Vygotsky – Parenting and Family Diversity Issues (2024)

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What are the problems with Vygotsky's theory? ›

Criticisms of Vygotsky

Vygotsky mostly used observation methods to support his theories, which has invited criticism about the validity of his findings. He also only vaguely defined social interaction and never stated the best method for engagement.

Vygotsky believed that, as an infant and caregiver participate in an activity, the adult begins by guiding and leading the experience (i.e., scaffolding the infant's experience), slowly giving more control to the infant. Vygotsky proposed that infants collect 'tools' to help them learn and grow.

The three main concepts of cognitive development that Vygotsky posed were that (i) culture is significant in learning, (ii) language is the root of culture, and (iii) individuals learn and develop within their role in the community.

One of the most famous educational theorists who advocated for differentiation was Lev Vygotsky. He believed that learning is a social process and that students learn best when they are challenged to go beyond what they already know.

However, a weakness of Vygotsky's theory is that it lacks a clear explanation for why children transition from one period of development to the next. This has led some psychologists to advocate for reductionist approaches or the use of other theories to fill this gap.

Vygotsky believed that the child is a social being, and cognitive development is led by social interactions. Piaget, on the other hand, felt that the child was more independent and that development was guided by self-centered, focused activities.

Vygotsky Theory of Cognitive Development - Key takeaways

The disadvantages of the theory are that it doesn't describe specific stages of development as Piaget did. It may be challenging to put it into practice in some situations, and it isn't easy to measure concepts such as inner speech.

For example, if you teach someone how to play tennis, you can expect him or her to eventually become a tennis player. Vygotsky also believed that the way in which we communicate with others influences the way in which we learn. According to him, we learn by talking to others and listening to what they say.

Vygotsky believed that children learn more efficiently in a social environment. That is why learning to use social development theory in a classroom can help your students understand ideas more quickly. Furthermore, social interaction for Lev plays an integral role in learning and promotes a reciprocal teaching style.

He maintained that students should be maintained within the regular inclusive social environment of the school Vygotsky advocated the full 'inclusion model' which stated that the student with special needs should be in regular classroom with support services delivered to the student.

How to apply Vygotsky theory in the classroom? ›

Examples of scaffolding that educators may use include: Asking a student what they think should be done next, what their thought process was, or if there are other ways the problem can be solved. Modeling how to solve a similar problem or complete a similar task.

Scaffolding: Scaffolding is the term, given by Vygotsky, in which he proposed that the temporary help given by the teachers, family, friends, etc. to the children in his learning. Thus we can conclude that according to Vygotsky, scaffold children's thinking is a primary role of the teacher.

ZPD is defined by Vygotsky (1978) as “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” (p. 86).

It has been argued that a bad application of the ZPD approach can actually have negative outcomes, such as decreased motivation (if the tasks are too easy) and decreased self-esteem (if the tasks are too hard). However, this problem usually comes up in the context of large school classes.

Lave and Wenger (1991), for example, in postulating their situated learning theory, disapprove of Vygotsky's concepts of learning internalisation, generalisation, and scientific concepts, for they contain only “a small 'aura' of socialness that provides input for the process of internalisation, viewed as ...

Opinions on the limitations of Vygotsky: Though the role of culture is extremely important, Vygotsky appears to have overemphasized the role of culture in the cognitive development of children. It is hard to decide where a child is cognitively without a detailed underlying process in the developmental changes.