Re: Vygotsky, conflict, dialectic, growth

George McKinlay (mckinlay who-is-at unr.edu)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 14:10:42 -0800

>Hello George -

>YEs time is a problem -- I've noted a few points where we
agree/disagree

>on the interpretation of the ZPD in your text because it was faster
that

>way...

>Stephanie=20

Agreed

>It is definitely key to neo-Vygotskiians in the West. I'm not so sure
it

>was key to Vygotsky. He actually doesn't devote too much time or
attention

>to it in the context of his entire body of work, or at least all that
has

>been translated to date.

I wonder how much of the focus on the ZPD is a product of the cultural
environment in which Vygotsky's work was re-discovered; the Cold War
and the "market economies" of the West which is always happy to co-opt
ideas and concepts as long as it improves the bottom line (students as
widgets...)=20

>It can be simplisticly defined as: That space

>> between where the cognitive activity of the student can be
successfully

>> carried out with a fair degree of ease and where the cognitive
activity

>> can only be performed with the assistance of a teacher or skilled
peer.

>

>I don't see it as only cognitive

>Vygotsky noted psychology's separation of intellect and affect

>as a "fundamental defect" of psychology (1926/97)

>Also - this conceptualization does not allow for a dialectic, which I

>think is critical.

I don't see it as only cognitive either, it just happens to be the
context of the piece that I took it from, but your point is very
important: ZPD is not just limited to formal school settings. There is
a case to be made for how formal schooling influences the ZPD, which is
why I tried to modify the textbook characterization (the simplistic...)
and recast it in the light of Vuygotsky's work on the development of
Higher level thinking...

>> For Vygotsky it was the focused activity within the ZPD,
established

>> and sustained by a skilled teacher, that made the student-teacher
dyad

>> so effective. However, society tends not to invest so many resources
as

>> to allow a dyadic environment, and given the social nature of
modern

>> society the tutor-student dyad is not the most appropriate method .

>

>Others (including Mike Cole) have called a focus on the dyad=20

>too narrow and a "major shortcoming" (1996, p. 220) of Vygotsky's
work.

>How do you reconcile your view with theirs, George?

Agree, I don't think a "coaching environment" is always appropriate,
indeed that is one of the reasons why I'd dismiss much of the Home
schooling rhetoric because they ignore the importance of the social
environment in schools.

>>=20

>> For Vygotsky the most important social interactions for the
acquisition

>> of scientific thought occurred during formal schooling, and in

>> particular,<<italic> teacher-student<</italic> and <<italic>capable

>> peer-student<</italic> interaction. It is in such dyads that
students is

>> better able to develop cognitively because a teacher is more adept
at

>> keeping the learning activity within each student=BCs Zone of
Proximal

>> Development (ZPD) and maintain the requisite abstractness. A
capable

>> peer can also maintain the ZPD, though not so consciously, simply

>> because the peer is more likely to be operating cognitively in a
very

>> similar way as the learner, they are both operating within their
own

>> ZPD.

>>=20

>> The ZPD can also be illustrated along similar lines as the model of

>> dialectic interaction but with some modifications. In the

>> Scientific-everyday Interaction Model (SIM) the red probability
cloud

>> (Figure 3a) would imply the unique, and not necessarily related,
areas

>> of activity and understanding of the individual student as he or
she

>> moves from concrete or everyday knowledge toward abstract, or

>> scientific thought. Scientific knowledge (represented by the blue

>> probability cloud) acquired in abstract or conceptual forms in the

>> school environment, is moving toward a concrete form. The ZPD would
be

>> that area of greatest interaction between the two types of
knowledge

>> (the purple area). This model also attempts to illustrate the

>> discontinuity of knowledge by avoiding a linear interaction and
showing

>> that many areas of human thought can remain outside of the ZPD but
that

>> the possibility of cognitive development still continues.=20

>>=20

>> =20

>>=20

>> Fig. 3a Probability Cloud of the Scientific-everyday Interaction
Model

>> of the ZPD.=20

>>=20

>> Fig. 3b Space Filled Scientific-everyday Interaction Model of the
ZPD.

>>=20

>>=20

>>=20

>> The Scientific-everyday Interaction Model is in keeping with the

>> dialectical approach; it permits interactions to occur but does not

>> deny that other reactions can and do occur outside of the ZPD and
that

>> those interactions can and do have an effect upon other
interactions.

