There is a paucity of Vygotskian influenced inner speech research in relation to the reading process. Those few studies which have examined Vygotskian inner speech from a reading perspective tend to support the notion that inner speech is an important covert function that is crucial to the reading process and to reading acquisition in general. However, Vygotskian notions on inner speech, in par...

That is, they view Vygotsky in light of the culture of his origins and then with respect to the culture that has evolved from the foundation he provided. Their aim is to contribute to an understanding of Vygotsky’s work by contextualizing and historicizing his own career and then challenging readers to understand how his work has been taken up, and most productively could be taken up, by subseq...

In Educational Psychology (1997/1926), Vygotsky pleaded for a realistic approach to children’s literature. He is, among other things, critical of Chukovsky’s story “Crocodile” and maintains that this story deals with nonsense and gibberish, without social relevance. This approach Vygotsky would leave soon, and, in Psychology of Art (1971/1925), in which he develops his theory of art, he talks a...

Piaget has su!ered a great deal of criticism that his theory of psychological development neglects the social nature of human development. Much of this criticism has come from researchers following a Vygotskian approach and comparing Piaget's approach unfavorably with that of Vygotsky. Smith (1995) refers us to Piaget's collected articles on sociology (Piaget, 1995) to argue convincingly that i...

Še authors argue that childhood played a special role in the cultural-historical theory of human culture and biosocial development made famous by Soviet psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky and his circle. Šey discuss how this school of thought has, in turn, in‹uenced contemporary play studies. Vygotsky used early childhood to test and reŒne his basic principles. He considered the make-believe play of ...

The ideas of Vygotsky [Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, (Vol. 1). New York: Plenum. (Original work published 1934.)] have been increasingly influential in accounting for social–environmental influences on the development of social understanding (SU). In the first part of this article, I examine how Vygotskian ideas have to date been recruite...

Abstract Despite his popularity in educational discourses, Lev S. Vygotsky tends to be read mainly as an psychologist or learning theorist. His potential contribution a theory of education remains largely undiscussed. The Zone Proximal Development (ZPD) is often misunderstood sort “educational tool,” which severely reduces the richness concept emerging from Vygotsky's works. In this essay, Alin...