Bill, it is interesting to study the intersections between Piaget and
>Vygotsky, and I am doing this with my group of pos-graduation at the
>university. Don't you think that the idea that Piaget didn't pay
>attention to the social interaction was a mis-understanding made by
>Vygotsky? Piaget survived Vygotsky in almost half a century and he
>improved his theory. He continued with his research and wrote a lot of
>articles and books where he thinks about the social interaction. We
>can't continue with the same perspective about Piaget like Vygotsky
>because we know the rest of the Theory. Vygotsky knew only the "young"
>Piaget. Thanks, maria judith lins
>Bill Barowy wrote:
>>
>> At 08:03 AM 4/29/98 -0200, maria judith wrote:
>> >hello Kwang-Su Cho,
>> >I agree with your perplexity. I am working with Piaget's theory and the
>> >social interaction. Piaget said that it is impossible to get out from
>> >the concrete operative period to the logical thinking of the adolescence
>> >if the individual can't interact in the society. I think that there is a
>> >misunderstanding when people say that Piaget't didn't pay attention to
>> >how important the social interaction is. The Genetic Epistemology
>> >explains the logical development of the thinking of subjects who need
>> >the social interaction to get the goal.
>>
>> I agree Maria Judith with you AND with Barbara Rogoff:
>>
>> >> Piaget's use of the isolated individual as the
>> >> unit of analysis, in my view, makes it impossible to develop
>> >> a sociocultural approach to cognition using his theory as
>> >> the basis;sociocultural aspects of cognition are not merely
>> >> the addition of individul changes in thinking resulting
>> >> from social interaction.(Rogoff, 1998, p. 686)
>> >>
>>
>> Barbara's point is whether Piaget's theory, which centers on 'the
>> individual' can be used as the *basis* for a sociocultultural theory.
>> Piaget mostly focusses on development of the one, sometimes in the presence
>> of the many. This does indeed offers valuable insights into development,
>> but it is a partial view. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
>> People come together in ways that are more than what you can add from their
>> individual contributions taken from a view on the individual. Similarly
>> however, sociocultural theories also offer partial views, but these
>> complement Piagets ideas.
>>
>> There are intersections in the views:
>>
>> "In simpler terms, the child does not at first succeed in reflecting in
>> words and concepts the procedures that he already knows how to carry out in
>> acts, and if he cannot reflect them it is because, in order to adapt
>> himself to the collective and conceptual plane on which his thought will
>> henceforth move, he is obliged to repeat the work of coordination between
>> assimilation and accomodation alread accomplished in his sensorimoter
>> adaptation anterior to the physical and practical universe"
>>
>> Piaget, The construction of reality in the child, p 407
>>
>> There are similar ideas here to what Vygosky describes, though Piaget
>> focusses more on what happens when a person interacts with a physical world
>> in which social interactions are secondary. Vygotsky impresses me as
>> accomplishing the complement. Situations outside the laboratory might
>> include either. I am reminded of one in which I recently walked up to a
>> boy code-named 'Pablo' who was sitting alone, playing a very challenging
>> game, at a computer. As I began to interact with him, Vygotsky entered the
>> conversation, and Piaget moved to the side. I realize that not only did I
>> have difficulty understanding the game, so also did the child. What was he
>> doing prior to my arrival? He seemed completely occupied as I approached.
>> I would have liked to debrief with both Piaget and Vygotsky.
>>
>> Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
>> Technology in Education
>> Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
>> Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
>> _______________________
>> "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
>> and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
>> [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]