INTRODUCTION

This chapter begins with a discussion of the dominant assessment practices found in many Western early childhood learning communities, and shows how they are aligned to a dualistic conception of child development. It also seeks to elaborate a cultural–historical view of how to measure learning and development and introduces the concepts of potentive assessment and the assessable moment as examples of how to conceptualise development, learning and pedagogy together.

The second part of this chapter brings together the major themes introduced in this book – pedagogy, play, concept formation and child development. Through reuniting these concepts in this final chapter the significance of the concept of obshchenie for realising a dialectical conception of development and learning is shown, and through this to illustrate the importance of Vygotsky's conception of a single process of self-development, where one stitch (concept) in the fabric (conceptual system) can only ever be understood within the context of the whole tapestry that represents the child's life.

INTRODUCTION

Through theoretical analysis and experimental research, Vygotsky argued that conscious awareness of concepts is only realised within a system that is ‘based on specific relations of generality among concepts’ (Vygotsky, 1987a: 197, vol. 1). In refuting Piaget's work on spontaneous concept formation, he suggested that the child's lack of awareness of concepts was not as a result of egocentrism, but rather of experimentation framed to remove the systems in which everyday concepts are embedded. He suggested that only within a system can concepts acquire conscious awareness. In the previous chapters, it was shown how important children's everyday conceptual system was as they pretended to cook and administer medicine. The conceptual system is kept intact and promoted through a play-based program.

In the first two chapters the research lens was predominantly on the children's thinking as they played. The children's thinking was analysed in relation to how the play had been pedagogically framed (or not) by the teacher. Through this relational analysis it was possible to show the significance of the teacher's philosophy in affording (or not) sustained shared thinking within the everyday conceptual system that was at the children's disposal (cooking, administering medicine). However, it is not just the children's conceptual system that is of importance here. In a cultural–historical view of learning, we cannot ignore the teacher's pedagogical system: they are dialectically related to each other.

INTRODUCTION

Vygotsky's theory of play has been discussed and developed among scholars in Russia (Elkonin, 1999; Kravtsov & Kravtsova, 2009) and elsewhere (Berk, 1994; Berk & Winsler, 1995; Bodrova & Leong, 1998, 2001; Duncun & Tarulli, 2003; Gaskins, 1999, 2007; Gaskins & Göncü, 1992; Göncü, 1997, 1999; Holzman, 2009; Ugaste, 2005), which has resulted in distinctions in how play development is supported by teachers and enacted by children. Elkonin's theory of play, for instance, centres on role play, Kravtsova and Kravtsov's shows play with objects and roles within a periodisation framework. Other theories of play by Russian scholars are not reviewed here because their works have not yet been translated into English; however, an elaboration of Elkonin's and Kravtsova's theories of play provide excellent examples of contemporary cultural–historical theories of play used to support the play-based programs discussed in the previous chapter.

This chapter begins with a theoretical discussion of Elkonin's theory of play, is followed by the theory of play as outlined by Kravtsova and Kravstov, and concludes with a discussion of those who have argued against Vygotsky's theory of play.