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The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) has drawn attention from psychologists and educators and has oriented their research, diagnosis, and educational work toward new grounds. We hold that, rather than a term to be added to conventional psychology and pedagogy, the ZPD provides us with an instrument whose use will inevitably lead to a reappraisal and renewal of theory. We suggest that this concept also operated as a Zone of Proximal Development in its own right for Vygotsky's theoretical thought. He focused his endeavors on the areas of conflict where his contemporaries ran into difficulties by exploring three theoretical frontiers: “1. The evolutionary and historical frontier (change and evolution of the child and individual, of the species, of cultures). 2. The identity frontier (the view of the functional system as shared, of functions as socially distributed). 3. The ecological frontier between the internal and external, the mental and the material, the organism and the medium.” A large part of the literature on Vygotsky and the research carried out on the basis of his ideas have developed his proposals with regard to the first two frontiers. Although the third frontier has received scant attention, it is in our opinion essential to a full understanding of Vygotsky's thought, especially the concept of ZPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, I will discuss the pedagogic implications of some aspects of Vygotsky's writing. I will draw heavily on his own words and seek to develop two major strands in the range of possible interpretations of his work. The central tension that I wish to explore is between those accounts that emphasize the analysis of the content of instruction as against those which are more concerned with forms of pedagogic interaction and participation. Arguably, many of the differences in emphasis and priority that have arisen reflect differences in what are, ultimately, political preferences. Vygotsky was well aware of the extent to which pedagogic practice is subject to social, cultural, and political influence. “ Pedagogics is never and was never politically indifferent, since, willingly or unwillingly, through its own work on the psyche, it has always adopted a particular social pattern, political line, in accordance with the dominant social class that has guided its interests.” (Vygotsky, 1997b, p. 348) / Vygotsky was suggesting a process of social formation in the formation of educational ideas. He distances himself from the naturalistic or common sense pedagogic positions that pervade so much political debate, particularly when the term back to basics is invoked. For him pedagogies arise and are shaped in particular social circumstances. Ironically, the text Pedagogical Psychology from which the above quote is drawn, was considered to be so politically unacceptable to the rulers of the Soviet state that one had to have a special pass from the KGB that would admit one to the restricted reading room in the Lenin Library where the book could be read (Davydov, 1993). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Was the issue of the development and education of children with special needs chosen by Vygotsky, or was it a chance encounter forced by circumstances? We may never be able to find a definitive answer to this question. Vygotsky left no diary, and the testimony of his colleagues does not shed much light on this issue. What is known with certainty is that young Vygotsky's original interests lay in the field of literature and humanities and apparently remained so following his graduation from Moscow University in 1917. The unmerciful reality of everyday life in his hometown of Gomel during the civil war (1918-1922), however, forced everyone - including Vygotsky - to seek any occupation that would make mere survival possible. For Vygotsky, a teacher's job, first at school and then at the Teacher Training College, was such an opportunity. It is apparently under these rather extreme circumstances that Vygotsky encountered the problem of children with special needs for the first time. As the head of the psychological laboratory at the Gomel Teacher Training College, Vygotsky was responsible both for teaching students the techniques of psychological evaluation and actually supervising these evaluations in schools (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991; Vygodskaya & Lifanova, 1996, 1999). This link to the issue of special needs was further strengthened after Vygotsky's move to Moscow in 1924. As with his previous experiences in Gomel, we cannot be sure whether it was Vygotsky's growing interest in special-needs children or the social circumstances that led to his affiliation with the Section of Abnormal Children in the Peoples Education Commissariat of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vygotsky's most popular book in the English-speaking world, Thought and Language, was first published in English in 1962. (It was originally published in Russian in 1934.) When retitled Thinking and Speech in 1987, it captured a more active notion of these interrelated processes. They are seen as activities rather than entities and the book explores the developmentally changing relationship between intellectual and verbal processes. Vygotsky viewed speaking and thinking as dynamically related and approached their connection as “The complex movement from the first vague emergence of the thought to its completion in a verbal formulation. . . . Thought is not expressed but completed in the word. . . . Any thought has movement. It unfolds. . . . This flow of thought is realized as an internal movement through several planes. As a transition from thought to word and from word to thought.” (Vygotsky, 1987, pp. 249-250) Thinking and Speech presents important distinctions between communicative language and language used for conceptual representation. By addressing such broad themes, Vygotsky's work was grounded in philosophical, psychological, and linguistic traditions that have influenced Western students of language. Within these disciplines, the relationship between thinking and speech was forged, and it is still of great concern to contemporary thinkers. Part of what is so interesting about revisiting this relationship is that it emerges repeatedly across disciplines and informs every aspect of the human sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines the philosophical dimensions of Vygotsky's legacy. Vygotsky was a profoundly original thinker, but he was not one whose independence of thought caused him to neglect the ideas of others. On the contrary, Vygotsky was exceptionally well-read. He had an impressive command of the European psychological literature and considerable knowledge of adjacent fields, such as anthropology and educational theory. His appreciation of literature and literary theory is well-known and justly celebrated. Less often remarked upon, however, is his debt to philosophy. In this field, too, he was well-versed, having majored in philosophy and history at the Shanyavsky People's University. Vygotsky was much influenced by the philosophical vision of Marx and Engels: Almost all of the many references to their writings in Vygotsky's Collected Works are to philosophical themes. He was also inspired by a number of philosophers who had influenced Marx and Engels, notably Hegel (whom Vygotsky had read in high school), Spinoza, and Feuerbach. Marxism and its antecedents, however, by no means exhaust Vygotsky's philosophical interests. He cites numerous other philosophers, including Aristotle, Bergson, Brentano, Descartes, Dewey, Dilthey, Fichte, Hobbes, Husserl, James, Kant, Lichtenberg, Malebranche, Nietzsche, Neurath, Plato, and Scheler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]