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中文This essay will compare and contrast the theories of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Urie Bronfenbrenner on human development during infancy. Piaget, who was arguably the most influential ‘contructivist’ theorist, proposed that there are four stages of development, which are distinctive from one another and involve certain cognitive operations. For the purpose of this study we will just be looking at the first 3 stages. Cognitive development involves ‘accommodation’ of existing thinking to new experiences and ‘assimmilation’ of these new experiences. (Smith et al, 393:2003) Lev Vygotsky, strongly supported the interaction with others and the importance of learning in a social context, and his ‘social constructivist theory’ is still very influential in today’s teaching and learning. Vygotsky believed that what he termed the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ which highlighted the child’s potential to learn could help the child progress to their potential with peer or adult guidance or support. (Vygotsky, 84-90: 1978). Bronfenbrenner suggests that the environment is highly influential in a child’s development. He proposes that there are three levels of ecological setting which effect development, the ‘microsystem’; the ‘mesosystem’ and the ‘exosystem’. (Bronfenbrenner, 3:1979).
Intellectual Development
There are several ways of examining cognitive development; one way is by looking at memory and methods of recall, Flavell et al. (1966) found that the children who used rehearsal in their memory recall experiments were able to recall more pictures than those who did not. Other methods used by children under 10 years old include organization of items into groups, but Moely et al. (1969) found that children older than this used this method most often. Another method of recall which was studied by Folley et al. 1993 is elaboration, whereby the child forms a mental image of tow or more items to be recalled by putting them together in a sentence. (Smith et al, 433:2003)
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Born in Switzerland, Piaget became interested in the study of human intelligence and the nature of knowledge, known as ‘epistemology’, after originally studying zoology. Piaget rejected the idea that knowledge is innate and proposed that cognitive ability alters with age and has four major stages, which involve cognitive ‘building blocks’ of intelligent behaviour, which he referred to as ‘schemas’. (Gross, 738-9:1992). The first of these stages occurs when the child is aged 0-2 years and is called the Sensori-motor stage. During this period the child’s responses are mainly reflexes involving sensory, i.e. using the senses (sight, hearing etc) or motor, using muscular movement (pulling, grabbing etc). This is the period prior to language, where the child learns by previous actions to adapt ‘schemas’ to new situations. Knowledge is being assimilated on a continuous basis so that it can be used in the future in new situations.
The next stage, which occurs when the child is aged 2 to 7 years, is referred to as ‘the pre-operational stage’. During this stage the child is unable to ‘…classify things in any kind of logical or systematic way’. (Gross, 745:1992). Piaget concluded that pre-operational children tend to still be egocentric and that play and practical experimentation forms a crucial part of their acquisition of knowledge. (Pollard, 122:1997). The pre-operational child is only capable of taking into account one element of a situation or one attribute of an object at a time. (Mussen et al, 231-232:1984). They are unable to recognise that some things remain the same despite their appearance. In other words they lack the ability to ‘conserve’ because they are only able to judge things by appearances. For example if there are 2 glasses of water, both exactly the same size and the liquid is then poured from 1 glass into a different shaped glass, the child is unable to recognize that the volume of water remains the same. (Piaget, 29:1990)
In the next stage of development, referred to as the concrete operational stage, when the child is aged 7 to 11 years, the child has the ability to decentre by taking into account more than one element of a situation simultaneously. Unlike the pre-operational child the child also has the ability to seriate and understand transitivity. (Mussen et al, 231-232:1984).
Linguistic Development
Between the ages of 2 and 4 years children develop the ability to arrange words and phrases in order to create well-formed sentences. They begin to learn how to construct and combine complex sentences, to formulate questions, use indexical words, use passive sentences, and negative sentence. Piaget believed that children were not capable of using pragmatics, i.e. applying linguistic knowledge in social situations, until the concrete operational stage, although more recent research has discovered that some children are able to use basic socialized speech as early as 2 years old. (Newcombe, 119:1996).
Crain summarises that Piaget categorized pre-operational children as being egocentric, animistic and morally heteronomous in their reasoning. Furthermore they have difficulty in classifying and lack the knowledge of conservation. (Crain, 131:2004)
Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky’s (1896-1934) most influential concept is that of the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD), which explains how the child learns with the help of adults or their peers. Vygotsky referred to the ZPD as the distance between the actual level of the individual’s problem solving ability and the potential level of development achievable through adult or peer support. (Jarvis et al, 37:2003).
Wallace quotes Vygotsky (1978) as showing powerful insight into how children learn, when he cites ‘language’ as a major tool for communication and learning. (Wallace, 10:2002). Vygotsky believed that we should look at a child’s potential rather than their achievements and that collaboration rather than total independence could raise and support a child’s learning to a higher level. The influential American psychologist Jerome Bruner (1986) called this method of learning ‘scaffolding’, which his colleagues referred to as:-
Vygotsky proposed that learning in a social context and interaction with others is the key to human development. (Pollard, 124:1997). The key to learning and development is interacting with other people and the environment. (Vygotsky, 113:1996). Thus the acquisition of knowledge and cognitive development is closely linked with society and Vygotsky stressed the importance of the environment, culture and social relations in the development of the child.
