Social Learning

Human Development and the Social Context

Learning and development occur in socially and culturally shaped contexts. During early human development, young children enter into a social dependency with their caregivers. As children participate in human activity, they learn from the experiences of others. Throughout the early development, there exists a predominance of the social interaction and interdependence with other individuals. Vygotsky referred to this interdependence as the “genetic law of development” through which socially shared activities are later transformed into internalized processes. For example, Barbara Rogoff describes how children involved with parents in agricultural and household work assumed increasing responsibility for their own learning and participation in joint activity. She characterized this process as guided participation. Developmental activities are the products of social and cultural practices belonging to the community to which the individual child has access.

In Vygotsky's theory of development, every mental function or task being learned goes through the process first in the social realm, while interacting with others, and later at the individual internal level. In the interpsychological plane, the individual learns in social interaction with others through the use of tools such as language and other symbolic systems. In the intrapsychological plane, the individual uses mental tools such as thoughts, which were created and shaped in the social and cultural contexts. So an individual may first learn a new task in the interpsychological plane working with others and then use that knowledge in the intrapsychological plane.

Social learning and development are culturally contextual, mediational, and best understood through genetic analysis within their historical development. This entry examines three important contributing factors that summarize Vygotsky's notions: (a) learning is a process best understood by genetic or developmental analysis, (b) learning has its origins in social interactions, and (c) learning is mediated by tools.

First, in social learning, the process or the origins of what is to be learned is central; that is, learning a particular task means examining the process of change or development of the thing being studied. Studying the process means discovering its nature or essence, which maximizes the experience and the opportunity to learn. The origins of the process and the continued development become what James Wertsch calls “the genetic matter” of the social conceptions of mind. The social conception of mind contrasts with the mind as individual. The socially conceived mind is not something solely residing in the individual for the individual's uses; it is a mind molded, developed, and used in a social plane.

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