Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T23:09:39.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Symbolic Tools and Mental Functions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Alex Kozulin
Affiliation:
Achva Academic College, Israel
Get access

Summary

The interaction of human beings with their environments is rarely direct; behind each one of the direct interactions usually stands a previously mediated interaction. The environment of young children is rather tightly controlled by adults who select, amplify, and interpret different features of this environment for children. As children grow up their understanding of the world becomes more and more mediated by symbolic tools: texts, pictures, diagrams, and formulae. These tools in their turn are acquired via different structured activities: games, formal learning, work apprenticeships, and so on. Greater attention to mediated interactions helps us to understand how a brain becomes a “human mind” in the sense of being shaped by interactions specific to human society in all their various historical and cultural forms.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cultural Mind
The Sociocultural Theory of Learning
, pp. 45 - 71
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×