The Sociocultural Theory and I

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Introduction

When ever we entertained guests or visited relatives, my mother always told me to “ remember that my behaviour is a reflection on the entire family.” I never really understood where she could that reasoning from, after all I always assumed that I was my own individual and made decisions without their influence. However, I could not be more wrong, especially if my actions are based on the sociocultural theory. This theory stresses how the interaction between people and the culture in which they live affect their thought process. This paper will describe and explain the theoretical aspect of the theory such as its major contributors, focus and explanation of how individuals behave, think and express their emotion under the social cultural theory. It will then conclude with an attempt to determine if my personal experiences can be used to demonstrate the theoretical basis of the theory.

Key Contributors to Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural theory grew from the work of Russian seminal psychologist Lev Vygotsky and his colleges Alexei Leontiev and Alexander Luria. Vygotsky believed that parents, caregivers, peers and the culture at large were responsible for the development of higher order functions (Zembylas, 2007, p. ). He believed that humans and animals shared elementary psychological processes such as attentional and perceptual process, but what differentiated the two was the social and cultural basis of human thought (Siegler & Alibali, 2005, p. 108). In sum he advanced the notion that development always results from internal mental processes, which are a result of the external mental processes (Siegler & Alibali, 2005, p.108). He suggests that for children's mind to develop, they have to be placed in sp...

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...ovember 24, 2011, from http://vygotsky.afraid.org/

Salkind, N. J. (2004). The Cognitive Developmental View. An introduction to theories of human development (pp. 277-282). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Siegler, R. S., & Alibali, M. W. (2005). Sociocultural Theoires of Development . Children's Thinking (4 ed., pp. 109-128). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Scherba de Valenzuela, J. (n.d.). Definitions of Sociocultural Theory. The University of New Mexico | The University of New Mexico. Retrieved November 21, 2011, from

http://www.unm.edu/~devalenz/handouts/sociocult.html

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zembylas, M. (2007). Theory and methodology in researching emotions in education. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 30(1), 57-72. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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