Vygotsky’s Methodological
Sociocultural Theory
HOLBROOK MAHN
ABSTRACT
Educators internationally including those working with
children with exceptionalities, are recognizing the importance of
sociocultural theory and the role played by Lev S. Vygotsky. This arti-
cle introduces some of his major contributions through an examina-
tion of his methodological approach, which differs from traditional
Western approaches in a number of ways. Vygotsky used a dialec-
tical approach to analyze the way that symbol and tool use
among early humans led to more complex social interactions and
to the development of human consciousness. His investigations pro-
vide a methodological approach and a theoretical foundation for
understanding the unique developmental paths of children with
special needs, and they suggest pedagogical approaches
designed to meet these special needs.
WH V ITH THE GROWING RECOGNITION OF THE CEN-
tral roles played by social and cultural factors in learn-
ing and development, sociocultural theories have received
increased attention. The wide scope of studies investigating
the formation and development of human society and culture
is reflected in the multiple interpretations and applications of
sociocultural theories (see Note 1). These varied interpreta-
tions are also reflected in different appreciations of the work
of Lev S. Vygotsky, widely recognized as the founder of
sociocultural theory, whose research into the relationship
between learning and development speaks to issues facing
education in general and education of exceptional children in
particular, in the 21 st century.
Rather than analyze these interpretations of Vygotsky’s
work, this article focuses on the methodological approach that
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Contribution to
led to his key theoretical and practical contributions. Central
contributions, not as widely recognized as others, are, first,
his analysis of the unique paths of development of children
with exceptionalities and, second, his work creating pedagog-
ical approaches, which recognized these distinct developmen-
tal processes and therefore more effectively met their special
needs (Gindis, 1995; Vygotsky, 1993). Vygotsky approached
the study of special education using the same method he used
to examine all phenomena-matter, mind, or society-as
processes marked by qualitative transformations. It was at
these junctures in the process that the breaks or leaps revealed
the shaping forces in more detail and sharper clarity. A feature
of these transformations is the unification of seemingly con-
tradictory processes into qualitatively different forms. In
nature, for example, the unification of hydrogen and oxygen
is manifest in gas, liquid, or solid, depending on quantitative
changes in temperature that create qualitative changes.
In his theory of the development of the human mind,
Vygotsky used this analytical approach to study the interac-
tion of the natural, individual, and social forces leading to
consciousness. For Vygotsky, the key to the acquisition of
consciousness was the development of the use of tools and
signs to mediate human activity. The core of Vygotsky’s work
examines humans as meaning makers; or, as Deacon (1997)
described the process, symbolic reference creates and is cre-
ated by humans. The essential aspect of this analysis is the
historical development of word meaning and verbal thinking
(see Note 2) both for the individual and for humanity. For his
ontogenetic analysis, Vygotsky focused on the way that a
child co-constructs meaning through social interaction, and
the role word meaning plays in the development of thinking.
341
A key transformation of this is the move children make
from complexive to conceptual thinking in the formation of
concepts.
Intracing the origins of word meaning phylogenetically,
Vygotsky concentrated on the transformation of early humans
into meaning makers and the need this created for humanity
to marshal nature’s productive forces to meet the increasing
demands of the nascent social formations. Through this activ-
ity human culture and nature were inextricably intertwined,
unified, and transformed while retaining their own distinct
tensions. Vygotsky further explored the interdependence of
culture and nature in his examination of the transformation
of biological, unconscious mental functions into sociocul-
tural, conscious mental functions.
Through his study of the central transformations that
occur in the development of consciousness, Vygotsky illumi-
nated aspects of learning and development that play a signif-
icant role in special education. The unique developmental
paths created by exceptional children can be clarified by
examining these qualitative transformations. This article, there-
fore, first examines Vygotsky’s methodological approach and
then analyzes in more detail these qualitative transformations.
Although it does not address the varied interpretations of
Vygotsky’s work in detail, the analysis of his methodological
approach indicates why some variations exist.
An important reason for the variation in interpretation of
Vygotsky’s work is that much of it was done based on mini-
mal access to his complete work. Even though Vygotsky was
bom in Russia more than 100 years ago, much of his writing
has only recently become available in English. The complete
translation of his most important work, Thinking and Speech,
became available in English in 1987, and three out of the five
volumes of his collected works appeared only within the past
3 years. The complexity and profundity of his thought and the
fact that Vygotsky did not complete his theoretical work due
to his death at the age of 37 in 1934 have also led to varied
interpretations and applications. In contrast to Vygotsky’s
dialectical approach, some of these interpretations depend on
an epistemology derived from Descartes’s dichotomized view
of the world and on a logic confined to Aristotle’s formal
logic. Moreover, Vygotsky lived in tumultuous times in the
Soviet Union following the 1917 Russian Revolution and
acknowledged the influence of Marx and Engels on his work;
consequently, ideological differences have colored apprecia-
tions of his work. Because some interpretations abstract con-
cepts out of Vygotsky’s complete theory and are severed from
the theoretical and methodological approach that led to their
formulation, they suffer a loss of coherence and analytical
power.
