.
• The connection between the two planes is found in
  the mediating function of cultural tools.
• Vygotsky includes a variety of sign-based tools
  that function as mediational means systems for
  counting, mnemonic techniques, algebraic symbol
  system, work of art, writing, schemes, diagrams,
  maps.
• However, language is undoubtedly considered to be
  the tool of tools

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Mediated action
M (Artefact)
O (Object)
S (Subject)
Subject and object are seen not only as
directly connected but simultaneously as
indirectly connected through a medium
constituted of artefacts (Culture). (Cole
2003119)
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Mediated learning

• Psychological tools
• Cultural tools
• Mediational means
• Cultural artefacts
• Language
• Symbols
• representations

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Artefacts

• The cultural tools are artefacts created by human
  culture (s) over time. They are used by
  individuals and groups for different purposes,
  and they shape the ways in which we interact with
  and understand the world (Säljö 2000).
• Tools are material, symbolic, and semiotic

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Development of higher and lower (elementary)human
functions

• The development of human mental functions is
  viewed by as their transition from their original
  lower mental functions form into their higher
  mental functions form.
• The differences between the two are being drawn
  along four major criteria
• origins
• structure
• the way of functioning
• the relation to other mental functions
• By origins, most lower mental functions are
  genetically inherited, by structure they are
  unmediated, by functioning they are involuntary,
  and with regard to their relation to other mental
  functions they are isolated individual mental
  units.
• In contrast, higher mental function is socially
  acquired, mediated by social meanings,
  voluntarily controlled and exists as a link in a
  broad system of functions rather than as an
  individual unit.

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Development of higher and lower (elementary)human
functions
Development phase Origin Construction Functioning Process Connectedness
Lower functions - reflexes, instincts, survival behaviours genetically and biologically inherited mediated by genetic biological givens involuntary behaviour physical and biological connectedness
Higher human functions communication, cultural activities socio-culturally acquired mediated by social situations and meanings social behaviour communicative and meaning-related connectedness
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Vygotsky Genetic method

• Genetic domains
• Onto-genesis Development by an individual
• Socio-historical Development of the society
• Phylo-genesis Development of the (human)
  species
• Micro-genesis Creation of ideas concept
  learning
• His social theory involves the interplay between
  1. and 2.

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Genetic domains shape Human Development

• I. Phylo- genesis (Evolutionary)
• Elementary (Lower) functions will develop from
  this path. These Elementary Functions
• Are shared with some non-human species
• include perception, memory, attention
• Are immediateclose to perception of experience
  and do not involve mediated processes such as
  representation
• Arise from direct influence of external stimuli
  In humans, can be converted to higher mental
  functions via sociocultural development

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Genetic domains shape Human Development

• II. Historical (sociocultural)
• Accumulated knowledge of many individuals over
  many years interacting with the biological
  environment (first path) contributes to human
  development
• III. Ontogenetic
• Development and maturation of the individual
  (intrapsychological)

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Cultural Tools Developmental Influences from
the Second Path

• Humans use tools to understand and mediate their
  social and physical environments
• Tools are socially generated and transmitted
  within cultures through joint activity

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The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• ZPD refers to the difference gap between what a
  child or person can achieve/learn in isolation
  and what they can achieve/learn in co-operation
  with more capable peers or in collaboration with
  a teacher/mentor.
• In the ZPD, the learner cannot yet function
  autonomously, but can solve problems with the
  help of a more capable partner.
• Once the learner has appropriated the knowledge
  of how to solve a particular problem, the
  developmental level of the child grows to
  encompass that knowledge and the level of
  potential development moves ahead, and the ZPD
  shifts.
• The process of learning involves the novice
  appropriating both the tools and the knowledge to
  solve the problem from the master.
• This appropriation happens in the context of
  social interaction between the novice and the
  master.

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ZPD
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ZPD
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ZPD

• The two children have similar performances on a
  task completed without assistance.
• With assistance, their performance improves.
• The second child improves even more, and
  therefore has a larger ZPD.

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Schooling?

• All human activity, regardless of context is
  culturally mediated and is inherently social.

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Schooling?

• School instruction is a very important cultural
  tool that mediates thinking BUT
• the only good kind of instruction is that which
  marches ahead of development and leads it it
  must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the
  ripening functions.

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Schooling and instructions

• it remains necessary to determine the lowest
  threshold at which instruction in, say,
  arithmetic may begin, since a certain minimal
  rightness of function is required. But we must
  consider the upper threshold as well instruction
  must be oriented toward the future, not the
  past.

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SNE?

• instruction (that is oriented) to the childs
  weaknesses rather than his strength (encourages)
  him to remain at the preschool stage of
  development.

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