2 Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change Bringing Together Theory and Practice Adolfo Tanzi Neto, Fernanda Liberali and Manolis Dafermos, Editors Tanzi Neto, Liberali & Dafermos, Eds 2 (POST)CRITICAL GLOBAL STUDIES Contemporary thinkers and researchers from different parts of the world involved in achieving human development employ Vygotsky’s theory in order to deal with new social challenges arising in a global but deeply divided world (Santos, 2000; Souza e Santos, 2008; Martín-Baró, 1998) The chapters of this book shed light onto Vygotsky’s initial principles adding critical and social perspectives as a way of expanding his legacy to global contemporary needs such as a critical reflection from the perspective of social change, social dynamics and human development, ethical-political situations of action power, dialectic relationship of the human being with society, contradictions in an individual’s dramatic life events and awareness of the social environment to actively change the existing forms of life Adolfo Tanzi Neto is head of the Department of Anglo-Germanic Languages, College of Languages and Arts, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) He is a researcher in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics (PIPGLA-UFRJ) and leader of the Nucleus for Studies and Research of Vygotsky School in Applied Linguistics (NUVYLA/ CNPq) His research interests are in the fields of discourse and social practices as for human constitution and development, in the dimensions of cognition, semiotics, symbolic, and aesthetic sense His interests are related to social activism, linguistic mobility, social change/justice, identity and agency based on critical and dialectical epistemologies of the Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory Fernanda Liberali is a teacher educator, researcher and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the English Department, in the Program of Graduate Studies in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies and in the Graduate Program in Education: Education of Educators She is one of the leaders of the Research Group / CNPq / PUC-SP Language in Activity in the School Context and an advisor to CNPq and FAPESP Within the framework of Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory, her main research interests are related to teacher education, teaching-learning, multimodal argumentation, and multilingualism/bilingual education Manolis Dafermos is an associate professor in the epistemology of psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Crete His interests include culturalhistorical psychology, critical psychology, the history of psychology, and methodological and epistemological issues in the social sciences He is the author of Rethinking CulturalHistorical Theory: A Dialectical Perspective to Vygotsky (2018) in addition to being the author or co-author of papers and chapters in various journals and collective volumes focusing on dialectics and its significance for social research WWW PETERLANG COM ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change “This book comes from three well-respected scholars who are seen by many internationally as part of the next wave of Vygotskian theorists They have put together a book which has attracted contributions from some of the most outstanding theorists working on the dialectical relation between theory and practice within Vygotskian studies The names of these contributors alone will ensure that the collection of chapters will be bought and read But the book is doing more than bringing together ideas from thoughtful contributors to the field It is asking us to pause and to consider where the field of Vygotsky-informed research is going They note the need now to look forward and, as valuable as the archive work has been, we need to consider how some of the key concepts in Vygotsky’s Marxist psychology allow us to address current pressing problems The contributions come from people who choose to work at the margins of different disciplines, including psychology and linguistics, making this an exciting collection where the potential for links between chapters is strong In short it is a coherent collection, discussing how a theory that was developed to address the challenges of revolutionary Russia can now address some of the problems currently facing us both nationally and globally.” —Anne Edwards, Professor Emeritus, Department of Education, University of Oxford, England “Cultural-historical psychology offers strong conceptual and methodological tools to understand and promote social innovation and change, which are most needed in a fast-changing society Therefore, the book Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change: Bringing Together Theory and Practice is much appreciated by students, academic researchers and practitioners It gathers a range of talented colleagues and highly interesting ideas both at the theoretical and practical level I'm happy to recommend it to my colleagues, students and librarians.” —Laure Kloetzer, Assistant Professor, Institute of Psychology and Education, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland “The book is organized by three well recognized authors within cultural-historical studies, who have invited other very well know scholars in the field as contributors