Vygotsky used the term method, or methodology, to
mean &dquo;a body of knowledge that could serve as a concrete
epistemological guide for the behavioral sciences&dquo; (Kozulin,
1984, p. 113), in contrast to their usage in traditional Western
research. For Vygotsky, &dquo;methodology referred to the
assumptions and logic [italics added] of the overall approach
to the subject&dquo; (Cole, 1979, p. 202). As Vygotsky (1978) said,
342
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The search for method becomes one of the most
important problems of the entire enterprise of
understanding the uniquely human forms of psy-
chological activity. In this case, the method is
simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool
and the result of the study. (p. 65)
The key wasexamine all phenomena in their contextual
to
interconnectedness, to look at their genesis, and to reveal the
forces behind their development and eventual demise.
METHOD
From the time he delivered a major address to the 1924 Sec-
ond Neuropsychological Congress-then the most important
psychological conference in the Soviet Union-to the time of
his death a decade later, Vygotsky emphasized the centrality
of method. In his 1924 address, Vygotsky (1997a) argued
against Pavlov’s (1928/1963) reflexology and his position that
there was no scientific way to investigating consciousness.
Vygotsky contended that developing a scientific approach to
investigating both behavior and consciousness was central
to understanding human thinking and activity, and he devoted
his life’s work to that enterprise. He used dialectics to develop
his major theoretical contributions, which include explana-
tions of (a) the role played by language and other forms of
semiotic symbols; (b) the function of social interaction in the
development of the human mind/brain; (c) the role of word
meaning in complexive and conceptual thinking; (d) the rela-
tionship between elementary and higher mental functions in
the development of psychological processes; and (e) the con-
cept of the zone of proximal development to explain learning
and teaching.
Vygotsky’s use of dialectics as the cornerstone of his
methodologic approach reflected the time in which he lived.
The transformative character of the Russian Revolution influ-
enced all aspects of social and political life, and psychology
was no exception. Vygotsky’s dialectical approach had three
central tenets: (a) that phenomena should be examined as part
of a developmental process; (b) that change does not occur in
a linear, evolutionary progression, but through qualitative
transformations; and (c) that these transformations take place
through the unification of contradictory, distinct processes.
For example, in analyzing the history of human society, a
dialectical approach reveals the contradictory forces at play in
the development of distinct systems of social organization by
studying the qualitative transformations-the social revolu-
tions-that bring them into existence.
Vygotsky examined all phenomena as dynamic, contex-
tual, complex entities in a constant state of change. In order to
study change, he examined the historical development of
nature, the mind, and society and sought to explain the laws
of motion by analyzing the processes that bring phenomena
into existence. &dquo;To study something historically means to
study it in the process of change; that is the dialectical
method’s basic demand&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 64-65). In
contrast, examinations based on formal logic describe surface
appearances of matter, but not its essence. It is only by ana-
lyzing matter in a state of motion, change, and development
that its true nature is revealed-an approach sociocultural
theorists refer to as genetic analysis (see Note 3).
In contrast to dialectical methods, reductionist methods
based on formal logic posit a static universe in which
immutable laws determine categories with impenetrable
boundaries. These approaches dichotomize reality, creating
binary contradictions: mind versus matter, nature versus cul-
ture, process versus product. Reductionist and dualistic
approaches &dquo;depend on the separation of natural processes
into isolable parts for individual study. They have provided a
rich repertoire of information about the world, but they sys-
tematically ignore the aspects of reality that involve relations
between the separated processes&dquo; (Biddell, 1988, p. 330). The
isolation of the phenomenon from its context is prevalent in
language assessment, where discrete point analysis focuses
on an individual’s ability to use components of language as
isolated entities. Such an approach ignores the complex inter-
relationships of all aspects of language. Ruiz, Rueda,
Figueroa, and Boothroyd (1996) found that most special edu-
cation classrooms are based on this type of approach, derived
from the reductionist paradigm.
Dialectical approaches, instead, focus on the relations
between the &dquo;separated processes&dquo; and analyze the tensions
that result when contradictory phenomena are unified through
the qualitative transformations that take place in nature, soci-
ety, and the human mind. For example, in describing the rela-
tionship between nature and humans, Vygotsky (1978) wrote
that a dialectical approach &dquo;while admitting the influence of
nature on man, asserts that man, in turn, affects nature and
creates through his changes in nature new natural conditions
for his existence&dquo; (pp. 60-61). In so doing, such approaches
also reveal the interconnected and contradictory relationships
between social and individual processes. A good example of
this is Vygotsky’s use of functional systems analysis to study
children with exceptionalities.
