Vygotsky Additional Guided Participation

Sociocultural Activity Guided participation is a particular type of scaffolding studied by Rogoff et al. (1995). Guided participation refers particularly to the transmission of cultural practices, where children actively engage in cultural activities whilst adults model, encourage and regulate performance.

It can be seen as a type of apprenticeship in which children actively take part in a practice of their culture whilst adults demonstrate and guide the child’s performance. Over time the child will become more accomplished, eventually reconstructing the knowledge as their own. In this way the practices of a cultures are maintained and reformulated through the generations.

Study Aim : Rogoff et al. (1995) investigated the process of guided participation in a study of a cultural practice in her local community. Method : The researchers focused on the transmission of knowledge, understanding and skills during the annual Girl Scout Cookie Sale in the USA. The Cookie Sale is a highly organised, annual, national fund-raising event which has been in operation since the 1930’s.

Using qualitative methods of observation, interview and historical archive analysis, researchers focused on information at three different levels: the Community level involved analysis of the cultural activity as guided by the values and goals of the culture; the Interpersonal Level involved analysis of face- to- face interaction and communication between the Girl Scouts and their mentors (mothers, sisters, friends, etc.) and the Personal Level involved analysis of how individual Girl Scouts changed as a result of their involvement in the Cookie Sale.

Results : Older members of the community passed on their knowledge and experiences of the event to the Girl Scouts, offering advice and practical help. The Girl Scouts then reshaped and extended this knowledge, developing new ways and innovations to be carried on into the future.

Conclusion : Individual cognitive development is inseparable from the external environment; understanding develops as a result of guided participation in shared activity.

Language Vygotsky believed that cognitive development was heavily dependent on language since language affects and even shapes culture. It is through language that the ideas of a culture are expressed – for example, the language of children’s playground rhymes and storybooks expresses the shared knowledge and values of the culture.

Inevitably, then, the language of a culture affects the way that children think. Vygotsky suggested that cognitive development development arises from the child’s conversations with parents and others and that language provides a framework for thinking. Vygotsky was especially interested in the way that children use language. He noted how they talk to themselves as they play and believed that these monologues helped children to plan and direct their behaviour.

Initially the monologues are outward, the child speaks out loud, and then at around age 7, speech becomes internalised as ‘inner speech’, which is actually thought. As adults we rarely use external monologues, but we do occasionally revert to thinking aloud when presented with an especially trying problem.

Vygotsky and education Vygotsky’s ideas have been extensively developed and applied in education. They were particularly in tune with the thinking of Jerome Bruner (1986), an American psychologist who also believed that sociocultural influences and especially language were key influences on development. In addition to Scaffolding, Smith et al. (2003) note other ways in which Vygotsky’s ideas have been applied in education.

These include: Peer Tutoring : where the child learns through interaction with another child who is slightly more able. Collective argumentation : a structured approach to group discussion where individual viewpoints are presented and justified, different views are compared, a joint view is constructed and presented, and finally, the joint view is tested in the wider community.

Community of enquiry : proposed by Elbers and Streefland (2000). A community of inquiry involves pupils playing an active role, with lessons structured as a common enterprise in which teachers and learners both take the role of researcher and strive together to carry out tasks and find solutions to problems.

Study Aim : Elbers and Streefland (2000) tested the effectiveness of learning in a community of inquiry. Method : Participants aged 11 – 13 years at state schools in Holland. A new mathematics curriculum was introduced using new learning community roles in the special 90 minute weekly lessons. The children were given the role of researcher, with the teacher as the senior researcher.

At the start of each weekly lesson the new roles were defined explicitly, with the teacher announcing, ‘We are researchers. Let us do research’. The children worked in small groups or as a class. Results : The researchers adapted well to their roles. The children worked productively and collaborated positively to solve the mathematics problems. The teachers avoided instructing, instead paraphrasing and rephrasing the children’s comments to correct errors and reminding them of their earlier findings. Conclusion : The researchers concluded that a community of inquiry was highly productive; children learned to use evidence in a constructive way and developed a more critical understanding.

Evaluation of Vygotsky According to Vygotsky’s notion of ZPD it should be possible to accelerate a child’s development. This idea conflicts directly with Piaget’s belief that development will only be possible when the child is cognitively ready. If Piaget is correct about ‘readiness’, then artificial acceleration would be pointless.

Whilst some level of instruction may be beneficial, over-instruction might result in the child being less likely to learn independently and less inclined to show initiative in problem solving. Vygotsky’s theory presupposes that adults will always have an enhancing effect on cognitive development. In fact, adults sometimes make it more difficult for children to understand the world by answering obscurely when asked about difficult topics such as death or sex.