Learning and Teaching "scientific Concepts": Vygotsky's Ideas Revisited

In his chapter in Thinking and Speech on the development of scientific concepts, Vygotsky (1987, chap.6, hereafter DSC) initiated a discussion of an issue that continues to be of fundamental importance for education, namely that of the relationship between the development of what might be called decontextualized, formal thinking and school instruction. However, despite the insightful and many-faceted nature of his exploration of this issue, I shall argue that the account he offers needs to be significantly enriched, first by setting it in the context of his other theoretical writings and, second, by expanding it to take account of more recent developments in the relevant fields.{1}