This article is also the answer to the question given below:
How does Vygotsky place more emphasis on culture affecting
cognitive development?
It is of utmost importance to have a detailed explanation of
cognitive development before answering the question.
Cognitive Development:
When a child is born and starts growing, it goes through different
stages of development, physical, language, cognitive and social. All of these
developments are discussed and experimented on by scientists, and so many
theories are also there about them. Cognitive development is how a child
thinks, figures out things, or explores. So this development is about
knowledge, disposition, skills, and others.
Vygotsky has discussed cognitive development with cultural effects
in detail. His point of view was that a child goes through social interaction
which is more important in cognitive development than the individual process
will take place. It is also known as social development theory. , The community
plays a crucial role in modifying the meaning of the words spoken by the child
following the cognitive development theory.
According to Piaget, the individual process is before social
interaction in cognitive development, but while this theory was in the field,
Vygotsky, against this theory by applying the sociocultural approach to
cognitive development, stated this thing by his personal experience,
experiments, and research that culture affects cognitive development. And both
psycholinguistics were contrasting each other. Vygotsky said that social
interaction is the origin of cognitive development.
Every child has the ability to speak and learn, but according to
Vygotsky, the environment in which a child is living influences his thinking
process that how he thinks or what he thinks.
Adults play an influential role in developing a child, as one child
will barely learn without guidance from a skilled tutor, but if he is under the
direction of an experienced tutor, he will understand better and quickly. The
child's attention, sensation, perception, and memory will grow according to the
environment in which he is living. For example, a boy solving a jigsaw will
learn to solve it faster and more excellently under the guidance of his father
than that child who is trying to solve a jigsaw on his own.
We can take the example of multiple children from different
societies who can use their memory. They will use it, but the strategy to use
this ability will differ and vary with their respective cultures. For example,
in previous times, children used their brains to remember something or to
remember with knots or beads that were their culture to use the strategy of
memory. However, in our culture, the approach to use the ability of memory is
by taking notes. That is how culture affects cognitive development. Tools of
intellectual development are different from culture to culture.
Although children are curious to learn and try to learn more and
more, according to Vygotsky, social interaction will come before their learning
process.
Conclusion:
After studying all these statements and examples, we see that
Vygotsky favored culture in cognitive development. He put culture in the first
place than individual learning processes. These statements and examples prove
that Vygotsky has placed more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive
development.
