Reading :: L.S. Vygotsky’s Pedological Works. Volume 2.: The Problem of Age

 L.S. Vygotsky’s Pedological Works. Volume 2.: The Problem of Age

by L.S. Vygotsky (Author), David Kellogg (Translator), Nikolai Veresov (Translator) 

In contrast to Volume 1 in this series, Volume 2 does not read like a lecture series, although that is what it was meant to be, according to the translators: 

The lectures in the first volume Foundations of Pedology were uniformly short, orderly, and complete. Although The Problem of Age is supposed to be a companion course, following on from the foundations, Vygotsky’s lectures and notes are often long, frequently discursive, and yet almost always still incomplete in some excruciatingly crucial way. (Kellogg & Veresov, p.xviii)

The problem of age is not precisely defined here — it’s sort of talked around, by both the translators and Vygotsky — but boils down to questions around chronological and developmental age. Do children develop in predictable stages? Yes. Do these stages happen chronologically, with each child hitting milestones at the same time? No. Can we assess “the real level of development attained by the child” (p.50)? Yes, and it must be done relationally, Vygotsky argues:

The real level of development of the child is defined as plus or minus the difference between his passport age and the standard of the population of children of his age, corresponding to the level of development which is set for a child with the help of pedological research. (Vygotsky, p.53)

As in Volume 1, Volume 2 features an outline and discussion of each chapter by the translators, followed by Vygotsky’s chapter. The early chapters cover the concept of pedological age, age periodization, structure and dynamics of age, and diagnostics of development. Then we get to alternating crises and ages: the crisis of birth; the age of infancy; the crisis of the first year of life; etc. Vygotsky’s chapters end with school age, thinking in school age, and the negative phase of the transitional age, i.e., the crisis at age 13. 

At the end, Veresov and Kellogg offer some concluding remarks, connecting the chapters to broader scholarship on Vygotsky and contextual information about the USSR during the time he wrote these chapters. For instance, they insightfully consider how Vygotsky’s clinical work drew on other theories such as Freudianism and why. They also consider what it might mean to put the Vygotskian idea of periodization into practice today. They conclude that Vygotsky’s chapters

offered little more than a tantalizingly distinct but ultimately unattained end. Surely we are now in a better position to appreciate how very promising that little bit more that Vygotsky offered us toward that end was; surely, we are now in a worse position to reconcile ourselves to the excruciating frustration of not attaining it. (p.327)

And I think that is a good place to leave it. Vygotsky’s thoughts on the problem of age are well worth considering, but they are also unfinished. Kellogg and Veresov do a fine job of contextualizing, outlining, and critiquing these ideas while finding promise for developing them. If you’re interested in these aspects, definitely pick up this book. 

Reading :: L. S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works: Volume 1. Foundations of Pedology

L. S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works: Volume 1. Foundations of Pedology

by L. S. Vygotsky (Author), David Kellogg (Translator), Nikolai Veresov (Translator) 

I was able to access this and the other volumes in this series via UT’s library. As the translators — who are also well-known scholars of Vygotsky — explain,

The slim volume of written speech you now hold in your hand contains seven lectures given by the Soviet teacher and researcher L. S. Vygotsky in the very last year and a half of his life. These lectures constitute the material for Foundations of Pedology, a course taught to in-service and preservice teachers at the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad from 1932 until Vygotsky’s death on 11 June 1934. Shortly thereafter the lectures were made available to the students as mimeos by the dean, S.Z. Kazenbogen, who was then arrested as a“Trotskyite” and subsequently shot. (p.iv)

Pedology was understood to be the interdisciplinary study of the child, and Vygotsky was considered a leader in pedology. Unfortunately, pedology was questioned on ideological grounds in the mid-1930s, and in 1936, it was banned as a field of study in the USSR, and criticisms of its figures were invited. These came, especially criticisms of Vygotsky and his circle. (For some of this history, including the pedology decree, see these readings; for a 1950s Soviet retrospective of pedology and its problems, see this symposium; and for my own retrospective on how these events impacted the later uptake of Vygotsky, see my recent book.) 

In any case, Kellogg and Veresov do us the great service of offering not only the text of each lecture, but also their introduction characterizing them as a whole, as well as their outline and commentary on each lecture. 

In these lectures, Vygotsky sounds some familiar themes. He discusses the question of method; the nature of units of analysis, and two units (perezhivanie and word meaning); children’s development as related to the environment; internal and external speech; the problem of age (i.e., the relationship between mental and chronological age); and (in Lecture 7) how functions are transferred from lower nervous centers to higher ones — all questions that have been discussed in his other published works, but taken up here in a lecture series focused on the child. But he also discusses how the endocrine and nervous systems interrelate as part of the child’s mental development (Lecture 6). Lectures 6 and 7 are clearly influenced by Vygotsky’s late decision to enroll in a medical program along with Luria, and part of what I really liked about reading these lectures was seeing how Vygotsky was continually bringing his latest research into his lectures.

On the other hand, the fact that I’m familiar with his other works means that I didn’t see many surprises here. I haven’t discussed these lectures in detail because they are mainly retreads of things I have already reviewed. I think that those who have read Vygotsky’s major works will not find any surprises here. 

Veresov and Kellogg wrap up with a concluding chapter that considers how pedology might be brought back and developed. They offer three questions:

First, if pedology is neither an elemental science like psychology nor a technological application like education, how does it work in practice and how does this practice rebound on its theory? Secondly (and relatedly), what happens when development goes awry—how many developmental problems may be dealt with within a science of development and how many should be referred to neighbouring sciences such as psychiatry or neurology? Thirdly (and again relatedly), since ontogenesis, if not exactly inversely related, does seem to be linked in some way to pathogenesis, can normal development too be diagnosed and “treated”? (p.143)

They answer these questions at length, drawing on their deep knowledge of both Vygotsky and the USSR of his time. 

Overall, this should be a highly interesting volume for those who are interested in Vygotsky’s thought, his pedagogical orientation, and pedology as an interdisciplinary field. The translators do a great job of contextualizing the work and referring to other of Vygotsky’s works. If that interests you, definitely check it out.