Compare and contrast the theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER:
To Piaget, any mental idea, concept, or thought is a schema. We form these schemas based on our experiences of the world. For example, a baby may have a sucking schema, “Is this object suckable?” or a mother schema, “Does this person fit with my cognitive framework of mother?” A preschooler may have the schema “The sun follows me wherever I go.” Adults’ schemas may be very simple—“A key will start a car”—or more complex, such as individual ideas of justice, morality, or love. Piaget believed that our brains are biologically programmed to seek under- standing of our world. So, we form schemas to fit with our perceptions of the world. When we achieve this fit, so that our cognitions correspond with the environment, we have mental equilibrium. Assimilation is the process by which we apply an existing schema to our understanding of the environment. Accommodation is the process we use to change or modify our existing schema— or even create new ones—to adapt to some change in the environment.
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Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a Russian psychologist whose ideas have influenced how psychologists and educators think about children’s cognitive development, and have provided an alternative to Piaget’s theory (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). In contrast to Piaget’s emphasis on the internal origin of schemas, Vygotsky (1978, 1986) emphasized that mental processes begin externally with our social interactions with others. According to Vygotsky, because cognition is so intimately tied to our social interactions, culture has a profound influence on our mental processing. The language, measurement systems, rituals, beliefs, and technology of a culture both limit and support certain ways of thinking. According to Vygotsky, cognitive development does not occur in fixed stages as Piaget theorized. Rather, cognitive development may proceed in any number of directions, depending on our culture, social interactions with others, and the environment we live in.
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