This article argues for a reconceptualisation of early childhood education, where learning and development are not only valued by outcome, and aims to investigate how aesthetic processes are organised in ways for the children to be inspired, to compare, explore, and play. Inspired by a Vygotsky perspective and his theories of play, imagination,…

Anglophone societies in which the sovereign individual is primary vis and vis social relations, and policy focuses on economic competition and consumption in education, find it hard to grasp non-pecuniary outcomes in higher education. These include the self-formation of students as persons and collective goods like knowledge, technological…

The work of Vygotsky is widely used in teacher education and other education-related literature, in discussion of sociocultural perspectives, and in relation to themes such as second language acquisition, the teaching of mathematics, and approaches to teaching and learning. Much of this work gives the impression that Vygotsky's work is…

Beyond his contributions to the field of psychology, Vygotsky may be considered as 'one of the first thinkers in complexity' (Jörg, 2011 p. 14). Vygotsky challenged linear causality and defended the idea of the transcendence of individual learning to focus on the generative potential of learning and development through social interactions,…

Purpose: The purpose of this theoretical essay is to discuss recent scholarship in sociocultural studies of literacy -- including two recent books by Peter Smagorinsky (2011) and Luis Moll (2013) and recent articles by Gutierrez and Engestrom -- and to synthesize ideas from this scholarship into a coherent lens for understanding innovations in…

This article focuses on the learning that is enabled while a primary school child makes a story using multimodal software. This child is diagnosed with autism. The aim is to use a cultural-historical framework to carry out an in-depth analysis of a process of learning with action as a unit of analysis. The article is based on a collaborative…

In the United States, approximately 7% to 10% of children are raised in bilingual households. Despite inherent advantages to bilingualism, some bilingual children experience a significant lag in academic success relative to other groups. Bridging the fields of cognitive psychology and education, this volume presents research-based knowledge on…

Explores the historical roots of universalistic thinking about children's nature, their needs, and what constitutes healthy development. Considers the opportunities for a new psychology of childhood to be reconstructed in ways that pay more attention to the cultural dimensions, as well as to the socio-cultural process, of the subject. (Author)

In developing an ecological theory of teaching, the classroom is viewed as a sociological unit. The unit of interest was the teacher-student learning group. The basic question explored was: What is the relationship between human interactions and the physical and social context of the group. Teams of scholars met in seminars, each member bringing…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined museum and classroom intervention project on science learning in low-income children. The focus of the program was on children's content knowledge and concept complexity. Thirty children were in the experimental group. A control group of 18 children visited literacy and social studies…

This book summarizes theory and discusses major issues pertaining to child development in the early childhood years. Chapter I provides an introduction to the conceptual framework and major theories of child development. Chapter II deals with motor, sensory, and perceptual development. Chapter III focuses on the cognitive-developmental theory of…