These authors have important international collaborations and have an active participation in international forums in the field The focus of the book is very original and interesting, bringing to light a critical perspective on the social significance of Vygotsky’s theory and the conceptual shift toward social change in the examination of human development and learning processes in the contemporary Vygotskian studies The discussion related to the relevance of Vygotsky for social change is a novelty of the book that is welcome in the international community of Vygotskian studies.” —Fernando González Rey (in memoriam), Full Professor of Psychology, University Center of Brasília; Senior Research Collaborator, Faculty of Education, University of Brasília, Brazil Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change (Post)Critical Global Studies Márcia Aparecida Amador Mascia, Silvia Grinberg and Michalis Kontopodis Series Editors Vol The (Post)Critical Global Studies series is part of the Peter Lang Regional Studies list Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production PETER LANG New York Bern Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change Bringing Together Theory and Practice Adolfo Tanzi Neto, Fernanda Liberali & Manolis Dafermos, Editors PETER LANG New York Bern Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tanzi Neto, Adolfo, editor | Liberali, Fernanda, editor | Dafermos, Manolis, editor Title: Revisiting Vygotsky for social change: bringing together theory and practice / edited by Adolfo Tanzi Neto, Fernanda Liberali and Manolis Dafermos Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2020 Series: (Post)critical global studies; vol | ISSN 2297-8534 Includes bibliographical references and index Identifiers: LCCN 2019028825 | ISBN 978-1-4331-7038-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-4331-7250-2 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-4331-7042-3 (ebook pdf) ISBN 978-1-4331-7043-0 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-7044-7 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Vygotsky, L S (Lev Semenovich), 1896–1934 | Social change Classification: LCC BF109.V95 R48 | DDC 155.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028825 DOI 10.3726/b16730 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources © 2020 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 80 Broad Street, 5th floor, New York, NY 10004 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited Printed in the United States of America It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation (Freire, 1997, p 6) A creature that is perfectly adapted to its environment, would not want anything, would not have anything to strive for, and, of course, would not be able to create anything Thus, creation is always based on lack of adaptation, which gives rise to needs, motives, and desires (Vygotsky, 2004, p 29) Contents List of Figures and Tables ixi (Post)Critical Global Studies: A Note from the Series Editors xi Introduction ADOLFO TANZI NETO, FERNANDA LIBERALI, AND MANOLIS DAFERMOS Reconstructing the Fundamental Ideas of Vygotsky’s Theory in the Contemporary Social and Scientific Context MANOLIS DAFERMOS 13 Radical-Transformative Agency: Developing a Transformative Activist Stance on a Marxist-Vygotskyan Foundation ANNA STETSENKO 31 Building Agency for Social Change FERNANDA LIBERALI Toward a Vygotskian Perspective on Transformative Agency for Social Change YRJÖ ENGESTRÖM AND ANNALISA SANNINO Vygotsky on the Margins LOIS HOLZMAN Mediation in Neo-Vygotskian Terms: Rethinking School Mediated Practices from a Social Architectonic Perspective ADOLFO TANZI NETO Vygotsky, Signs and Language: Critical Observations PETER E JONES 63 87 111 125 147 CONTENTS viii Identity as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: The Dialectics of Belonging, Being and Becoming NIKOLAI VERESOV 175 The Method in Vygotsky: Social Compensation to Achieve Higher Psychological Functions and Social Changes SUELI SALLES FIDALGO AND MARIA CECÍLIA C MAGALHÃES 193 10 Totality, Historicity, Mediation and Contradiction: Essential Categories for the Analytic Movement in Research in Education 213 WANDA MARIA JUNQUEIRA DE AGUIAR, MARIA EMILIANA LIMA PENTEADO, AND RAQUEL ANTONIO ALFREDO 11 Imagination and Emotion as the Basis of Social Transformation BADER BURIHAN SAWAIA, LAVÍNIA L S MAGIOLINO AND DANIELE NUNES HENRIQUE SILVA 12 The Challenges of the Reception of Vygotsky’s Theory in View of Missing Revolutionary Changes GORDANA JOVANOVIć Instead of an Epilogue “We Are on Fire”: Crisis as Turning Point, Vygotsky and Social Change MICHALIS KONTOPODIS, MANOLIS DAFERMOS, AND ADOLFO TANZI NETO 241 261 281 Contributors 287 Index 295 Figures and Tables Figures 4.1 Two key steps in the emergence of agency by double stimulation (after Vygotsky, 1997b) 4.2 The emergence of an agentive action as a mediational chain 4.3 Chain of actions distributed among the actors and levels of the hierarchy 6.1 School Social Architectonic of situated practices (Tanzi Neto, 2016, p 94) 8.1 Triangle of activity as a basic model of CHAT (Engeström, 1987, 1999) 9.1 Flexibility of instructions 9.2 Myths puzzle—working with dyslexic children 9.3 Task flexilibity dyslexic and disorthographic children 90 91 106 140 181 203 205 206 Tables 3.1 Participants whose speeches