Vygotsky and one of his closest collaborators, the neuro-
psychologist Aleksandr Romanovich Luria (1973, 1979),
elaborated the concept of functional systems. This theory
examines cognitive functions at different levels of analysis and
incorporates two important concepts for studying exception-
ality : (a) that a particular task can be performed by variable
means or mechanisms and (b) that a functional system is com-
plex, existing on different levels with an interplay between
inwardly and outwardly directed impulses. Using functional
systems analysis, Vygotsky examined the interaction between
physiological (anatomical, biochemical, and evolving neural)
processes and psychological processes and the way these
dynamic internal and external processes are coordinated and
integrated (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996).
Functional systems approaches, which have implications
beyond the psychological and physiological levels of analy-
sis, pose an important alternative to dichotomous representa-
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tions of diversity in human cognitive processes and have led
to concepts such as John-Steiner’s (1991, 1995) cognitive plu-
ralism. They transcend linear representations of learning and
development and provide a framework for investigating the
complex interrelationships between individuals and their
social, material, and psychological worlds (John-Steiner,
Meehan, & Mahn, 1998). Vygotsky, in his investigation of the
origin and development of human consciousness, used a func-
tional systems analysis and examined the mediating role
played by tools and symbol systems in human interactions
with nature.
SEMIOTIC MEDIATION
Using a genetic approach, Vygotsky placed behavior, in par-
ticular human activity in tool and symbol use, at the center of
his examination of the way consciousness transformed early
humans. A key to this transformation was the development of
symbolic reference as a means to mediate activity and to facil-
itate the internalization of culture. The mediating function of
language and other symbolic systems is known in sociocul-
tural theory as semiotic mediation. As part of his analysis of
semiotic mediation, Vygotsky described the role played by
tools in humanity’s increasing control over nature’s produc-
tive forces and the ways in which human existence was trans-
formed in the process. This control over nature through tool
use transformed human social formations and created the
need for more sophisticated communication, which in turn led
to the rapid expansion of human culture. Vygotsky located the
origin of consciousness at the intersection of the intertwined
and reciprocal development of language, tool use, society, and
culture.
As starting point for his investigation of this intersec-
a
tion, Vygotsky (1994) examined studies done with higher
primates and found that a qualitative change in human intel-
lectual development occurred with the unification of two pre-
viously independent lines of development: tool use and sign
use. This combination led to a regulatory function for speech
as it orchestrated activity and shaped cultural development.
The internalization of language’s social regulatory function
and the consequent transformation of human activity leading
to the development of higher psychological processes pro-
vided a central focus for Vygotsky’s research. When speech is
unified with a child’s activity, a new organization of behavior
occurs, and a child begins to use speech to regulate her activ-
ity (Berk, 1986; Diaz & Berk, 1992). The internalization of
speech transforms interpersonal processes into intrapersonal
ones. As Vygotsky (1997b) said,
We formulate the general law of cultural
can
development as follows: every function in the cul-
tural development of the child appears on the stage
twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psy-
chological, first between people as an intermental
[interpsychological] category, then within the child
343
 as an intramental [intrapsychological] category.
This pertains equally to voluntary attention, to log-
ical memory, to the formation of concepts, and to
the development of will. (p. 106)
SOCIAL SOURCES OF DEVELOPMENT
Vygotsky revealed the significant role of social interaction in
cultural development in his investigations of children’s appro-
priation of socially elaborated symbol systems in the acquisi-
tion and internalization of language. The prolonged period in
which infants depend on their caregivers provides interactions
that
form the primary social sources for the develop-
ment of linguistic and cognitive processes....
There is both receptivity to others and self-
initiated exploration in the behavioral repertoire
of very young children. The tension between these
two highly adaptive tendencies contributes to the
processes of individuation and enculturation in the
course of children’s semiotic development. (John-
Steiner & Tatter, 1983, p. 86)
Through interaction with an adult or a caregiver, a child learns
the self-regulatory aspects of speech (Diaz & Berk, 1992;
Zukow-Goldring, & Ferko, 1994). An adult helping a child
solve a problem directs the child’s actions by using speech,
thereby prompting the child to use speech to regulate her own
actions. Although this regulatory speech is verbalized ini-
tially, over time it is truncated as the child internalizes speech.
This internalized speech is for oneself, for thinking, and in
this way is distinguished from the egocentric &dquo;private&dquo; speech
of the young child.
In contrast to Piaget’s (1926) position that speech atro-
phies as it is internalized, Vygotsky claimed that a qualitative
transformation occurs and a new form of speech, inner
speech, emerges with distinct characteristics and functions.
He differentiated the egocentric speech of early childhood
from social speech structurally and functionally (1987):
At three years of age, there is little difference
between egocentric and communicative speech.
