[Xmca-l] Re: ZPD

[Marc Clarà]

Dear Wagner and other colleagues,
I'll try to briefly share my interpretation about this issue. In my
understanding, the formation of a ZDP implies the intellectual (or
meaningful) imitation (p.210) by the child of a meaning that has a level of
generality at which the child cannot form meanings. For example, an adult
publicly form the "true concept" of "living being", and a child at the
stage of "complexes" forms an intellectual imitation of that meaning (which
will be a "functional equivalent" of it). So, the child forms a meaning
with a level of generality that is beyond her actual level of development.
This enables a dialectic tension between this meaning, formed through
intellectual imitation, and the meanings that the child can form
spontaneously. This dialectic tension between meanings of different levels
of generality generates a process of self-development (p.229) leading to
the structural emergence of a new level of generality (p.231), at which the
child will be now able to form meanings spontaneously.
So, when a child intellectually imitates a meaning at a level of generality
at which she cannot form meanings spontaneously, this meaning shows the PLD
of the child: the next level of generality at which the child will be able
to spontaneously form meanings. This meaning enters into a dialectical
tension with meanings that the child is already able to form spontaneously
(her ALD). This dialectical tension between the PLD and the ALD is what
pushes development and what turns the PLD of the child into her next ALD.
I have further developed this interpretation in the following paper:

Clarà, M. (2017). How Instruction Influences Conceptual Development:
Vygotsky’s Theory Revisited. *Educational Psychologist, 52(1), *50-62,
DOI:10.1080/00461520.2016.1221765

(I can privately sent the manuscript if needed)

Best,
Marc Clarà
University of Lleida


Missatge de Wagner Luiz Schmit <wagner.schmit@gmail.com> del dia dv., 29 de
març 2019 a les 18:34:

> Hello,
>
> What is the difference between Zone of proximal development (ZPD) and
> Potential Level of Development (PLD)?
>
> In thinking and speech (in the collected works v1 in English) Vygotsky
> defines ZPD and in page 209. It seems to me that he writes about the PLD
> also in page 211.
>
> At page 209 PLD seems to be what children can do with the guidance of an
> adult. And that ZDP is the exact same thing.
>
> At page 211 PLD can be understood as something that can enter the ZPD, so
> not the same as ZPD, so something that children can learn soon, but can not
> do even with help now (ZPD) and surely not alone. For me this makes more
> sense, since in this case the PLD would match the Social Situation of
> Development (SSD - collected works v5 pg 198), and the ZPD would be what is
> between the PLD and the Actual Level of Development (ALD). In other words
> the ZPD is the dialectical movement towards the devir, the PLD/SSD.
>
> But at the same time in Mind in society (page 86) the same text is edited
> in a different way, stating that the PLD is what is written in page
> 209  from above, but, that the ZPD is what is between ALD and this PLD,
> i.e., what is between what children can do with help and what they can do
> alone. What exactly is this "between"?
>
> Sorry if the answer seem to be obvious, but I am a bit lost here.
>
> All the best,
>
> Wagner Luiz Schmit
> UNESP - Brazil
>
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