7 - Developmental education

Summary

The notion of "developmental education" or the image of "education that leads development", as any other notion, has discriminative power only until it allows us to see something that otherwise would remain unnoticed. This chapter explores the levels of micro- and macro-analysis of the interrelation between learning, instruction, and development and interprets the development (of higher psychological functions) with the help of a conceptual toolkit of cultural-historical theory as simultaneous transition. It provides macro-analysis of developmental education on the scale of the system of education and discusses the types of interaction or pedagogical facilitation that every educational system uses in order to provoke and support children's independence in mastering and using various cultural tools. The type of interaction that is predominant in each specific system of education determines its developmental affordances and its limitations at the same time.