Sociocultural theories of development Flashcards
Who were the two key players in the sociocultural perspective on development?
Vygotsky and Bruner - theories emphasised importance of social circumstances on child development
What was Vygotsky’s perspective?
Sceptical of reductionist approaches such as behaviourism (stimulus-response pairings to explain cognition), argued that aspects such as language too complex to be explained so simplistically
Developmental context i.e. society, culture and societal organisation important in shaping psych development (also agreed that biological factors do play a role too)
How did Piaget and Vygotsky’s views differ?
Piaget - unit of study was the child –> children actively construct their own cognition like “little scientists”, learning in isolations through interactions with their world and processes of reasoning, minimal emphasis on social factors other than as something to motivate change in equilibration
Vygotsky - unit of study was child-in-context –> agreed that children construct own cognition but argued that cognition is inherently social; cognition incorporates socially “evolved” tools such as language and represents shared knowledge within a culture; essentially cognition exists within a culture and children gradually acquire it through use of tools and knowledge obtained through social interaction
What are the 2 main principles of Vygotsky’s theory?
Sociocultural origins i.e. development through social interaction
Cultural tools i.e. development through use of psychological “tools”
Describe the principle of sociocultural origins
Interactions profoundly influence development - cognitions built by internalising socially shared processes e.g. speaking, cognitive abilities existing in advanced forms in society that the child can “download” through social interaction
Every function occurs first on a social level and then on an individual level i.e. initially perform cognitive tasks with assistance but eventually fully internalise and become automatic
What is a clear example of internalisation?
Tying shoe laces - adult assists child with verbal guidance and the child follows instructions
Instructions eventually internalised and child no longer needs to hear them to be able to perform the task - cognition has been transferred from a more skilled individual
What is meant by ZONES OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT?
Distance between a child’s actual present stage of development i.e. what they can do independently, and their potential when guided
ZPD measures “the leading edge” of developmental ability, the area where teaching can have the greatest effect - assessing potential competence via ZPDs can aid in guiding child-centred teaching strategies
What did Vygotsky suggest regarding level of task complexity required for successful learning?
Children work best when engaged in challenging work able to be done with appropriate support i.e. work that targets the space between what they can do independently and what they wouldn’t be able to do even with support
How is play connected to zones of proximal development?
May make use of culturally provided artefacts to support it e.g. toys, and often involves trying out culturally defined roles
Vygotsky believed children function above their average age when engaging in play
What is meant by mutual cooperation?
A key principle Vygotsky believed to underlie cognitive development - children learn little when simply watching a task demonstrated, and learn most when the instructor determines the child’s level of understanding and offers instructions accordingly
What were Vygotsky’s “cultural tools”?
Can be technical i.e. tools for physically acting on the environment such as a hammer, or psychological i.e. tools for thought such as language (aids in symbolic representations)
Thus Vygotsky believed cognition to be embedded within the culture and the child
Why did Vygotsky see language as so central to development?
Represents culture’s knowledge and can be stored in various forms/easily disseminated
Facilitates social interaction and thus development
Facilitates thinking –> allows regulation of behaviour
It is around 2yrs old that infants start to be able to use language and cognition starts to develop rapidly
What does adult use of language allow?
Children’s earliest thoughts are preverbal, so when an adult explains something they give a child access to intellectual processes that are normally based on language
So social interactions provide INITIAL CONTACT with language-based intellectual processes and the context in which the child can learn to internalise these same processes that, with further development, will later operate autonomously as verbal thought
What were Piaget and Vygotsky’s contrasting views on private speech?
When children talk aloud while playing
PIAGET - Called it egocentric speech and believed the child doesn’t care whether others understand the speech, non-social
VYGOTSKY - Monologues as a functionally important part of organising thought, facilitating complex problem solving and providing foundation for cognition; monologues decline as they become internalised as inner speech by around 7 years old
What 2 sources of evidence support Vygotsky’s theory that language facilitates cognition?
Private speech used more in difficult tasks - language fundamental to the learning process
Children who use private speech perform better than those who don’t
