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Zone of Proximal Development

Chapter · January 2012

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_316

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Z
Zone of Proximal Development
ANDREY I. PODOLSKIY
Department of Developmental Psychology,
Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Synonyms
Zone of reflective capacity
Definition
The zone of proximal development is the gap between
what a learner has already mastered (actual level of
development) and what he or she can achieve when
provided with educational support (potential develop-
ment). It is the level of a child’s development which
displays itself in collaborative activity with an adult but
not in the child’s individual activity. Bruner (1982)
describes the zone of proximal development figura-
tively as the child’s ability to recognize the value of
hinges and props even before he is conscious of their
full significance. The concept was introduced by Lev
Vygotsky to deal with two problems of developmental
and educational psychology: (1) how to correctly assess
children’s intellectual abilities and (2) how to evaluate
the efficacy of instructional practices (Vygotsky 1978;
Wertsch 1985). “It is the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by independent
problem solving and the level of potential development
as determined through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”
(Vygotsky 1978, p. 86).
Theoretical Background
Lev Vygotsky has the “absolute monopoly” on the
notion of the zone of proximal development: Nothing
comparable was introduced before him either in fun-
damental or applied psychology or in the sciences of
learning. One of the main reasons why Vygotsky
N. Seel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6,
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
introduced the concept was, as Wertsch (1985) has
observed, because it allowed him to examine “those
functions that have not yet matured but are in the
process of maturation, functions that will mature
tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic state.
These functions can be termed the ‘buds’ or ‘flowers’
of development rather than the ‘fruits’ of development”
(Vygotsky 1978, p. 86). According to Vygotsky, “the
zone of proximal development furnishes psychologists
and educators with a tool through which the internal
course of development can be understood. By using
this method we can take account of not only the cycles
and maturation processes that have already been com-
pleted but also those processes that are currently in
a state of formation, that are just beginning to mature
and develop. Thus, the zone of proximal development
permits us to delineate the child’s immediate future
and his dynamic developmental state, allowing not
only for what already has been achieved developmen-
tally but also for what is in the course of maturing”
(Vygotsky 1978, p. 87). The concept of the zone of
proximal development occupies a central place in
a number of topics in cultural-historical psychology,
including the cultural-historical theory of development,
the relation between learning and development and the
activity theory of learning.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
The notion of the zone of proximal development has
also played an important heuristic role as a general
insight concerning human learning and development
and the interrelations between them. Indeed, unlike
animals “children can imitate a variety of actions that
go well beyond the limits of their own capabilities.
Using imitation, children are capable of doing much
more in collective activity or under the guidance of
adults. This fact, which seems to be of little significance
in itself, is of fundamental importance in that it
demands a radical alteration of the entire doctrine
3486 Z Zone of Proximal Development
concerning the relation between learning and develop-
ment in children. One direct consequence is a change in
conclusions that may be drawn from diagnostic tests of
development” (Vygotsky 1978, p. 87).
The concept also introduces a radically innovative
approach to assessing a child’s abilities: Instead of mea-
suring the child’s actual capability to act alone directly,
this heuristic calls for both the researcher and the
practitioner to evaluate the child’s potential capability
as displayed in active collaboration with adults or
advanced peers.
With regard to the second reason why Vygotsky
introduced the term of the zone of proximal develop-
ment – namely, to evaluate the efficacy of instructional
practices – the past three decades have brought a veritable
deluge of high-quality fundamental and applied studies
demonstrating how this heuristic enriches and strategi-
cally changes learning and teaching processes in different
environments, first and foremost in the classroom
(Hedegaard 1996; Engeström 1987, 2009; Bransford
et al. 2000; Berger 2009; van Oers et al. 2008).
Not only did the heuristic of the zone of proximal
development provide a strong impetus for a wealth of
both empirical and applied research, it also became
a solid and fertile background for the emergence of
a number of independent scientific schools and
approaches in developmental and educational psychol-
ogy and the sciences of learning. Examples include the
theory of planned stage-by-stage formation of mental
actions and concepts introduced by P. Galperin and
developed by him and his followers, which explains in
a very explicit and detailed manner a system of psycho-
logical conditions (usually organized for the child by an
adult) which must be fulfilled in order for the child to
be provided with high-quality mental actions, con-
cepts, and representations; the theory of learning activ-
ity (D. Elkonin, V. Davydow), which represents
a psychological specificity of this kind of human activ-
ity as a leading activity of a school age child; and the
theory of developing instruction (developing education)
(D. Elkonin, V. Davydow), which brought into exis-
tence Vygotsky’s famous slogan about the “good
instruction” that initiates childhood development.
At the same time, one has to clearly understand that
the heuristic power of this notion can only work if
important metaphors (however, metaphors!) such as
“mediation of higher mental functions by cultural
tools,” “transformation of external forms of activity
into in internal ones,” or “cooperative activity between
a child and an adult or advanced peer” are
complemented by quite concrete and well
operationalized nonambiguous content. One can find
a lot of examples of the direct opposite, that is,
a destructive instead of constructive implementation
of the above-mentioned processes. The decisive point is
not to appeal to the “mediation of higher mental func-
tions by cultural tools” directly but to describe the kind
of mediation (the concrete psychological content
behind this process) and the characteristics of the cul-
tural tools and the subject’s actions with them. It is not
difficult to find instances in which the cooperation of
a child with an adult produces not a progress but, on
the contrary, a regress in the child’s development, and
thus again the decisive point is not the “cooperative
activity of a child and an adult or advanced peer” itself
but the kind of cooperative activity that takes place,
how significant this activity and the collaborating adult
(advanced peer) are for the child, the needs, age-
related, and individual peculiarities of the child,
etc. “Even the use of signs as instruments of mental
activity and their ‘growing from the outside inwards’
(i.e., the use ‘for oneself ’ and ‘in one’s mind’), without
an explanation of what exactly took place in this place
or how external activity and its external instruments
changed, were unable to alter the former view of mind”
(Galperin 1992, p. 54).
In working with the notion of the zone of proximal
development (as well as with other key concepts of the
cultural-historical theory of development and activity
theories of learning), one has to unambiguously clarify
one’s expectations and limit oneself to general heuris-
tics or find perspectives for real social (first of all
educational) applications. The latter case requires
a profound and expanded search followed by the
highest possible operationalization and also an avoid-
ance of metaphors wherever possible.
Cross-References
▶ Activity Theories of Learning
▶ Cultural-Historical Theory of Development
▶ Internalization
▶ Learning Activity
▶ Learning and Training: Activity Approach
▶ Mental Activities of Learning
▶ Scaffolding for Learning
▶ Vygotsky’s Philosophy of Learning
 Zone of Reflective Capacity Z 3487

References
Galperin, P. (1992). The problem of activity in Soviet psychology. Zone of Reflective Capacity
Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 30(4), 37–59.
van Oers, B., Wardekker, W., Elbers, E., & van der Veer, R. (2008). The
▶ Zone of Proximal Development
transformation of learning: Advances in cultural-historical activity
theory. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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