Vygotsky,education and culture in action / Vygotski,la educación y la cultura en acción

Abstract

After a short biography in which he points out his initial encounter with cultural stereotypes as a Puerto Rican immigrant in the US (which he describes as a ‘false model’), the author remembers his first works as an educational researcher, characterized by the need to account for diversity and cultural differences in a much more nuanced way than was customary at the time. This need led him to the work of Michael Cole and, through him, to the writings of Vygotsky and Luria. The author then summarizes some of Vygotsky’s main ideas, especially the concept of mediation, and the impact of cultural-historical psychology’s methods and theories in educational and psychological research, particularly the need to move away from the normative model present in the aforementioned stereotypical conception of ‘culture’. By describing his research on bilingual literacy in Mexican families from Tucson, Arizona, the author presents the concept of funds of knowledge, which combines ethnographic methodology with Vygotsky’s educational and psychological theories.