By seven years of age, nearly all the functional
and structural characteristics of egocentric speech
differ from those of social speech.... This finding
indicates the progressive differentiation of the two
speech functions, the isolation of speech for one-
self and speech for others from a general, undiffer-
entiated speech function that fulfills both of these
tasks in early childhood. (p. 261)
Vygotsky went on to say that the functions of inner speech,
which include orienting intellectual endeavors, developing
conscious awareness, problem solving and stimulating cre-
344
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ativity, imagination, and thinking usually develop around the
time child
a enters school.
Vygotsky’s analysis of the internalization of social
speech laid the foundation for his theory of concept formation
and the internalization of socially elaborated systems of
thought. Narrow interpretations of Vygotsky’s concept
of internalization have made it easier to associate his view
with traditional Western psychological applications of inter-
nalization : unidirectional, transmission models that dichot-
omize external and internal processes. Such views of
internalization can obscure the unique ways that children with
exceptionalities internalize and use self-regulatory speech.
They also do not reveal the special needs of bilingual students
with exceptionalities (Baca & de Valenzuela, 1998). In these
applications the relationship between internal and social
processes and the representational activity in the brain/mind
remain unexamined. Vygotsky did not falsely dichotomize the
external and internal in his interpretation of internalization;
rather, he explained that individual and social processes,
although not identical, are dialectically interdependent and
mutually constitute each other.
Individuals construct new knowledge as they internalize
concepts appropriated through participation in social activi-
ties. Vygotsky’s analysis of the development of inner speech
and the role played by social interaction in the internalization
process led to his most fully elaborated application of the con-
cept of internalization. This application examined the ways
that individual appropriation of social symbol systems led to
verbal thinking. He relied on the concept of semiotic media-
tion to reveal that internalization was transformative rather
than transmissive, and he described this transformation of
communicative language into inner speech and then into ver-
bal thinking by means of the unification of thinking and
speech. He felt the examination of verbal thinking to be a
starting point in his quest to understand the nature of human
consciousness (see Note 4).
VERBAL THINKING AND THE INTERNALIZATION
OF SPEECH
Rather than treat thinking and speech as independent, isolated
elements, Vygotsky examined their origins and uncovered
their distinct yet interconnected paths of development.
Through his studies of both the human species and individual,
Vygotsky (1987) revealed the developmental relationships
between thinking and speaking: &dquo;There is a preintellectual
stage in the formation of speech and a pre-speech stage in the
development of thought&dquo; (p. 243).
Instead of isolating language as an object for study (lin-
guistics) and thinking as another object for study (psychol-
ogy), Vygotsky (1987) investigated both by studying their
unification in verbal thinking. He applied the dialectical
method to reveal an aspect of this unification that was irre-
ducible yet maintained the essence of the whole. The whole
for Vygotsky was verbal thinking, and the relationship
between thinking and speaking his immediate concern. In
place of the decomposition of wholes into elements, typical
of reductionist approaches, Vygotsky (1987) used a method of
analysis that isolated for study the complex unity of verbal
thinking without losing the characteristics inherent to the
whole. Using this approach, Vygotsky (1987) developed the
concept of word meaning to investigate verbal thinking and
thus avoided a major pitfall of reductionist approaches, sever-
ing the communicative function of speech from its intellectual
function:
Word meaning is a unity of both processes
[thinking and speech] that cannot be further
decomposed. That is, we cannot say that word
meaning is a phenomenon of either speech or
thinking. The word without meaning is not a word
but an empty sound. Meaning is a necessary,
constituting feature of the word itself. It is the
word viewed from the inside. This justifies the
view that word meaning is a phenomenon of
speech. In psychological terms, however, word
meaning is nothing other than a generalization,
that is a concept. In essence, generalization and
word meaning are synonyms. Any generaliza-
tion-any formation of a concept-is unquestion-
ably a specific and true act of thought. Thus, word
meaning is also a phenomenon of thinking. (p. 244)
Vygotsky felt that this use of word meaning brought
about the formation of a new psychological system because of
a new functional relationship between memory and speech
(Minick, 1987). Vygotsky further clarified his concept of
word meaning by contrasting it with word sense. For exam-
ple, the meaning of the word mother, denoting a bearer of life,
is contrasted with the sense the word invokes in each individ-
ual. A word’s sense, which is dynamic, fluid, and complex, is
&dquo;the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise in our
consciousness as a result of the word&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1987,
p. 276). Whereas a word’s sense changes, its meaning, as cod-
ified in dictionaries, is comparatively fixed and stable. Still,
Vygotsky felt that one of his major theoretical contributions
to language acquisition studies and to an understanding of
verbal thinking was to explain that word meaning develops
both for the individual and for the human species.
Vygotsky studied the relationship of verbal thinking to
the internalization of speech by using word meaning as the
unified entity to be analyzed. He concluded that &dquo;inner speech
is an internal plane of verbal thinking which mediates the
dynamic relationship between thought and word&dquo; (1987,
p. 279). The two distinct planes of speech, &dquo;the inner, mean-
ingful, semantic aspect&dquo; and the &dquo;external, auditory aspect&dquo;
(p. 250) result from different laws of movement. Vygotsky
described the uniqueness of the two distinct planes in order to
establish their internal unity.
