INTRODUCTION

One of Vygotsky's (1998) many contributions to theorising learning and development centred on the view that child development should be ‘a single process of self-development’ (p. 189): he articulated a theory that focused on a holistic model of development that included the dialectical relations between psychological, biological and cultural dimensions as noted through motives, cognition and the social situation of development. Vygotsky presents a revolutionary view of child development in Child Psychology, the fifth volume of his collected works, and although his theory requires further interpretation (see Kravtsova, 2005; Veresov, 2006), it represents a conceptualisation that has inspired many to research and theorise in new ways (Karpov, 2005). Karpov (2005) states that ‘Unfortunately, he [Vygotsky] presented this model in an abbreviated and schematic fashion, which makes it difficult to understand’ (p. 41).

In order to understand the complexity of Vygotsky's theory of child development it is important to go beyond isolating and explaining single concepts – such as the zone of proximal development – as this approach gives a limited reading of his theory. Karpov (2005) states that