Vygotsky's Social Constructionist View on Learning and Disability

Vygotsky's Social Constructionist View on Learning and Disability

Introduction

Vigotsky thinking has implications and consequences on multiple levels and spheres of human action, some specific to Psychology and others that will transcend to other fields. We could point as does Stephen Kerr (1997) that their contributions can be seen in several dimensions: historical, cultural, anthropological, clinical, organizational, and educational. In its historical dimension have impact contributions for ideas postulate a break with the discourse reflexology, so dominant in his time, in which it tried to describe the man as a reactive body subject to the legacy environment and organic-physiological processes. This biological reductionism paradigm under the influence of the discoveries of Charles Darwin and the influence is still present Cartesian science, seemed to bring the sciences, including psychology and pedagogy, to deterministic visions that reduced and equated human beings with the rest animals. Research methodology, welcomed the comparative analysis as valid source animal to explain, describe and treat the man, ignoring the higher cognitive processes of the latter. This was located to the sciences of the time in class Vygotsky and sciences devoted to affected descriptions (exhaustive list of facts), the theorization (bodies away from the praxis conceptual) adequateness (the tendency toward duplication where jobs fit with accepted principles of demonstration) and circulars (circularly principles rest on the outcome), which in the words of Gustavo Bueno (1972) only lead to an unwanted sciences and problematic syncretism. According to Vygotsky this led to the psychology of his time to argue that the mind could not be studied objectively, and with proper methodology in its phenomenon of consciousness (Vygotsky, 1988).

Discussion

The metaphor is based on social constructivist developmental theory of Vygotsky, developed and perfected in the theories of situated action and Learning. Vygotsky conceived adolescence as a critical period in the development of mental functioning of children and society. Qualitative changes in social development and sense-making to define this period. Preteens begin to think conceptually and to take steps towards the formation of cheap shoes higher mental processes. They also begin to understand their own personality, external reality that surrounds them and “I in relation to broader social structures. Preteens can conceptualize the activity and its consequences through reflection and metacognition that small children cannot. Conceptions of moral development, despite the moral concepts and behavior cannot be aligned. The issue of equity becomes critical, because teens are aware of ...