were discussed in the chapter 4.1 Frequency of use of the terms ‘knot’ and ‘knotworking’ in the Change Laboratory sessions (excluding use of the name of the project) 72 102 (Post-)Critical Global Studies: A Note from the Series Editors We are very pleased to introduce Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change: Bringing Together Theory and Practice, the second volume of the book series (Post-)Critical Global Studies Challenging and evocative, this edited volume pushes us to expand Vygotsky’s theories, and to consider new possibilities for interpreting and implementing his work in a wide variety of contexts This groundbreaking investigation on the reception and implementation of Vygotsky’s legacy across diverse international academic communities supports an important debate on the challenges of using his ideas in academic research This edited volume includes original contributions dealing with topics of relevance to Vygotskian pedagogies, psychologies, and epistemologies, addressing questions of how Vygotsky’s theories can successfully contribute to new possibilities for human development in a complex and troubled world This book expands Vygotsky’s work beyond the field of psychology, with chapters dedicated to bridging the gap between theory and practice: this is crucial at a time when global economic, political and social crises are challenging the neoliberal conception of human development that has dominated the 21st century We hope that this second thematically oriented volume of (Post )Critical Global Studies highlights the importance of exploring social issues by thinking through possibilities for human development in order to effect the local and global social change which is the focus of the series (Post )Critical Global Studies explores innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to emerging phenomena in the fields of urban, countryside and indigenous studies; human rights; social policy and social movements; intersectionality; media and technology; education; community organization; political economy; xii A NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITORS ecology; migration; and globalization It includes critical discussions of the geopolitics of knowledge The first two volumes are published in English; the book series welcomes publications in Spanish and Portuguese, too For further details, please visit our website: https://www.peterlang.com/view/serial/PCGS Márcia A Amador Mascia, Silvia Grinberg & Michalis Kontopodis Introduction ADOLFO TANZI NETO, FERNANDA LIBERALI, MANOLIS DAFERMOS AND Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory emerged in the first decades of 20th century in the USSR, with many important works written about the history of the development of his theory (Yaroshevsky, 1989; Kozulin, 1990; Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991; Veresov, 1999; González Rey, 2009; Dafermos, 2018) The “archival revolution” in Vygotskian studies has revealed new, unknown sides of Vygotsky’s legacy (Yasnitsky, 2010; Zavershneva, 2009; Zavershneva, 2010a; Zavershneva, 2010b; Zavershneva & Osipov, 2012; Van der Veer & Zavershneva, 2011) “Vygotsky’s second life” is connected with the widespread circulation and implementation of Vygotsky’s theory around the globe (Daniels, Cole, & Wertsch, 2007; Dafermos, 2016; Jovanović, 2015) Contemporary thinkers and researchers in the area of human development have employed Vygotsky’s theory in order to deal with new societal challenges arising in a deeply divided world (Santos, 2000; Souza e Santos, 2008; Martín-Baró, 1998) Various interpretive traditions of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory have been formulated worldwide by the contemporary thinkers and researchers, as a way of facing complex social and scientific problems, and an examination of how they have been constructed and reconstructed is of great importance In these contemporary times, there is a real social and scientific need to promote critical reflection on modes of understanding, implementing and further develop Vygotsky’s theory, whereby encouraging dialogue within the Vygotskian academia This book illustrates the existence of a multitude of interpretations and ways of implementing Vygotsky’s theory across countries and continents, in which the need to build a dialogical space between them has risen This book is a contribution of Neo-Vygotskyan researchers from different parts of the world all of whom are engaged in a dialogue about the past and future ADOLFO TANZI NETO ET AL development of Vygotsky’s theory Moreover, inspired by the Vygotskian idea of an “epistemology of the practice”, the contributors to this collective volume address the question of how Vygotsky’s theory of human development can be employed successfully in applied research and in practice in concrete contexts Another important challenge is linked with the expansion of Vygotsky’s extensive literature on psychology, in which it was historically created, to a vast array of other fields, including: educational studies (Hedegaard & Chaiklin, 2005; Van Oers, Waedekker, Elbers & Van der Veer, 2008; Magalhães & Fidalgo, 2010; Liberali, 2013), linguistic studies (Byrnes 2006; Jones 2014, 2016; Smagorinsky 2011), cognitive science (Falikman, 2014), the workplace (Engeström 2007; Holzman 2009), neuropsychology (Toomela, 