The transformative mind: Expanding vygotsky’s approach to development and education

i

The Transformative Mind

Th e book suggests a transition from relational worldview premised on the

sociopolitical ethos of adaptation toward transformative worldview premised

on the ethos of solidarity and equality. Expansively developing Vygotsky’s rev￾olutionary project, the transformative activist stance integrates insights from

a vast array of critical and sociocultural theories and pedagogies and moves

beyond their impasses to address the crisis of inequality. Th is captures the

dynamics of social transformation and agency in moving beyond theoretical

and sociopolitical canons of the status quo. Th e focus is on the nexus of people

co- creating history and society while being interactively co- created by their

own transformative agency. Positing development and mind as agentive con￾tributions to the “world- in- the- making” from an activist stance guided by a

sought- aft er future, this approach culminates in implications for research with

transformative agendas and a pedagogy of daring. Along the way, many key

conceptions of mind, development, and education are challenged and radically

reworked.

Anna Stetsenko is recognized for contributions to sociocultural and activity

theories around the world. Rooted in Vygotsky’s project, she has worked to

advance it across several decades and international contexts bringing in experi￾ences of teaching and researching in leading universities and research centers

in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Russia. She is widely

published in several languages . With her interdisciplinary expertise in psychol￾ogy, philosophy, and education in an international background, her writing

cuts across many fi elds and connects cutting- edge developments and insights

from a variety of frameworks.

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iii

Th e Transformative Mind

Expanding Vygotsky’s Approach to

Development and Education

Anna Stetsenko

Th e Graduate Center of Th e City University of New York

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One Liberty Plaza, New York, NY 10006, USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title:  www.cambridge.org/ 9780521865586

© Anna Stetsenko 2017

Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2017

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data

Name: Stetsenko, Anna, author.

Title: Th e transformative mind : expanding Vygotsky’s approach to

development and education / Anna Stetsenko.

Description: New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifi ers: LCCN 2016024243 | ISBN 9780521865586 (hardback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Vygotskiĭ, L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 1896–1934. |

Developmental psychology. | Critical theory. |

Education–Philosophy.

Classifi cation: LCC BF109.V95 S74 2016 | DDC 150.92–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024243

ISBN 978-0-521-86558-6 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URL s

for external or third- party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not

guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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v

No society has yet lived up to the principle that everybody matters …

Our defections are particularly scandalous, I think, because we began

with the proposition that we’re all created equal.

Kwame Anthony Appiah,  2015

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is

that we are powerful beyond measure … Actually, who are you not to

be? … Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

Nelson Mandela, 1994 (quoting Marianne Williamson)

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vii

vii

Contents

Acknowledgments page ix

Introduction: Setting the Stage. Th e Paradox of Continuity

versus Change 1

Part I

1 Charting the Agenda: From Adaptation to Transformation 23

2 Situating Th eory: Th e Charges and Challenges of Th eorizing

Activism 41

Part II

3 Vygotsky’s Project: Methodology as the Philosophy of Method 95

4 Vygotsky’s Project: Relational Ontology 115

5 Vygotsky’s Project: From Relational Ontology to

Transformative Worldview 156

Part III

6 Transformative Activist Stance: Ontology and Epistemology 171

7 Transformative Activist Stance: Agency 206

8 Transformative Activist Stance: Encountering the Future

through Commitment to Change 230

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Contents

viii

viii

Part IV

9 Th e Mind Th at Matters 265

10 Illustration: Memory and Anticipation of the Future 303

Part V

11 Implications for Education: Teaching- Learning and

Development as Activist Projects 325

Concluding Remarks: Toward Democracy and a Pedagogy

of Daring 367

Bibliography 373

Name Index 411

Subject Index 415

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ix

ix

Acknowledgments

Given the emphasis on transformative agency and mind as facets of collab￾orative projects that are individual and collective at once, it is more than fi t￾ting to begin with acknowledgments of contributions by many colleagues,

mentors, friends, and family members. Th e list is too long to mention each

and every person who has played a role in the work presented here because

it extended across several decades and encompassed several countries

and many institutions around the globe. First of all, my gratitude is to my

teachers from Vygotsky’s project who have provided invaluable lessons of

passion, commitment, and collaboration – especially Alexey A. Leontiev,

Piotr Y. Galperin, Bluma V. Zeigarnik, and Vassily V. Davydov. Th e teachers

from this generation of scholars, unmatched in their commitment to both

rigorous science and deep humanity provided those who knew them with

invaluable tools of being, knowing, and doing. Second, but no less impor￾tantly, my gratitude goes to my colleague, friend, interlocutor, addressee,

