Sociocultural Theory Week 4, “Sociocultural Approaches to Learning and Development”

Sociocultural TheoryWeek 4, “Sociocultural Approaches to Learning and Development”

Sociocultural Popularity?

• Began in the 1920’s/30’s by Lev Vygotsky

• “based on the concept that human activities take place in cultural contexts, are mediated by language and other symbol systems, and can be best understood when investigated in their historical development”

Sociocultural Popularity?

• Why so popular today?

• Makes the shift from a binary understanding of internal or external…

• Instead, development is the “dynamic interdependence of social and individual processes”.

Sociocultural Themes

Sociocultural Theory is a way of understanding the internalization of knowledge and is based on three main themes:


a)“Individual Development, including higher mental functioning, has its origins in social sources

b)Human action, on both the social and individual planes, is mediated by tools and signs

c) The first two themes are best examined through genetic, or developmental analysis”

Social Sources

“All higher psychological functions are internalized relationships of the social kind, and constitute the social structure of personality”

-Vygotsky

• Joint activity is key• At first we depend on others with more

experience• As we gain understanding we also gain

responsibility for our own learning

Social Sources

• According to Rogoff, Joint attention can be seen as “guided participation”

“Though repeated and varied experience in supported routine and challenging situations, children become skilled practitioners in the specific cognitive activities in their communities”

-Rogoff

Tools and Signs

• Semiotic Meditation: Knowledge acquired through representational activity performed by the developing individual

“language; various systems of counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems; works of art; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps and mechanical drawings; all sorts of conventional signs and so on”

-Vygotsky

Tools and Signs

Important to take in consideration Cognitive Pluralism:

• There are differing opinions within sociocultural thought as to which semiotic means are important, however…

• All agree that language is central to semiotic meditation,

• Semiotic means can be created to accommodate and,

• Semiotic means depend heavily on culture/environment

Genetic Analysis

• Focus on the process and not the product… study in the process of change -Vygotsky

“examines the origins and the history of phenomena, focusing on their interconnectedness”

Genetic Analysis

Important step:

• Learning and development are socially and culturally shaped

• BUT… Social and cultural contexts are always changing

• Therefore… “no universal schema represents the dynamic relation between external and internal aspects of development” –John-Steiner and Souberman

Genetic Analysis

• This continuous change leads to Functional Systems: dynamic psychological systems in which diverse internal and external processes are coordinated and integrated

“the use of functional systems provides a framework for representing the complex interrelationships between external devices, psychological tools, the individual, and the social world”

Methodological Approach

Understanding this will allow us to better understand Vygotsky’s claim of internalization and differentiate if from other theories.

A socioculturalist’s methodical approach must be both:

• Theoretical – a dialectic understanding of complex systems in the process of change

• Psychological – capturing the dynamics consistent with theoretical

Dialectic Method

1)A method that is constantly changing according to the situation

• “The search for the method becomes one of the most important problems of the entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study”-Vygotsky

Dialectic Method

2) A method that synthesizes contradictions

• “Whereas, within the standard view, conceptual unity among objects relies on the commonality of elements, it is the interrelatedness of diverse elements and the integration of opposites that created unity with dialectics”

-Falmagne

Comparatively?

Social Constructivist:

• Similarities to socioculturalist BUT…

• Sees internalization as “unidirectional transmission”

Socioculturalist:

• Internalization is a “complex process of transmission, transformation, and synthesis in the construction of knowledge”

Comparatively?

Hermeneutic/Interpretive:

• “Learning is a process of transforming participation in shared sociocultural endeavors” -Rogoff

Socioculturalist:

• Simultaneously individual and social

Comparatively?

Piagetian:

• Examine learning and teching within historical and social contexts to create a contextualized understanding

Socioculturalist:

• Examine learning and teaching within historical and social contexts to create a universal understanding

• Not what each culture does but instead how an individual and their culture interplay across cultures

Sociocultural Applied

• Learning and development understood by using the zone of proximal development

• Collaboration Research

• Spontaneous and Scientific Concepts

• Literacy Acquisition

Learning & Development

• Contrary to his contemporaries, Vygotsky considers learning and development inseparable

• To determine this he created zone of proximal development: “the distance between the actual development level as determined through independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”

-Vygotsky

Learning & Development

• Simplified: the zone where the learning that is just beyond what a child can achieve on its own occurs

• This learning can be distributed, interactive, contextual, and the result of the learners’ participation and community of practice BUT…

• This learning comes from outside interactions

Collaboration ResearchAuthor finds four preliminary patterns of collaboration:

1.Distributed – features exchange of information

2.Complimentary – goal oriented through specialization

3.Family – goal oriented through teamwork

4.Integrative – construction of shared ideologies

Collaboration Research


Check it out…

Spontaneity

• Important: the classroom is not a blank slate

• Further understanding “concepts that are acquired by the child outside of the context of explicit instruction” and the role they play in learning and development

Spontaneity

• “Analyzing how students learn, as well as acknowledging and attempting to understand the culturally conditioned knowledge they bring to the classroom, can help lead to effective teaching”

• If children come in with knowledge, how can teachers use that to enhance learning?

Literacy Acquisition

• Exploring how literacy and cognitive competencies effect one another and how that is played out in education

• In 1981, Scribner and Cole conducted a study and found,

• Literacy is not directly linked to formal education (contrary to popular thought) BUT…


• Literacy is linked to cognitive competencies

“when it is understood not simply as the encoding and decding of written language or the use of written texts for functional purposes but as engaging with texts of all kinds in ways that exploit the symbolic representation of meaning as a means of empowering intrapersonal mental activity”


• Subsequently, literacy in education has been viewed less as an independent subject and increasingly as a necessary element to development and learning

Conclusion

• Sociocultural theory: dynamic/adaptive, integrative,and contextual.

“The challenge is to value and build on what the child is bringing to the

classroom”

Sociocultural Theory Week 4, “Sociocultural Approaches to Learning and Development”

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