2014; Kotik-Friedgut & Adrila, 2014), the theory of art (Bulgakowa 2014), sociology (Daniels 2012), etc This book discusses the transformative reconstruction of Vygotsky’s theory as a result of its expansion across a wide range of disciplines and fields, mediated through their theoretical traditions and practices, with a focus on the reception, reconstruction and implementation of Vygotsky’s theory in educational studies, applied linguistic studies and psychology Drawing on selected parts of Vygotskian literature to postulate and propose new insights on the author’s concepts, this book makes an original contribution by suggesting critical perspectives to better integrate Vygotsky’s extensive work into contemporary research on learning and human development Further, it is argued that Vygotsky’s project can hardly be adequately understood unless from the perspective of Vygotsky’s commitment to social justice This book proposes a shift toward the perspective of examining Vygotsky’s work through the lens of social change in theorizing human development and learning By expanding upon Vygotskina literature, this book offers a bridge between the cultural-historical theory with critical approaches to psychology, language and education The emergence and development of Vygotsky’s work was embedded within the radical social change in Russia and the USSR in the 1920s and early 1930s The social atmosphere of that dramatic and heroic time was reported by Alexander Luria, who said: “My entire generation was infused with the energy of revolutionary change-the liberating energy people feel when they are part of a society that is able to make tremendous progress in a very short time” (Luria 2010, p 17) Developing new theoretical and practical approaches to human development and education was crucial in order to Introduction deal with the huge societal and educational challenges arising during that historical period (Dafermos, 2018) Vygotsky’s work ‘relives’ in the contemporary world that is full of conflicts and contradictions There is an urgent need to recontextualize, expand and develop his theories, taking into account currently existing societal, environmental and educational challenges Naomi Klein (2007) coined the term “disaster capitalism” that refers to the instrumental use of financial crises, natural disasters, wars, coup d’état, etc by politicians and capitalistic forces to impose neoliberal economic policies such as privatization, profit maximalization and reduction of the role of the state Collective fear, shock and disorientation prevent resistance to neoliberal economic policies There is a real need to develop alternatives to these dominant politics in order “…to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable” (Klein, 2007, p 6) Due to the “cult of empiricism” (Toulmin & Leary, 1985) and the examination of psychological objects as natural and ahistorical (Danziger, 1999), the concept of social change has remained unknown for years in the field of psychology Mainstream psychology has become inflexible and unable to deal with real world dynamics and their complexity Several scholars argue that there is a crisis not only in psychology but more generally in the sciences and humanities (Jörg, 2011) Conceptualizing social conflicts and contradictions may be conceived as a way of looking beyond the current crisis in the sciences and open up the path towards a more dynamic, complex space of possibilities for social change, whereby reconceptualizing human development (Stetsenko, 2017; Wagoner, Moghaddam, & Valsiner, 2018; Dafermos, 2018) The concept of social change has been defined in diverse ways in different disciplines, theoretical traditions and contexts In sociology various theoretical traditions examining change have been formulated (Sztompka, 1993) Focusing on the examination of society in a constant state of equilibrium, a functionalist perspective failed to examine radical social change From an evolutionary perspective, social change is examined as a linear movement of society in direction from a simple to a more complex structure (de la Sablonnière, 2017) From a dialectical perspective, internal contradictions can be examined as the driving force of radical change and development (Ilyenkov, 2007) In stark contrast to functionalist and linear evolutionary approaches, Vygotsky’s work is based on a dialectical understanding of the contradictory nature of human development as a result of dramatic tensions, conflicts, and crises Moreover, Vygotsky’s project is internally connected with a dialectical ADOLFO TANZI NETO ET AL understanding of radical social (societal) change (Stetsenko, 2017; Dafermos, 2018) This book aims to shed light on this dialectical understanding of human development and radical social (societal) change as part of Vygotsky’s work and illuminate various ways to recontextulize and futher develop it through different representatives of contemporary Vygotskian Academia Additionally, this book offers a new standpoint regarding how Vygotsky’s theoretical perspectives can still be redesigned to address current issues such as increasing social inequalities, economic crises and environmental degradation, just to name a few This book offers the opportunity to discuss, within the Vygotskian academia, a series of important matters such as human