and critic Igor Arievitch. We had started this book as a joint project, which

was a natural inclination because we share so much in terms of our back￾ground, trajectory, and thinking. We later opted for splitting this project

into two parts in view of how large each of our respective contributions has

grown to be even though they remain compatible and complementary at

many levels. Yet Igor’s input is ever present in this book albeit that the ulti￾mate responsibility for it is mine. Th is came about through many amicable

and joyful dialogues even as these were coupled with unwavering confron￾tations and encounters because we disagree on almost as many points as we

share. My infi nite gratitude is to my parents, Ekaterina and Pavel Stetsenko,

who have lived through turmoils and struggles that very few people can

fathom and yet came to be an amazing inspiration, each in their own

unique way, not just to me but to so many people that listing their names

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Acknowledgments

x

x

would take more than the whole volume of this book. A surgeon- oncologist

and a physics professor who grew up in abject poverty (and, by western

standards, remained poor through their lives), they literally saved the lives

of and educated thousands of people across several generations and from

many parts of the world, and I can only hope to do justice in at least a very

modest way to their legacy, knowledge, courage, and wisdom. Including

the lesson they taught me that there is no such thing as “my” child or “my”

book or “my” anything that belongs to one person only. Th e sisterly support

from Oksana and Elena, who share the gift s of our parents and take them

to their own new heights, and from their ever- growing beautiful families

has been felt from across the borders and the oceans. My dear personal

friends, also from all over the world, many of whom are friends- colleagues,

you know who you are, your inspiration and friendship are forever with me.

My special thanks to those who saw the promise in what I was gradually

attempting to develop and provided much- needed support and encourage￾ment including, in many cases, even early in the process (here in no par￾ticular order): Alexey A. Leontiev, Vassily V. Davydov, Joachim Lompscher,

Urie Bronfenbrenner, Vera John- Steiner, Jerome Bruner, Alfred Lang,

Katherine Nelson, Ethel Tobach, Mariane Hedegaard, Eduardo Vianna,

Chik Collins, Peter Jones, Robert Rieber, James Lantolf, Arne Raiethel,

Bruce Dorval, William Cross Jr., Yehuda Elkana, Peter Sawchuk, Susan

Kirch, Marilyn Fleer, Mariolina Bartolini- Bussi, Ines Langemeyer, Gordon

Wells, Bonnie Nardi, Pedro Pedraza, Michalis Kontopodis, Bernd Fichtner,

Maria Benites, Alan Amory, Kenneth Tobin, Azwihangwisi Muthivhi,

Jack Martin, Jeff Sugarman, Cathrene Connery, Jennifer Vadeboncoeur,

Lisa Yamagata- Lynch, Jean Anyon, Ofelia Garcia, Michelle Fine, Geoff rey

Lautenbach, Victor Kaptelinin, Irina Verenikina, Ritva Engeström, Jytte

Bang, Sharada Gade, Kristiina Kumpulainen, Olga Bazhenova, Dmitry

Leontiev, Maisha Winn, Cathrine Hasse, Cristiano Mattos, and Katerina

Plakitsi. Many of you created zones of proximal development and spaces for

teaching- learning in truly collaborative and productive ways.

My thanks also to those who have left their marks, if even (in some cases)

we had only fl eeting interactions and my wish is for more dialogue and col￾laboration – Barbara Rogoff , James Wetsch, Michael Cole, Yrjö Engeström,

Lois Holzman, Vladislav Lektorsky, Harry Daniels, Jay Lemke, Lois Mol,

Kris Gutiérrez, Kai Hakkarainen, Dimitris Papadopoulos, Peter McLaren,

Anne- Nelly Perret- Clermont, Morten Nissen, Sunil Bhatia, Anne Edwards,

Karen Barad, Jean Lave, Dorothy Holland, Kenneth Gergen, Th omas Bidell,

Th omas Teo, Mikael Leiman, Wolff - Michael Roth, Annalisa Sannino, Sarah

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Acknowledgments xi

xi

Amsler, Alan Costall, Bernard Schneuwly, Manolis Dafermos, and Alex

Levant.

In addition, my many colleagues at the State Lomonosov University

and the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy in Moscow, the Max Planck

Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin, the University

of Bern, and now the City University of New  York, who I  worked with

together in the past and continue to work with now, oft en in such a close

proximity that it is hard to pause and connect at deeper levels, certainly

count in many ways.

