Evan Shillabeer - GLS Abstract

Vygotsky’s ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) is a central concept within developmental and cultural psychology that characterizes a child’s development into a pre-existing cultural world with others. Vygotsky’s ZPD has generally been preconceived in terms of a mediational approach to ontogenesis that emphasizes the internalization of ‘symbols’ from the ‘world’ to the ‘mind’ (see Wertch, 1990, Valsiner, 1998). However, a mediational interpretation that emphasizes a distinction between the self and world can be re-interpreted in light of a more contemporary non-mediational understanding (Baerveldt, 2015). I will argue that by re-evaluating Vygotsky’s ZPD in the light of non-mediational approaches to learning can provide a radically new basis for understanding the ZPD. I will draw explicitly on Heidegger’s non-mediational ‘externalist’ view of meaning to begin a re-evaluation of Vygotsky’s work on the basis of an approach more closely related to the historical basis of his work.