Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change

Adolfo Tanzi Neto is head of the Department of Anglo-Germanic Languages, College of Languages and Arts, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He is a researcher in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics (PIPGLA-UFRJ) and leader of the Nucleus for Studies and Research of Vygotsky School in Applied Linguistics (NUVYLA/CNPq). His research interests are in the fields of discourse and social practices as for human constitution and development, in the dimensions of cognition, semiotics, symbolic, and aesthetic sense. His interests are related to social activism, linguistic mobility, social change/justice, identity and agency based on critical and dialectical epistemologies of the Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory. Fernanda Liberali is a teacher educator, researcher and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the English Department, in the Program of Graduate Studies in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies and in the Graduate Program in Education: Education of Educators. She is one of the leaders of the Research Group / CNPq / PUC-SP Language in Activity in the School Context and an advisor to CNPq and FAPESP. Within the framework of Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory, her main research interests are related to teacher education, teaching-learning, multimodal argumentation, and multilingualism/bilingual education. Manolis Dafermos is an associate professor in the epistemology of psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Crete. His interests include cultural-historical psychology, critical psychology, the history of psychology, and methodological and epistemological issues in the social sciences. He is the author of Rethinking Cultural-Historical Theory: A Dialectical Perspective to Vygotsky (2018) in addition to being the author or co-author of papers and chapters in various journals and collective volumes focusing on dialectics and its significance for social research.

List of Figures and Tables – (Post)Critical Global Studies: A Note from the Series Editors – Adolfo Tanzi Neto/ Fernanda Liberali/Manolis Dafermos: Introduction – Manolis Dafermos: Reconstructing the Fundamental Ideas of Vygotsky’s Theory in the Contemporary Social and Scientific Context – Anna Stetsenko: Radical-Transformative Agency: Developing a Transformative Activist Stance on a Marxist-Vygotskyan Foundation – Fernanda Liberali: Building Agency for Social Change – Yrjö Engeström/Annalisa Sannino: Toward a Vygotskian Perspective on Transformative Agency for Social Change – Lois Holzman: Vygotsky on the Margins – Adolfo Tanzi Neto: Mediation in Neo-Vygotskian Terms: Rethinking School Mediated Practices from a Social Architectonic Perspective – Peter E. Jones: Vygotsky, Signs and Language: Critical Observations – Nikolai Veresov: Identity as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: The Dialectics of Belonging, Being and Becoming – Sueli Salles Fidalgo/Maria Cecília C. Magalhães: The Method in Vygotsky: Social Compensation to Achieve Higher Psychological Functions and Social Changes – Wanda Maria Junqueira de Aguiar/Maria Emiliana Lima Penteado/Raquel Antonio Alfredo: Totality, Historicity, Mediation and Contradiction: Essential Categories for the Analytic Movement in Research in Education – Bader Burihan Sawaia/Lavínia L. S. Magiolino/Daniele Nunes Henrique Silva: Imagination and Emotion as the Basis of Social Transformation – Gordana Jovanović: The Challenges of the Reception of Vygotsky’s Theory in View of Missing Revolutionary Changes – Michalis Kontopodis/Manolis Dafermos/Adolfo Tanzi Neto – Instead of an Epilogue. "We Are on Fire": Crisis as Turning Point, Vygotsky and Social Change – Contributors – Index.

“This book comes from three well-respected scholars who are seen by many internationally as part of the next wave of Vygotskian theorists. They have put together a book which has attracted contributions from some of the most outstanding theorists working on the dialectical relation between theory and practice within Vygotskian studies. The names of these contributors alone will ensure that the collection of chapters will be bought and read. But the book is doing more than bringing together ideas from thoughtful contributors to the field. It is asking us to pause and to consider where the field of Vygotsky-informed research is going. They note the need now to look forward and, as valuable as the archive work has been, we need to consider how some of the key concepts in Vygotsky’s Marxist psychology allow us to address current pressing problems. The contributions come from people who choose to work at the margins of different disciplines, including psychology and linguistics, making this an exciting collection where the potential for links between chapters is strong. In short it is a coherent collection, discussing how a theory that was developed to address the challenges of revolutionary Russia can now address some of the problems currently facing us both nationally and globally.”—Anne Edwards, Professor Emeritus, Department of Education, University of Oxford, England

“The book is organized by three well recognized authors within cultural-historical studies, who have invited other very well know scholars in the field as contributors. These authors have important international collaborations and have an active participation in international forums in the field. The focus of the book is very original and interesting, bringing to light a critical perspective on the social significance of Vygotsky’s theory and the conceptual shift toward social change in the examination of human development and learning processes in the contemporary Vygotskian studies. The discussion related to the relevance of Vygotsky for social change is a novelty of the book that is welcome in the international community of Vygotskian studies.”—Fernando González Rey (in memoriam), Full Professor of Psychology, University Center of Brasília; Senior Research Collaborator, Faculty of Education, University of Brasília, Brazil