Outline Summarizing Coffee Hour Discussions

On Vygotsky’s The Development of Imagina2on and Crea2vity in Childhood

Prepared by Francine Smolucha June 8, 2022

(ZOOM sessions March – June 2022) hJp://xlchc-redux.ucsd.edu/

9. From Chapter 4 Vygotsky’s The Development of Imagina2on and Crea2vity in Childhood (1928/1930) A. TranslaWon of творчество

1. English translaWon as ‘creaWvity’ originated in Alexander Luria’s bibliography

of Vygotsky’s wriWngs in Mind in Society (1978, p. 146)

2. French translaWon as ‘creaWve acWvity’ (Leopoldsdorf-MarWn & Schneuwly, 2018)

2. ReproducWve ImaginaWon (memory) in contrast to Combinatory ImaginaWon (creaWve imaginaWon)

3. Ribot’s diagram of the development of imaginaWon and raWonal thinking (1901)

4. ImaginaWon and Reality

5. ImaginaWon, Pretend Play, and CreaWvity

6. The development of imaginaWon as a higher psychological funcWon.

II. Metaphors for the relaWonship between ImaginaWon and Reality

1. Loops (ZiJoun, 2016)

2. ZigZag (Schneuwly,  date?)

C. Gaps/Triangle(EWenne Pelaprat & Michael Cole, 2011)

III. Developmental Metaphors for ImaginaWon and RaWonal Thinking

1. Ascending Spiral (Heinz Werner, 1962?)

2. Law of Spirality (Ilynekov in Peter Jones paper, date?)

IV. Origins of ImaginaWon

1. PrelinguisWc sensorymotor (ChrisWane Moro, 2022)

2. Social origins when the prelinguisWc infant interacts with caregivers (Smolucha&Smolucha, 2021).

1. finger games such as creepy crawly (beginning of object subsWtuWon in pretend play)

2. peek-a- boo

C. Chronological development of imaginaWon and other higher mental funcWons (Peter Feigenbaum)

V. The different uses of imaginaWon in the various papers we discussed

1. ImaginaWon in daydreaming/mind wandering (ZiJoun, 2016)

2. The role of imaginaWon in percepWon and meaning making (EWenne Pelaprat & Michael Cole, 2011)

3.        The role of imaginaWon in play worlds

1. menWoned by Beth Ferholt as Gunillar Linquists’ preschool program Playworlds

2. also discussed in the new paper by Paul Harris (2022) Children’s Imagina2on

D. ImaginaWon as visual isomorphisms, metaphors, and object subsWtuWons  (Smoluchas’, 2021).

VI. Framing Theory

1. Gregory Bateson (1954) introduced framing of pretend play when observing monkeys communicaWng that ‘this is rough and tumble play not real fighWng’.

Becomes framing with the words “Let’s Pretend” in children’s play.

2. Erving Goffman (1976) popularized the study of the role of the ‘frames’ in interpersonal CommunicaWon. For example, “I am only kidding”.
3. Framing Theory has also been applied to the study of how ideologies are promoted by social

movements. ScienWfic theories can be viewed as ideologies that are in compeWWon.

The main theories related to Vygotsky’s wriWngs are the following:

1. Cultural Historical Psychology (see Veresov, 2020; Smolucha & Smolucha, 2021).

2. CHAT (introduced by Michael Cole?)

3. AcWvity Theory (derived from LeonWev)

4. Developmental Neuropsychology (derived from Luria)

5. The Swiss researchers do not consider their perspecWve AcWvity Theory

(because imaginaWon is considered a mental funcWon?) . Is there a name for their approach?

VII. Systems Theory

1. The social origins of the development of neuropsychological systems coordinaWng elementary and higher psychological funcWons.
2. The role of social systems in the development, and use, of higher psychological funcWons as coordinated neuropsychological systems. Consider Bronfenbrenner’s ecological

model and Csikszentmihalyi’s three levels (menWoned in Mike Cole’s paper Minding the Gap).