Word meaning is key to the bidirectional movement
Vygotsky (1987) described of the internalization of external
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speech into inner speech and verbal thinking, and finally into
&dquo;pure&dquo; thought; the process is then reversed to produce exter-
nal speech. Vygotsky emphasized, however, that &dquo;external
speech is not inner speech plus sound any more than inner
speech is external speech minus sound&dquo; (p. 280). In Note-
books of the Mind, John-Steiner (1985) underscored this point
in describing the ways in which writers utilize inner speech
in their creative processes:
Inner speech is not simply the interior counterpart
of external speech. One only needs to compare the
rapidity of certain flights of thought-or what
[Hannah] Arendt calls &dquo;thought trains&dquo;-to the
slowness of translating these into a verbal form
understandable to others to realize the difference
between these two processes. (p. 138)
Vygotsky’s analysis of verbal thinking and the self-
regulatory function of inner speech provides a fruitful avenue
of exploration for special educators trying to understand the
unique paths of development their students are creating. It
also provides the foundation for another important focus for
special educators: children’s development of conceptual
thinking.
CONCEPT FORMATION
Vygotsky (1987) described the way children, through social
interaction, develop systematicity in thought as they acquire
language. His description of the way complexive and concep-
tual thinking are appropriated by children in the process of
language acquisition is useful in understanding the unique
paths taken by exceptional children in concept formation.
Vygotsky urged that we look &dquo;at the dynamics of the process
itself, at its development, its course, its beginning and its end&dquo;
(p. 121). As children begin to acquire words, they tend to
apply them to &dquo;a series of elements that are externally con-
nected in the impression they have had on the child but not
unified internally among themselves&dquo; (p. 134).
Even when the child’s word meaning is in its initial
stages and is used diffusely, it will at times coincide externally
with the adult’s word meaning. At those points of intersection,
the child will &dquo;establish social interaction through words that
have meaning&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 134), even though the
child’s meanings differ from the adult’s. The child has a syn-
cretic image, a &dquo;heap&dquo; of &dquo;objects that are in one way or
another combined in a single fused image in the child’s rep-
resentation and perception ... that corresponds at this stage
with the meaning of the word&dquo; (pp. 134-135).
Through a process of trial and error, children begin to
refine the syncretic image but continue to do so &dquo;guided not
by the objective connections present in the things themselves,
but by the subjective connections that are given in their own
perception&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 135). When children no
longer mistake the connections in their impression of objects
345
for connections between the objects themselves, Vygotsky
says that they have passed to a mode of thinking in com-
plexes. In complexive thinking, &dquo;the world of objects is united
and organized for [children] by virtue of the fact that objects
are grouped in separate though interconnected families&dquo;
(p. 136). At an early stage of language use &dquo;word meanings
are best characterized as family names of objects that are
united in complexes or groups. What distinguishes the con-
struction of the complex is that it is based on connections
among the individual elements that constitute it as opposed to
abstract logical connections&dquo; (p. 136).
In order to be included in a group or complex, any
empirically present connection of an element is sufficient.
Vygotsky (1987) contrasted this central characteristic of the
complex to the concept in which the connections are of a &dquo;sin-
gle, logically equivalent type&dquo; (p. 137):
[Objects] are generalized by a single feature in the
formation of the concept but by multiple features
in the formation of the complex. Therefore, a sin-
gle, essential, and uniform connection or relation-
ship among objects is reflected in the concept
while the connections are empirical, accidental,
and concrete in the complex. (p. 137)
As their thinking becomes more complex, children begin to
use words that &dquo;develop along lines that are preordained by the
word meanings that have been established in adult speech&dquo;
(p. 142). Though they result from varied underlying modes of
thinking, the common usage of word meanings at this level
again facilitates verbal interaction and mutual understanding
between adult and child, leading to the further development of
speech and thinking.
At a number of points in the process of acquiring lan-
guage, the child and the adult can have very different word
meanings and &dquo;the child understands himself differently
through speech than does the adult through this same speech&dquo;
(Vygotsky, 1987, p. 154). Despite these differences, the
child’s word meaning develops and &dquo;is the bridge that lies
between the child’s concrete and abstract thinking&dquo; (p. 146).
The child develops pseudoconcepts that appear similar to
adults’ concepts and on the basis of formal logic may be so
identified, but &dquo;from the perspective of dialectical logic they
are nothing more than general representations, nothing more
than complexes&dquo; (p. 160). Rather than mistake this empirical
similarity for a similarity in essence, Vygotsky analyzed the
genesis of the structural formations of the child’s pseudocon-
cepts and the adult’s concepts, saw the contradictions in their
empirical similarity, and in so doing illuminated the path trav-
eled from the complex to the concept.