>> The ZPD is simply that area where the forms of knowledge are

>> <<italic>more likely<</italic> to interact with each other and
further

>> the cognitive development of the student. Teachers, in the
classroom

>> environment, attempt to maintain student activities within the ZPD
in

>> an attempt to maximize the probability that scientific-everyday

>> interactions will occur. The SIM model of the ZPD attempts to
combine

>> the conventional Westernized perception of Vygotsky=BCs ZPD (what the

>> student can do alone and what the student can do with help) with
the

>> more dialectical perspective posited by Vygotsky in
<<italic>Development

>> of Scientific Concepts<</italic>:

>>=20

>>=20

>> =E4we can say that <<italic>the child=BCs spontaneous concepts develop
from

>> below to above, from the more elementary and lower characteristic
to

>> the higher, while his scientific concepts develop from above to
below,

>> from the more complex and higher characteristics to the more

>> elementary.<</italic> (Vygotsky 1978 p. 219)

>>=20

>> <</paraindent>

>>=20

>> I know illustrations are rather important to help visualize the
ideas,

>> but my key point is that;

>>=20

>> the ZPD is merely the "area" we create socially (ie., classroom)
where

>> the interaction betwen concrete and abstract knowledge is more
likely

>> to occur.=20

>>=20

>>=20

>> George

>

>The SIM model sounds more promising. I am not familiar with it and
would

>like to know more. Do you have any sources or diagrams available on
the

>web or in print?

Not yet. Yes the dialectical character does seem to have been "removed"
from western versions or readings of Vygotsky's work. There was an
excellent article by an English researcher on "Reading Vygotsky" that
basically points out the Cold War affected understanding of Vygotsky, I
don't have the reference on me and I'm trying to track down my copy of
the book, I'll send it along as soon as I get it.

The SIM model is just the term I've coined to reconcile, partially, the
simplified/Westernized view of the ZPD and Vygotsky
in<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param> his "Development of Scientific
Concepts":

=8Awe can say that the child=B9s spontaneous concepts develop from below to
above, from the more elementary and lower characteristic to the higher,
while his scientific concepts develop from above to below, from the
more complex and higher characteristics to the more elementary.
(Vygotsky 1978 p. 219)

</fontfamily>Your "informationally rich environment" is certainly a
broader environment than I discussed and I think you are correct in
highlighting it. I'm still waiting for my copy of Volume III, now with
even greater anticipation! You raise the issue that "the "other" is
not an agent..." but in a formal school setting we are infact setting
ourselves up as "agents" and that a unique aspect of the "new" social
environment of formal education that teachers are trying to grasp and
optimize.=20

>The main point I was trying to make seems to hold true of your ZPD
model

>too (I don't know enough about SIM to say) -- conflict is the
critical

>process in Vygotsky's writings. The ZPD is a reorganization through

>conflict to create new meaning. The ZPD works by creating a tension

>between present and future capabilities; the intersection of external

>needs and internal possibilities. The dialectical character of the

>process has been neutralized in the West where its conflictual
aspects, so

>critical to VygotskyUs conceptualization, are glossed over, leaving
no

>room for concepts like agency and resistance. Western psychologists
have

>shifted Vygotsky's notion by an emphasis on the interaction between a

>child and adult through the process of negotiating meaning, assuming

>reciprocity and positive, cooperative interaction. =20

>In Vygotsky's ZPD (1935/94), there is no active agent encouraging or

>"teaching" or "helping" the child. The "other" is not an agent but a
part

>of an informationally rich environment that holds the potential for
the

>child to appropriate (like the 5th dimension??). Vygotsky's ZPD is
closer

>in meaning to Winnicott's potential

>space (1953) or Lewin's life space (Lewin, 1943; 1951/76). It
assumes

>meaning is neither socially based nor reducible to the social. It is
a

>social condition of society itself. Vygotsky clearly recognized the

>complexity of this relationship. It is not so clear that all of his

>intellectual descendants do.

>

>

>

>refs

>Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline.

>Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

>

>Lewin, K. (1943). Defining Rthe field at a given time.S Psychological

>Review, 50, 292 - 310.

> Lewin, K. (1951/76). Field theory in social science. Chicago:

>University of Chicago Press.

>Vygotsky, L. S. (1935/94). The problem of the environment. In R. van
der

>Veer & J. Valsiner=20

>(Eds.) The Vygotsky Reader. (pp. 338 - 354). Oxford: Blackwell.

>=20

>Vygotsky, L. S. (1926/97). The historical meaning of the crisis in

>psychology. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), R. Van der veer,
trans.=20

>The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. III: Problems of the
theory

>and history of psychology (pp. 233 - 370). New York: Plenum Press. >
>

>

>Werner, H. (1948/61). Comparative psychology of mental development.=20
NY:

>Science Editions.

>>=20

>> >

>>=20

>> >Stephanie Urso Spina

>>=20

>> >City University of New York

>>=20

>> >sspina who-is-at email.gc.cuny.edu

>>=20

>>=20

>>=20

>> <</fontfamily>

>>
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>>=20

>>=20

>> The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways;

>>=20

>> the point, however, is to change it.

>>=20

>>=20

>> Karl Marx Theses on Feuerbach, no. 11

>>=20

>>=20

>>
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>>=20

>>=20

*****************************

George McKinlay

mckinlay who-is-at unr.edu

*****************************