Study of the Environment in the Pedological Works of L.S. Vygotsky

摘要

As is well-known, the problem of the environment has occupied a central place in the field known as pedology. This problem has been approached from a general biological perspective (phylogenesis and fetal development), and from a psychological perspective. In our critical study, we will limit ourselves to an examination of the study of the environment [only] from a psychological perspective (a perspective fundamental to pedology), because it was only from this perspective that this study enters the works of L.S. Vygotsky. Before turning to an analysis of Vygotsky's study of the environment, it will be necessary to first present, at least in broad outline, the state of this problem in the pedology of M.Ia. Basov, P.P. Blonskii, A.B. Zalkind, and others. In a decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party dated June 4, 1936, on pedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariat of Education, there is an absolutely clear description of all sorts of pedological views on the environment. At their foundation lies the theory of fatalistic determinism. Its essence is that development is understood as a process directly determined, on the one hand, by the innate characteristics of a child (his "abilities," "talents"), and on the other, by the environment in which this development takes place. So the development of a child is viewed as a function of these two fundamental factors, no matter how complex the ways in which they combine and are interwoven.