In the complicated move from complexes to concepts, a
dynamic interplay exists between complexive thinking and
conceptual thinking in formation-&dquo;a process involving con-
stant movement from the general to the particular and from
the particular to the general&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 162). The
central feature of conceptual thinking is &dquo;the functional use of
346
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the word as a means of voluntarily directing attention, as a
means of abstracting and isolating features, and as a means of
the synthesizing and symbolizing these features through the
sign&dquo; (p. 164).
A complex is based on empirical connections among the
objects grouped there, rather than on abstract, logical connec-
tions that result from conceptual dialectical thinking (Vygot-
sky, 1987). To explain the child’s move from complexes to
concepts, Vygotsky used a functional systems approach and
examined the structural, functional, and genetic development
of both. By analyzing the structure and genesis of complexive
and conceptual thinking, Vygotsky (1987) showed how the
structural contradictions between the child’s complex and
the adult’s concept were unified at the functional level. In this
way he described the move from complex to concept in the
child:
The concept arises when several abstracted fea-
tures are re-synthesized and when this abstract
synthesis becomes the basic form of thinking
through which the child perceives and interprets
reality. As we have said, the word plays a decisive
role in the formation of the true concept. It is
through the word that the child directs his atten-
tion on a single feature, synthesizes these isolated
features, symbolizes the abstract concept, and
operates with it as the most advanced form of the
sign created by human thinking. (p. 159)
A child will develop an understanding of a word such as
brother based on her relationship with a sibling, but will not
be able to articulate the definition of the word until it is intro-
duced as part of a system of concepts, what Vygotsky referred
to as scientific concepts; in describing concept formation,
Vygotsky differentiated between two different types of con-
and scientific, or systematic
cepts-spontaneous, or everyday,
concepts.
SPONTANEOUS AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS
The descriptive terms used to identify these distinct but inter-
related types of concepts have led to confusion. The use of the
term spontaneous diminishes the interaction that is involved
in its formation, whereas everyday is not particularly descrip-
tive. Goodman and Goodman (1990) also referred to these
concepts as public, or folk, concepts. Blonsky described them
as &dquo;connection-less connectedness of the child’s thinking&dquo;
(Vygotsky, 1987, p. 134).
The most common appellation for their counterparts, sci-
entific concepts, is often narrowly construed as referring only
to concepts developed within the well-established fields of
science. To avoid such as interpretation, nonspontaneous has
been used, but it suffers from the weakness inherent in the
term spontaneous. Van der Veer and Valsiner (1994) and
others have used academic to capture the role formal school-
ing plays in their formation, but it tends to detract from the
development of scientific concepts outside school. For Vygot-
sky (1987) the defining characteristic of scientific concepts is
that they are part of a system and that the child becomes con-
sciously aware of acquiring them:
Only within a system can the concept acquire
conscious awareness and a voluntary nature. Con-
scious awareness and the presence of a system are
synonyms when we are speaking of [scientific]
concepts, just as spontaneity, lack of conscious
awareness, and the absence of a system are three
different words for designating the nature of the
child’s [everyday] concept. (pp. 191-192)
Vygotsky (1987) noted that &dquo;development of voluntary
attention, logical memory, abstraction, comparison, and dif-
ferentiation&dquo; (p. 170) were prerequisite to the emergence of
scientific concepts. With this emergence a &dquo;complete restruc-
turing of the child’s spontaneous concepts&dquo; (p. 236) occurs,
with scientific concepts providing &dquo;the gate through which
conscious awareness enters the domain of the child’s
cepts&dquo; (p. 193). &dquo;The development from lower to higher forms
of concepts does not occur through a quantitative increase in
the number of connections. It involves the emergence of a
qualitatively new type of formation&dquo; (p. 133). He added that
&dquo;the basic characteristic of [scientific concepts’] development
is that they have their source in school instruction. Therefore,
the general problem of instruction and development is funda-
mental to the analysis of the emergence and formation of sci-
entific concepts&dquo; (p. 214).
The practices that support everyday concepts, generally
those associated with the family and the immediate environ-
ment for the child, differ from the school-related practices
that support scientific concepts. The weaving together, there-
fore, of their two different paths of development is profoundly
affected by associated contextual and cultural conditions. A
key component of the intertwining of the two types of con-
cepts is the interaction between more experienced experts and
less experienced learners. This interaction contributes to the
construction of an interface between systems that are rela-
tively stable and ones that are developing and adaptive. This
interface is captured by Vygotsky in the concept of the zone
of proximal development.
THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
The concept of the zone of proximal development was devel-
oped late in Vygotsky’s short life and was not fully elabo-
rated ; therefore, it is important to situate the zone of proximal
development within his theoretical framework. Vygotsky
(1978) used this concept to differentiate between two levels of
development: the actual level of development achieved by
independent problem solving and the potential level of
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development reached with the guidance or collaboration of an
adult or a more capable peer. The actual level of development
is measured by what students are capable of achieving on
their own. However, the issue is not resolved when we find
the actual level of development because we still must measure
the potential level of development-what a child or student
can accomplish with the assistance of another’s expertise. &dquo;It
is equally important to determine the upper threshold of
instruction. Productive instruction can occur only within the
limits of these two thresholds of instruction.... The teacher
must orient his work not on yesterday’s development in the
child but on tomorrow’s&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 211). The
dynamic development of learning processes and the recogni-
tion of students’ immediate developmental needs are clarified
through the concept of the zone of proximal development.
This concept also highlights a central tenet in sociocul-
tural theory-the interdependence of individual and social
processes in the co-construction of knowledge (John-Steiner
& Mahn, 1996). Additionally it underscores a fundamental
principle for sociocultural pedagogical perspectives-the
recognition of children’s learning processes before children
come to school and of the ongoing learning outside school.
con- Vygotsky claimed that any learning a child encounters in
school has a previous history. Understanding these aspects of
learning and development and the concept of the zone of
proximal development is an important prerequisite for suc-
cessful work with children who create unique paths of devel-
opment based on their exceptionalities and who will have
qualitatively distinct zones of proximal development. Both
individual and social processes differ for children with excep-
tionalities and therefore examining their interdependence illu-
minates the social influence on children with special needs as
they construct their unique developmental paths to higher
psychological processes.
HIGHER PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
The analysis of the development of systems of thought in con-
cept formation played an important role in Vygotsky’s exam-
ination of the development of higher psychological processes.
The interweaving of different lines of development in concept
formation into a unified whole helped Vygotsky explain the
transformation of the &dquo;lower,&dquo; or natural, mental functions,
such as &dquo;elementary perception, memory, spontaneous atten-
tion, dynamic characteristics of the nervous system, in short,
all that creates a biological predisposition of the child’s devel-
opment,&dquo; into the &dquo;higher,&dquo; or social/cultural, mental func-
tions, such as, &dquo;abstract reasoning, logical memory, language,
voluntary attention, planning, decision making, etc.&dquo; (Gindis,
1996)
Vygotsky argued, however, that the development of
higher mental functions does not result from a linear progres-
sion nor from the evolution of the elemental natural biologi-
cal functions, but rather from a qualitative transformation.
Although Vygotsky claimed that &dquo;the higher mental functions
347
are qualitatively distinct from, and hence irreducible to, their
primitive antecedents ... because higher mental functions
represent mediated forms of psychological activity&dquo; (Bak-
hurst, 1995, p. 200), he saw, nevertheless, a process of devel-
opment that unified the two forms of mental functioning. His
approach examined mind and matter in their interconnected-
ness and included a &dquo;scientific explanation of both external
manifestations and the process under study&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1978,
p. 63). He looked at the ways that the innate reflexes are
shaped by the increasingly complex cultural contexts into
which they are born and the ways in which the acquisition and
internalization of language and the internalization of social
activity laid the foundation for the qualitative transformation
into conscious psychological processes, with a concomitant
conscious awareness of those processes.
Some interpret Vygotsky’s analysis of the relationship
between the elementary and the higher mental processes as
positing a dichotomy between the natural and the cultural.
This position, falsely attributed to Vygotsky, was actually used
by the Soviet bureaucracy to ban his ideas in 1936; Vygotsky
(1987), instead, emphasized that to examine the process of
development in children, &dquo;one must begin with an under-
standing of the dialectical unity of two principally different
lines [the biological and the cultural and] ...must study both
components and the laws which govern their interlacement at
each stage of a child’s development [starting at birth]&dquo;
(p. 123). He investigated the mental functions of newborns to
determine which mental functions were natural (what he also
called lower, or biological) and which were cultural and
would lead to the development of higher psychological
processes. He located the origin of the higher mental func-
tions in the convergence of tool use and symbolic reference
and their subsequent internalization (1997b):
As the first use of a tool instantly changes ... an
organically dependent system of a child’s activity,
so precisely does the first use of a sign signify
going beyond the limits of the organic system of
activity which exists for each mental function. The
use of auxiliary devices, the transition to mediated
activity radically reconstructs the whole mental
operation just as the use of a tool modifies the nat-
ural activity of the organs, and it broadens immea-
surably the system of activity on mental functions.
We designate both taken together by the term
higher mental function, or higher behavior. (p. 63)
Through this analysis of the internalization of speech and the
development of verbal thinking, along with the internalization
of social activity and behavior, Vygotsky was able to bridge
the seemingly impenetrable chasm psychologists drew
between behavior and consciousness. Internalization of social
activity for Vygotsky also included the internalization of the
psychological mechanisms for achieving the higher mental
functions. &dquo;All higher mental functions are the essence of
internalized relations of a social order, a basis for the social
348
Downloaded from rse.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 16, 2016
structure of the individual.... We could say that the mental
nature of man represents the totality of social relations inter-
nalized and made into functions of the individual and forms
of the structure&dquo; (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106). To gain active con-
trol over initially passive mental functions and to become
consciously aware of them, &dquo;the child learns to use signs
and thus converts these ’natural’ mental functions into sign-
mediated, cultural functions&dquo; (Berg, quoted in Vygotsky,
1978, p. 139).