subjectivity, transformative agency, identity, mediation, historicity, contradictions, political power, social change, amongst others On these grounds, the reader will get acquainted with the diverse landscape of the contemporary Vygotskian Academia and the dialogue between the different points of view of its representatives This book aims to clarify concerns, detect blind spots, redefine research agendas and bring together theory and practice through a reflection on inequality and social change *** This volume opens with the chapter “Reconstructing the Fundamental Ideas of Vygotsky’s Theory in the Contemporary Social and Scientific Context” by Manolis Dafermos This chapter discusses several challenges connected with the spread of Vygotsky’s theory throughout many countries and continents as well as across various disciplines It is argued that it is important to consider essential changes that a theory undergoes as a result of its movement from one environment to another Moreover, it is argued that the multiple attempts to implement Vygotsky’s theory in multidisciplinary domains has revealed its possibilities and limitations The author proposes that by going beyond the present state of affairs through a reflection of the past and anticipation of what doesn’t exist may open new perspectives in understanding and further developing Vygotsky’s theory Imagining the future is examined as a powerful force for social change The second chapter “Radical-transformative Agency: Developing a Transformative Activist Stance on a Marxist-Vygotskyan Foundation” by Anna Stetsenko argues that Marxism and Vygotsky’s approaches are predicated on the ontological centrality of material social practices realized through Introduction collective human activities This chapter discusses the significance of agency, imagination, and social transformation for human development Its proposal integrates agency into this onto-epistemological conception that is profoundly material and social through and through, yet allows for integrating what are seemingly fleeting and putatively ephemeral dimensions of human subjectivity The transformative worldview and its onto-epistemology as elaborated in the transformative activist stance has been construed specifically as a conceptual frame in which human agency can find its due place without sacrificing any of the non-dualist, dialectical, and materialist premises of focusing on material social practices that are always more than material The third chapter “Building Agency for Social Change” by Fernanda Liberali examines the concepts of perezhivanie, agency and mobility and their interconnection from a postmodern perspective It draws upon the concept of mobility (Blommaert, 2010) in order to understand agency seen as constructed through the type of perezhivanie subjects go through According to Blommaert (2014), mobility involves both using the experiences of a spatial-temporal context and understanding that different resources project values according to space-time, interlocutors and political and ethical situations The idea suggested here is that understanding, developing awareness and using multimodal resources construct repertoires which create new possible agencies That is, the possibility to break away from a given frame of action and to take the initiative to transform it (Virkkunen, 2006a, 2006b) This process is believed to be constructed in dramatic events and refracted by each subject in perezhivanie, as suggested by Vygotsky The fourth chapter “Toward a Vygotskian Perspective on Transformative Agency for Social Agency” by Yrjö Engeström and Annalisa Sannino focuses on Vygotsky’s concept of agency and its relation to Marx’s understanding of practical-critical activity Drawing on Marx and the dialectical tradition, the authors emphasize the human potential of transforming conditions and forms of collective life From this perspective, agency is manifested when people form intentions and execute willful actions that go beyond and transform the accepted routines and given conditions of the activity and organization in which they are involved The formation of transformative agency in organizations is examined on the basis of Vygotsky’s theorizing of will and willful action The fifth chapter “Vygotsky on the Margins” by Lois Holzman discusses social therapeutics, an approach to human development that examines people as creators of their lives, as formulated under the influence of Vygotsky’s ideas (1971, 1978, 1987, 1993, 1997) This approach emerged forty years ago ADOLFO TANZI NETO ET AL and today it has been recognized in education, in the social sciences and the humanities It has been employed in the global, cross-disciplinary “community education” project that supports the development of people and communities through their own continuous development More concretely, this project support people to become aware of their social environment, actively change the existing forms of life that stifle their development and create new forms of life The sixth chapter “Mediation in Neo-Vygotskian Terms: Rethinking School Mediated Practices from a Social Architectonic Perspective” by Adolfo Tanzi Neto discusses Vygotsky’s concept of mediation [oposredovanie], in its etymological sense (means and resources) from the principle of the use of tools and signs (Wertsch, 1985; Meshcherikov, 