The Affective Establishment and Maintenance of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

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THE AFFECTIVE ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF VYGOTSKY’S ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

Michael G. Levykh

Department of Educational Psychology Simon Fraser University

ABSTRACT. Many recent articles, research papers, and conference presentations about Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) emphasize the ‘‘extended’’ version of the ZPD that reflects human emotions and desires. In this essay, Michael G. Levykh expands on the extant literature on the ZPD through developing several new ideas. First, he maintains that there is no need to expand ZPD to include emotions, as its more ’’conservative’’ dimensions (cognitive, social, cultural, and historical) already encompass affective features. Second, Levykh emphasizes that an emotionally positive collaboration between teachers and students in a caring and nurturing environment must be created from the outset. Finally, he asserts that culturally developed emotions must mediate successful establishment and maintenance of the ZPD in order to be effective. According to Levykh, Vygotsky’s notion that learning can lead development represents a crucial contribution to our understanding of teaching and learning by clearly showing that emotions are vital to human learning and development.

Some have argued that Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) can be extended to integrate the affective dimension.1 There has been an enormous proliferation of articles, research papers, and conference presentations about the ZPD in fields such as mathematics, science, computer science and technology, language acquisition and teaching, and so on; many of these emphasize the ‘‘extended’’ version of the ZPD that reflects human emotions and desires. The popularity of an extended version of the ZPD, especially among teachers of the physical sciences, supports Vygotsky’s notion that learning can lead development and reflects an overdue acknowledgment and recognition of the fact that emotions are a vital...