The development of higher mental functions and their
interdependence and interconnection with elementary mental
functions provides an important area of study for educators of
exceptional children. Vygotsky’s research of key qualitative
transformations-the convergence of symbolic reference and
thinking, the internalization of speech and the development of
verbal thinking, the interdependence of systems concepts and
everyday concepts in concept formation-produced insights
into the internal mechanisms of the complex processes at play
in the development of human consciousness and offers fertile
grounds for further exploration, a
HOLBROOK MAHN, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Language, Lit-
eracy and Sociocultural Studies division of the College of Education at the
University of New Mexico. His research interests include second language
literacy acquisition, sociocultural theory, cross-disciplinary collaboration,
and teacher education. Address: Holbrook Mahn, Hokona Hall 212, Lan-
guage, Literacy & Sociocultural Studies, University of New Mexico, Albu-
querque, NM 87131. (e-mail: hmahn@unm.edu)
NOTES
1. Vygotsky’s works have been studied and interpreted by a variety of schol-
ars. John-Steiner and Mahn (1996) provided an overview of some of these
interpretations as they related Vygotsky’s contribution to learning and
development. Expansions of Vygotsky’s contributions include those of
activity theorists (Leontiev, 1978; Engeström, 1987); the work of scholars
whose focus is on culture, language, and literacy (Bruner, 1990; Cazden,
1988; Chang-Wells & Wells, 1993; Cole & Scribner, 1974; John-Steiner,
Panofsky, & Smith, 1994; Rogoff, 1990; Scribner & Cole, 1981); the
writings of James Wertsch (1985, 1991), who provided a synthesis of
Vygotsky and Bakhtin; the translations and interpretations of Vygotsky’s
writings by European, Asian, and Latin American scholars (Blanck, 1984,
1990; Hatano, 1993, 1995; Kozulin, 1990; Meira, 1995; Rosa & Montero,
1990; Valsiner, 1987, 1988; van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991); and the
studies, many of which are cross-cultural, by educational theorists (e.g.,
Martin, 1990; Moll, 1990; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Tharp &
Gallimore, 1988). The continuing work of Russian psychologist Davidov
(1988, 1990), Elkonin (1969), Galperin (1966), and Luria (1979), among
many others, has sustained and added to Vygotsky’s legacy in a variety
of fields.Additionally, a number of sites on the Internet are related to
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, and provide links to articles, such
as http://www.cudenver.edu/∼mryder/itc_data/soc_cult.html, http://arts.
uwaterloo.ca/∼acheyne/chp.html, http:/www.j51.com/∼tatyana/page6.
htm#SPECIAL, and http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/index.html.
2. The editors of Volume 1 of The Collected Works of Lev S. Vygotsky explain
what they mean by the term verbal thinking by first explaining their ratio-
nale for choosing to translate the title of Vygotsky’s most famous work,
Myschlenie I Rech, as Thinking and Speech in place of Thought and Lan-
guage, which was used for the first two versions. "Since myshlenie is a
Russian present participle and mysl is a ’thought’ or ’idea,’ and since
Vygotsky describes a thinking process in his discussions, ’thinking’
seemed a better rendering of his intended meaning than ’thought.’ The ren-
 dering of rech as ’speech’ rather than ’language’ is based first on the sim-
ple fact that dictionaries gloss iazyk as ’language’ or ’tongue’ and rech as
’speech’ "(Vygotsky, 1987, p. v). Therefore, "when Vygotsky used the
phrase rechnoi myschlenie (verbal thinking) he is generally indicating not
a form of thought which merely incorporates linguistic categories but a
form of thought mediated by speaking" (p. 387).
3. Genetic is from the Greek genus (origin, source), not from the Greek
genes (born, produced).
4. Vygotsky (1987) made clear that he was investigating verbal thinking as
an aspect of consciousness and that his investigations were not of con-
sciousness as a whole—a task he felt lay in front of him. "Our investiga-
tion has brought us to the threshold of a problem that is broader, more
profound, and still more extraordinary than the problem of thinking. It has
brought us to the threshold of the problem of consciousness" (p. 285).
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350
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Vygotsky, L. S. (1993). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 2. The fun-
damentals . of defectology New York: Plenum.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. Van der Veer
& J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338-354). Cambridge,
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Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 3. Prob-
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Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation .of mind Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to medi-
ated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Zukow-Goldring, P., & Ferko, K. R. (1994). An ecological approach to the
emergence of the lexicon: Socializing attention. In V. John-Steiner,
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