Vygotsky, education, and teacher education

The work of Vygotsky is widely used in teacher education and other education-related literature, in discussion of sociocultural perspectives, and in relation to themes such as second language acquisition, the teaching of mathematics, and approaches to teaching and learning. Much of this work gives the impression that Vygotsky’s work is unproblematic. This paper challenges that view. It is argued that Vygotsky’s descriptions of learning and teaching draw on sociocultural themes but that the theoretical account he proposed to explain those descriptions is disputable. The possible implications for thinking about child development, learning, teaching, and teacher education are then considered.