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…

This study guided by Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory explored the perception of pre-service teachers about the application of the ZPD in the classroom. Five participants, all junior students, were purposefully selected from a university in the southern region of the United States to participate in the study. Open-ended…

Major developmental theories been a resource to early childhood education researchers and educators. They help to explain how child development unfolds, sources of vulnerability and protection that influences child development, and how the course of development may be altered by prevention and intervention efforts. Understanding factors which may…

According to Lev S. Vygotsky (1896-1934), the highest levels of abstract thinking and self-regulation in preschool development are established in "pretend play using object substitutions." An extensive research literature supports Vygotsky's empirical model of the internalization of self-guiding speech (social speech > private speech…

The author suggests the brain's cerebellum and cerebral cortex are the origin of culture and considers the cerebellar models that came to constitute culture to be derived specifically from play. He summarizes recent research on the behavioral, cognitive, and affective evolution of the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex that shows the development…

This article introduces the new translation by Stanley Mitchell of a very well-known Vygotskyan text, which has become the locus classicus for Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD). It outlines the history of Vygotsky's text and compares Mitchell's new translation with the version found in Chapter 6 of "Mind…

The main goal of this social policy report is to propose a holistic approach for promoting developmental success among Latinx children and youth. This report highlights the need to 1) redefine success and 2) account for intersectional inequalities. First, the current demographic landscape of Latinx students is presented to showcase the variability…

Social constructivist theorists tend to identify qualitative educational research as discovering meaning and understanding by the researcher's active involvement in the construction of meaning. Although these approaches have been widely influenced by Vygotsky's social constructivist approach, his own theoretical framework has received…

This book provides a wide-ranging and in-depth theoretical perspective on dialogue in teaching. It explores the philosophy of dialogism as a social theory of language and explains its importance in teaching and learning. Departing from the more traditional teacher-led mode of teacher-student communication, the dialogic approach is more egalitarian…

The scholarly literature about the process of second language (L2) learning has focused to a considerable extent on cognitive processes. Left aside are questions about how emotions fit into an understanding of L2 learning. One goal of this plenary is to demonstrate that we have limited our understanding of L2 learning by failing to take into…

The authors consider the analysis of the literature on play research by Lillard and others in the January 2013 "Psychological Bulletin," an analysis that questioned the prevailing assumption of a causal relationship between play and child development, especially in the areas of creativity, reasoning, executive function, and regulation of…

In this paper we examine theoretical perspectives on assessment in cooperative education placements. As assessment is linked to student learning, we focus briefly on the purposes of assessment. We then consider a range of learning theories that have been, and are more recently, explored as ways to explain the process of learning on cooperative…

Lev Vygotsky is no doubt one of the leading educational theorists in history. His theories have been used to guide teaching and learning in public school classrooms for over a century. Vygotsky was considered to be one of the most creative psychologists of the twentieth century. This article covers a brief accounting of his birth, life…

This study explored preschool age and gender differences in help-seeking within the theoretical framework of scaffolded problem-solving and self-regulation (Bruner, 1986; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978; 1986). Within-subject analyses tracked changes in help-seeking among 62 preschoolers (34 boys, 28 girls, mean age 4.22 years) solving a challenging…

Intellectual (cognitive) development, the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms or levels of understanding, reasoning, and rationality is an ongoing process of reflection, coordination, and social interaction that begins in early childhood and continues, at least in some cases, long into adulthood (Moshman, 2003). In this process, language…