Urie Bronfenbrenner
Bronfenbrenner proposed that the key to child development is the ‘egological environment’, which he describes as a ‘…set of four nested structures, each inside the next…’ (Bronfenbrenner, 3:1979). The first is the ‘microsystem’, the immediate environment of the child, for example the home, classroom or local community. Here the child is influenced by peers, teachers, siblings and parents, amongst others and in turn he/she influences these people. Bronfenbrenner refers to this as ‘bi-directional influences’ Bronfenbrenner stressed the importance of interaction with a caring adult or adults in the child’s physical, intellectual, social and emotional development. He stressed the important on ongoing support and interactivity between a child and adult/s to ensure progression of this development. The child’s psychological growth is dependent on this interaction and this in turn enhances the child’s interaction and exploration of the environment, leading to further cognitive development. Furthermore, two way communications between the child and care-giver, teacher and other adults or peers further enhance development. (Bronfenbrenner, p3-9:1979)
This theory of interaction between the child and other adults in his/her development accentuates the importance of imitating and learning from others. It goes hand in hand with Vygotsky’s theory of the ZPD, which emphasises the importance of ‘scaffolding’ learning with the help of more able adults or peers. Learning from the environment and from observing others also backs up Piaget’s theory of learning through the building blocks he refers to as ‘schemas’, that is adapting new situations by using knowledge previously assimilated from achieving earlier goals. Each of Piaget’s stages involves learning from either interaction with other human beings of with the environment.
Bronfenbrenner stressed that everyday life is crucial in how a child develops. For example whether or not the parents work or not can have a knock on effect as to whether time is spent with the child reading on a one-to-one basis. (Ibid, p5). He emphasises that the child is influenced by his/her immediate surrounding ‘microsystem’, and their development is restricted to people or objects within this limited area. Initially the infant is only conscious of this ‘microsystem’, and as Piaget points out is limited in his/her awareness and ability to observe and see differences.
As the child becomes more aware of the extended environment ‘mesosystem’, which includes influences which connect to their immediate environment such as school, Sunday school, Play group etc, they are exposed to new influences which further effect development as the ‘microsystem’ and ‘mesosystem’ are linked. An example of this is how interaction at home with parents may effect how well the child performs at school. (Smith et al, 9:2003). The ‘exosystem’, which refers to the environment not directly linked to the child, but which affects the child nonetheless. This could be a parent’s workplace which might affect the child because he/she may have more or less contact with a parent as a result of their work.
Finally the macrosystem, which comprises of general laws, customs, cultural values, which in turn influence behaviour. How the parents of a child function within their given society can be enormously influential on a child’s development. This is born out by functionalists such as Talcott Parsons.
According to Talcott Parsons, our personalities are formed as a result of a continuing learning process. Parsons defined the human personality as having two distinctive determining factors: these were primary and secondary socialization. Primary socializing occurs in early childhood and involves the influence of the family, whereas secondary socialization occurs later when the influence of institutions such as school, and groups such as our peers begin to affect our lives. Parsons called this the internalization of society’s culture.
The child’s personality is moulded in terms of the central values of the culture to the point where they become a part of him or her. (Parsons (1959), cited in Haralambos and Holborn, 509:2000)
Parsons concluded that it was the influence of the family, which was the determining factor of personality. Groups can also be seen to have a great influence on the life of the individual. Most of us are a member of some sort of group and they contribute to our personal development by presenting us with physical, social, emotion and intellectual stimulus.
Behaviourists argue that human’s development is influenced by linking experience, thinking and behaviour. (Pollard, 119:1997). In its early stages social psychology, which is the scientific study of human behaviour in its social and cultural setting, was dominated by the theories of behaviourism. Psychologists such as Pavlov (1849-1936) conducted experiments to determine whether human behaviour is learned. He famously undertook experiments with dogs in which he was able to train them to salivate by means of a controlled stimulus. He did this by pairing a bell, which would not normally produce salivation with some food (unconditioned stimulus), which does normally produce salivation (unconditioned response). After a period of time the dogs started to produce saliva after only hearing the bell (conditioned stimulus). From this experiment Pavlov concluded that all behaviour is learned. (Gross, 167-8:1992)
Piaget, Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner have looked at human development from different perspectives. Piaget has shown that children develop in stages according to their age and their learning and development is restricted to certain cognitive abilities such as decentration, the ability to seriate and understand transivity. He points out that at an early age children are egocentric and unable to initially see and function beyond simple reflexes. Bronfenbrenner stresses the importance of a child’s environment as well as other adults upon development and points out that it is not just the child’s immediate environment but the culture and society as a whole which can have a major influence. Vygotsky’s agrees that social interaction is the key to learning and developing and that the ZPD holds the key to helping a child reach his/her full potential in learning new life skills.