2007; Daniels, 2008, 2015; Engeström, 2001; Shotter, 1993) The chapter outlines the principles of the concept of mediation presented in the work of Vygotsky and the expansions of neovygotskian researchers together with the contribution of Bakhtin’s work on architectonic forms seeking to bring reflections to different fields of research such as language and semiotics, and their implications in the field of education This theoretical discussion has as a fundamental objective to justify the need to understand systems of signs and tools from a social architectonic perspective that is filled with mediating artifacts, pedagogical practices and orientations of verbal-visual productions that direct and influence the mind and behavior of all school participants The seventh chapter “Vygotsky, Signs and Language: Critical Observations” by Peter E Jones challenges the mainstream functionalist understanding of communication as an information transmission system It proposes that communication can be conceptualized as a purposeful and intelligent socially organized action which must be co-operatively designed and performed by actively contributing individuals It suggests that an actional-integrative perspective on communication and sign-making can enrich our understanding of the discursive dimensions of social change The eighth chapter “Identity as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: The Dialectics of Belonging, Being and Becoming” by Nikolai Veresov focuses specifically on a critical overview of two theoretical approaches (CHAT and the cultural-historical theory) to human identity as a socio-cultural phenomenon The first section of this chapter presents an outline of key challenges in these theories and suggestions for improvements related to studies of identity The second section discusses a cultural-historical perspective of looking at identity within sociocultural contexts and environments through the dialectics of belonging, being and becoming It explores the concept of Introduction contradictions in an individual’s dramatic life events as an important component of the dialectic process of identity development It then examines the principle of mediation as reflecting the dialectics of being and becoming and, finally, it introduces perezhivanie as a conceptual analytical tool which orients the empirical research of identity Developing a dialectical account of belong, being and becoming becomes a challenging task in a rapidly changing world, full of contradictions The ninth chapter “The Method in Vygotsky: Social Compensation to Achieve Higher Psychological Functions and Social Changes” by Sueli Salles Fidalgo and Cecília C Magalhães focus on Vygotsky’s (1993) theoretical-methodological discussions on the human development of children with specific educational needs (SEN) in school contexts in order to create a flexible environment that might provide alternative paths and channels of development that these children may not have experienced before For Vygotsky, the development of higher forms of behavior is the key for the development of all children, and that is achieved under the influence of necessity, and the organization of collaborative relationships that might provide the possibility for affective and cognitive dialectical relations (Vygotsky, 1993) The authors chose to use flexibilization instead of adaptation to avoid a focus on what is currently known in Brazilian law and public policies (the context of these particular authors) as: (1) the need for the child to adapt to the school environment and (2) the need for the school to adapt its space so as to become more accessible, which may provide a means for the child to become integrated to the school, but not necessarily included in the school, that is, the child is there, but is not necessarily learning anything or developing Going beyond the mainstream concept of adaptation and one-dimensional environmental determinism, a cultural-historical perspective on human development reveals the complex, changing, developing relations between children and their social environment The next chapter “Totality, Historicity, Mediation and Contradiction: Essential Categories for the Analytic Movement in Educational Research” by Wanda Maria Junqueira de Aguiar, Maria Emiliana Lima Penteado, and Raquel Antonio Alfredo emphasizes the contributions of Vygotsky with regard to research method in analyzing educational processes The authors highlight the following categories of dialectical historical materialism: totality, historicity, contradiction and mediation By affirming them as essential in their theoretical-methodological propositions, they emphasize the defense of psychology as a science that explains the multiple determinations of the dialectic relationship of human beings with society The authors also acknowledge ADOLFO TANZI NETO ET AL these categories as resources constituting how people view reality, expanding the process of objectivation to new explanations about the object under study For this reason, they argue that categories not exist in isolation from each other because they are dialectically articulated and, in this way, they assume the reproduction of the concrete by means of thought Based on these assumptions, the authors present some examples for analysis, in which the goal is to express the dimensions of