To what extent is Vygotsky's theory of education relevant to the UK contemporary education system?

Abstract or Introduction

Vygotsky, an eminent theorist, compiled numerous researches which concerned education, but the principal notion of his work was that social interaction is fundamental to cognitive development. He argued that if language and interaction are absent from classrooms, then learning may not occur.

His idea was that close interaction between teacher and student would result in cognitive enhancement of the student and that the effect of this would be exacerbated if pupils were in smaller groups. This coincides with some current views on class size. An authoritative report conducted by DfE (2011), which disseminated class sizes in the UK, found that in smaller classes pupils did better (typically those at private schools), due to the more individual attention dedicated to them by the teacher. This infers that social interaction is conducive to learning, although the report cited other factors such as socio-economic background and culture as influencing educational attainment.

This seems to be a criticism of Vygotsky’s work in its relevance with the contemporary education system, that it concentrates too heavily on the social aspect of learning and disregards other factors. There may be other things which contribute to academic attainment which Vygotsky disregards. However, one key facet of his work: scaffolding, where the teacher or another adult provides support to a child to complete a task, seems to be fairly relevant to the current UK education system. Vygotsky (1978) thought that the support would be more effective if it coincided with the learning style of the child, which seems to concur with the multi-sensory approaches which exist presently in some subjects in the UK curriculum.