The Vygotsky's concept of the ideal form has been recently elaborated
by Boris El'konin. Two of his papers are available in English:
The Nature of Human Action, J. Russ. East Europ. Psychol. 1993, 31 (3)
pp. 22-46; and
The Crisis of Childhood and Foundations for Designing Forms of Child
Development, ibid. pp. 56-71.
Boris's book recently published in Russian is a brilliant development of
this concept.
By the way, I wonder why the general interest in Vygotsky in this
country did not evoke the interest to Daniil El'konin, his heir in the field of
developmental and educational psychology.
Galina Zuckerman.