And those in the younger generation of scholars and students who I had

the privilege to teach and learn from – in Moscow University, University

of Bern, New York University, and the City University of New York – you

have been and continue to be an incredible infl uence in my journeys and a

joyful challenge that motivates and inspires. Last but certainly not least, this

book is for my daughter Marusia who grew up in parallel with the writing

of it (and one could safely say, also under the pressures of this process) to be

an unwavering activist with a deep sense of solidarity and equality. You are

teaching me about passion for social justice and commitment to the future

in ways that only someone from your young generation, just entering the

world stage in joining its struggles and defi nitely not prepared to settle with

the status quo, ever could. You are making and will make an important con￾tribution and will realize the future you are seeking, together with others. 1

1 Note that many quotations from Vygotsky’s works have been compared with the origi￾nal texts (in Russian) and changes made in cases in which it was necessary to better

convey the meaning and correct mistranslations.

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1

1

Introduction: Setting the Stage.

Th e Paradox of Continuity versus Change

Th is book has been written with an acute sense of a radical change in the

many facets, expressions, and forms that it takes today – in the social dynam￾ics and political landscapes, in patterns of human development and educa￾tion, in social sciences and critical theories that endeavor to address, and

sometimes shape, these processes. For various reasons discussed through￾out this book, social change became the key theme in theorizing human

development and mind. Th is conceptual shift toward social change  – as

the central category and the leading premise of the evolving approach to

human development and mind – was a gradual process that necessitated

many changes, transformations, reconsiderations, revisions, and signifi cant

expansions in concepts and ideas along the way. As a result, writing has

turned into a process of exploration, inquiry, and discovery – rather than a

recording, or a re- presentation, of an already established and fi nalized posi￾tion. Th is was indeed a journey (to use a cliché), and a long one at that, of

exploring how social change is implicated in human development and what

picture results if change and transformation, and human agency in instigat￾ing and implementing them – rather than stability and fi nished orderliness

of the world in its status quo to which people passively adapt – are taken as

the guiding principles and foundational premises.

Th e process of writing, therefore, included many unexpected twists

and turns in ideas and argumentation arising every step of the way in the

changing dynamics of this project. Th ere are still many riddles that remain

unsolved and many aspects that demand more consideration  – and so

the most diffi cult task is to fi nd a moment to pause and let the journey’s

incomplete products congeal and become reifi ed in this book. Yet perhaps

no timing will ever be perfect because no journey of this kind is likely to

ever be completed, instead remaining forever in the making – unless it is

“done with” and left behind, as something that needs neither revision nor

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2 Th e Transformative Mind

2

continuation. Taking to heart Bakhtin’s words that “nothing conclusive has

yet taken place in the world … everything is still in the future and will

always be in the future” ( 1984 , p. 166), the resulting approach is off ered as

one of the steps, however incomplete, in a continuing endeavor of discov￾ering what can be , as an open- ended quest rather than a fi nal answer set

in stone.

Why the Mind?

Given the emphasis on change and transformation, the title of the book,

Th e Transformative Mind , came about quite naturally. Th is title admit￾tedly is somewhat narrow because the book is not exclusively about the

mind; instead, its focus is on the broader dynamics of human development

and social practices of which the mind is an integral part and an inherent

dimension. Yet the title is chosen to intentionally challenge those increas￾ingly powerful approaches that understand the mind in starkly internalist,

individualist, and reductionist terms – as a strictly individual possession

situated inside the brain of an isolated individual fl oating in a vacuum, or as

a computer- like device activated by cognitive or brain modules presumed

to be shaped in the course of evolution. Whereas many critical and socio￾cultural approaches have abandoned the topic of mind in a shift away from

anything that seems to appeal to isolated individuals, the belief here is that

it is important to stake a claim to this topic from a position that is explicitly

sociocultural, historical, relational- materialist, dynamic, situated, and dia￾lectical. Such a position is focused on social dynamics and cultural matri￾ces of collaborative practices in their historical, ceaseless unfolding through

time, yet without neglecting what is traditionally understood as the mind,

agency, and human subjectivity more broadly – the processes of thinking,

knowing, feeling, remembering, forming identity, making commitments,

and so on. Th at is, the strategy is to reclaim the mind – in conjunction with

agency and other expressions of human subjectivity – and expand a ter￾ritory for critical and sociocultural approaches to engage this notion and

related problematics in opening up the possibility to take up the dialectics

between the social and the individual, the external and the internal, the

person and the world, the mind and the shared communal practices.

Th ough there have been many books published with titles that employ

the same descriptive schema of “Th e X Mind” (cf. Zlatev, Racine, Sinha,

and Itkonen, 2008 ), the leading motivation in most of them, especially

in recent years, has been to look ever more deeply into what is presum￾ably the mind’s internal workings – the “depths” assumed to be contained

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