reality, which is always contradictory, historical and constituted by multiple determinations The eleventh chapter “Imagination and Emotion as the Basis of Social Transformation” by Bader Burihan Sawaia, Lavínia L S Magiolino and Daniele Nunes Henrique Silva reflects the nuances of affection—emotion, feeling and passion—and its variation in ethical-political action power, addressing Vygotsky’s theory of emotions and Spinoza’s philosophical theory of affections Affection is a broad category in Spinoza’s philosophy, which distinguishes between the force for existence (emotion) and existential passivity (passion), simultaneously experienced by our bodies and minds in the encounters we share Vygotsky translates these concepts into psychology, developing a theory based on the nexus between emotions and other psychological functions and their role of action orientation Underlying the apparent terminological indifferentiation in their works, both thinkers point out that variations occur in the affective field and explain that they not derive from the relation to the physiological or representational levels, whereby incurring the Cartesian error of the mind/body dichotomy Such reflection helps us better understand political issues, such as the one highlighted by Spinoza regarding how we can know the best, but choose the worst From this analysis, it is concluded that the ethical-political suffering category to indicate affections is connected to oppression and inequality, which are crystallized in sad feelings that weaken the action power in the form of fatalism and violent behavior due to the continuous socially sustained affection The chapter “The Challenges of the Reception of Vygotsky’s Theory in View of Missing Revolutionary Changes” by Gordana Jovanović assesses the previous chapters, their choice of topics within Vygotsky’s theory considered relevant for contemporary psychological theorizing and the application of Vygotskyan approach in different fields Gordana Jovanović identifies several aspects of Vygotsky’s theory which are missing in contemporary Vygotskyan scholarship and examines possible reasons for that Finally, it is discussed whether a wholly developed new Vygotskyan psychology is possible without development of a new societal order, which would be grounded in the principle of cooperation instead of competition 9 Introduction The edited volume comes to an end with a critical reflection on the significance of revisiting Vygotsky’s theory in the context of today’s broader and multi-faced crisis The term “crisis” indicates a time of intense difficulty; yet it also entails the potential of overcoming such difficulty through inventing new ways of being and acting in the world For this to happen entering in dialogue with the future is crucial Echoing the various contributions to this volume, the authors revisit Vygotsky’s project as a future-oriented project of collaborative transformation in this frame References Blommaert, J (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Blommaert, J (2014) From mobility to complexity in sociolinguistic theory and method Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, paper 103 Retrieved from https:// www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/5ff19e97-9abc-45d0-8773-d2d8b0a9b0f8_ TPCS_103_Blommaert.pdf Bulgakowa, O (2014) From expressive movement to the ‘basic problem’ The Vygotsky-Luria-Eisensteinian theory of art In A Yasnitsky, R Van der Veer, & M Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cultural-Historical Psychology (pp 423–448) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Byrnes, H (Ed.) (2006) Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky London: Continuum Dafermos, M (2016) Critical reflection on the reception of Vygotsky’s theory in the international academic communities Cultural-Historical Psychology, 12 (3), 27–46 Dafermos, M (2018) Rethinking Cultural-Historical Theory A Dialectical Perspective to Vygotsky Singapore: Springer Daniels, H (2008) Vygotsky and Research London: Routledge Daniels, H (Ed.) (2012) Vygotsky and Sociology London: Routledge Daniels, H (2015) Mediation: An expansion of socio-cultural gaze History of the Human Sciences, 28 (2), 34–50 Daniels, H., Cole, M., & Wertsch, J (2007) Editors’ Introduction In H Daniels, M Cole, & J Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky (pp 1–20) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Danziger, K (1999) Natural kinds, human kinds, and historicity In W Maiers et al (Eds.), Challenges to Theoretical Psychology (pp 78–83) Toronto: Captus Press de la Sablonnière, R (2017) Toward a psychology of social change: A typology of social change Front Psychol., (397), doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00397 ... understand and promote social innovation and change, which are most needed in a fast-changing society Therefore, the book Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change: Bringing Together Theory and Practice. .. Liberali, Fernanda, editor | Dafermos, Manolis, editor Title: Revisiting Vygotsky for social change: bringing together theory and practice / edited by Adolfo Tanzi Neto, Fernanda Liberali and Manolis... reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production PETER LANG New York Bern Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change Bringing Together