A social and cultural vision of human development

Abstract

In recent years there has been a resurgence of vygotskian and sociocultural writing. This material has provided an unending sourse of information for those psychologists interested in a social and cultural explanation of psychological phenomena. This paper attempts to provide an instrument. For this reason, we are going to develop, while not being exhautive, those basic vygotskian and sociocultural ideas: a) the use of a genetic method of analysis, b) the social origins of individual psychological functions, c) the mediated nature of human activity and drawing on research by various different authors within this theoretical framework and d) the mediated action as a psychological unit of analysis. Finally, we develop briefly some aplication areas in relationship with these socio-cultural notions.