Vygotskys Socio-Cultural Theory - Essay Example

Lev Vygotsky stated that a child’s personality alone was not enough to understand the child’s development (Vygotsky, 1978). The external factors surrounding the child’s life go further to explain child development. The child’s reaction to these factors and participation in certain activities, involving his intellectual abilities, draws the child to use its abilities so as to cultivate and develop them. His idea, therefore, suggested that the learning process in a child’s growth is greatly influenced by the objects, occurrences, and people it occasionally makes contact with at the early stages of life.

Vygotsky’s theory clearly brings out an idea of a Community of Practice. The community of practice is used to refer to informal groups of people who are brought together by their similar interests and concerns. Hence, the similarities enhance great learning as people intermingle, share their thoughts and issues, and creatively come up with feasible solutions to their problems. Likewise, Vygotsky accentuated how the child is influenced by its peers, adults, and beliefs surrounding him/her (Vygotsky, 1978).

This theory has been of great help in explaining why a child adapts to its environment. By interacting with its immediate surroundings, a child will not only gain cognitive advancement but also have its goals molded. At this stage, a child will seek more assistance from the parents, learns communication skills, and slowly starts its mastery of language  Vygotsky defined intelligence as the ability to listen and act on guidelines. He noted that a child could gain expertise through imitating other people, getting instructions, and collaborative learning among friends.

A parent, a teacher, or a children’s expert could act as the instructors. Moreover, enhancing the attainment of proficiency in a child is also facilitated by its interactions with fellow children, and even though the use of some objects in playing games such as computers and play-stations. Vygotsky referred to these, and any other object, or person who could be of use in advancing the child’s aptitude by offering directions as the more knowledgeable other (McLeod, 2007). His understanding of learning was that learning is more than a gain of particular information.

He argued that learning was supposed to aim at the overall development of the child’s abilities including creativity and the ability to individually make decisions and communicate them. This could only be achieved by the use of the social and cultural objects around their lives. Vygotsky’s theory laid emphasis on particular elements like language. He said that language was central to the psychological enlargement of a child.  Another element Vygotsky used to clarify the socio-cultural theory is the ‘Zone of Proximal Development' (Vygotsky, 1978).

This feature has two levels of achievement. The first level is referred to as the ‘present level of development’ that pointed out the things a child can handle on their own without the help of anyone (Vygotsky, 1978). The second level is the ‘potential level of development, which pointed out what a child can attain when helped out by an instructor. The zone of proximal development, which varies with the age and cognitive growth of the child, is the difference between the two levels (McLeod, 2007).

Another feature is scaffolding; which implied that the instructor should progressively limit the amount of assistance they offer to the child. They should adjust it according to the rate at which the child is grasping the instructions. Common Practice Theory By Lave Jean and Etienne Wenger Theorists Lave and Wenger came up with the idea of a community of practice, which is a process suggesting that; people with common interests learn by participating in these interests, and they develop informal groups.

In the past, this theory has been extended to various fields and organizations, hence formalizing the groups. This theory points out social learning as a coincidental result. Lave and Wegner claimed that community practices are found everywhere (Schaffer, 1996). They could be incorporated in schools, homes, and such areas where people of similar interests meet. A clear example of the community of practice is how a given tribe learns to survive or even cliques of students in schools. Through these interactions, the social groups learn new things and together they get ideas on how to handle situations better.

The end product of this collective learning is a habit reflecting not only the member’s own natural pursuits but also the characteristics of the groups from which they learn their ideas (Schaffer, 1996). Communities of practice have different characteristics such as naming, though most do not have names, formality or informality, and so on. Though most of them are informal, some upcoming ones are formal, as Wenger recently discovered, for instance in organizations (Schaffer, 1996). Communities of practice have three elements distinguishing them from any other group.

First, their identity is defined by a shared domain, and members are committed to this domain. The second element is a community, which simply means people who have stronger bonds of their similar interests, than just a group of people who find themselves together, for instance, in a job scenario. The third element is practice, where apart from having a similar interest, the members of a community of practice have means of interactions. These include the tools they use to interact such as stories and experiences.

These interactions are developed over time.