Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology - Tapa dura

"Luis Moll has done an invaluable job in compiling and editing Vygotsky and Education, a major volume of original papers focusing on the educational implications of Vygotsky's psychological theory....Moll's introduction to the volume is an unusually informative and useful treatise in its own right. It elucidates several key issues in Vygotsky's thought in a way that goes clearly beyond the typical standards in the genre of introductions." The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition

"Vygotsky and Education is a useful book; it gives a true picture of Vygotskian scholarship in the West including its achievemnts, failures, and questions posed for future research." Alex Kozulin, American Journal of Psychology

The seminal work of Russian theorist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) has exerted a deep influence on psychology over the past 30 years. Vygotsky was an educator turned psychologist, and his writings clearly reflected his pedagogical concerns. For Vygotsky, schools and other informal educational situations represent the best cultural laboratories to study thinking. He emphasized the social organization of instruction, writing about the 'unique form of cooperation between the child and the adult that is the central element of the educational process'. Vygotsky's emphasis on the social context of thinking represents the reorganization of a key social system and associated modes of discourse, with potential consequences for developing new forms of thinking. This volume is devoted to analyzing Vygotsky's ideas as a means of bringing to light the relevance of his concepts to education. What does Vygotsky's approach have to offer education? Distinguished scholars from various countries and representing several disciplines discuss the essence and significance of Vygotsky's work, analyze the educational implications of his thoughts, and present applications in practice, addressing educational issues such as school organization, teacher training, educational achievement, literacy learning and development, uses of technology, community-based education, and special education.