Introduction
The two-volume monograph by V.V. Rubtsov "Socio-genetic psychology of educational interactions (selected articles, speeches, projects)" [Rubtsov, 2024] is a remarkable event not only for the Russian, but also for the world psychological and educational community. The importance of this enormous (each volume is more than 500 pages of text with appendices) and multi-faceted publication is that, in addition to the scientific acheivements of V.V. Rubtsov himself, it presents the works of various scientists and methodologists, carried out under the supervision of V.V. Rubtsov or in collaboration with V.V. Rubtsov over 50 years.
This work brings together the tradition of research in cultural-historical psychology and fundamental results in developmental education, forming a connection between the ideas of the founders of the cultural-historical school L.S. Vygotsky, A.R. Luria, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, P.I. Zinchenko, A.I. Zaporozhets, P.Ya. Galperin, M.I. Lisina with the works of V.V. Davydov and his school. It is the works of V.V. Davydov, which became a significant milestone in the development of psychology and activity-based educational practice, that form a zone of fundamentally new unresolved problems for both cultural-historical psychology and the activity-ybased approach in the works of V.V. Rubtsov, N.N. Nechaev, E.I. Isaev, A.A. Margolis, V.T. Kudryavtsev, V.K. Zaretsky, Yu.V. Gromyko. This integrative and assembling publication actually allows us to survey the gigantic field of modern research and new ideas put forward through the prism of V.V. Rubtsov’s own approach, the author of a new direction — sociogenetic psychology. The peculiarity of this approach consists in outlining the field of the most important question of genetic psychology and genetic epistemology (J. Piaget) — how thinking arisesin the conditions of changing collective interactions between a child and an adult, the children themselves, the student and the teacher, and the students themselves.
Once 40 years ago Vitaly V. Rubtsov said to his postgraduate student: "It seems that I have come across a huge mammoth during my initial research-excavations, I have discovered a huge field of completely new phenomena of the development of thinking in a student. Now the task is to dig up this mammoth and show it to everyone." This monograph actually allows us to understand what kind of «mammoth»V.V. Rubtsov discovered.
Our text is not simply a review of the published book, it is an attempt to assess the scale and main content of the ongoing program for the development of cultural-historical genetic psychology, presented in these volumes.
Results of the implementation of the research program of socio-genetic psychology of V.V. Rubtsov
The most important results of the implementation of the research program of socio-genetic psychology of V.V. Rubtsov can be summarized as follows.
- In the fundamental research of V.V. Rubtsov and his school [Rubtsov, 2024], it was shown that the process of forming a community of participants in collective interactions and the process of the emergence of thought form an interconnected whole, which becomes obvious when transforming the form of organization of joint action and identifying the subject of action.
- Operational-subject structures of thinking change in children through specially organized collective interactions in overcoming affective-cognitive conflicts in coordinating actions and building joint forms of action of children and adults, and the children themselves.
- Objective actions in a situation of interactions and thinking operations in a child are not identical to each other, they have different forms of construction (they are not isomorphic). The connection between them is ensured on the basis of special sign-symbolic means action diagrams, pictorial gestures, syllables endowed with meaning, "smart images" (V.V. Rubtsov [Rubtsov, 2024]), verbal expressions, emphatic intonations), which make it possible to correlate the relationships of the participants in the interaction and the constructed subject of joint action.
- The collective form of interactions between children organized by an adult and a teacher allows for the modeling of operational-subject structures of thinking in the system of relations between a child and an adult, and the children themselves, and also for transforming the identified subject-operational structures of thinking into a means of transforming social interactions into a tool for constructing a form of organizing joint action.
- In numerous experiments by V.V. Rubtsov and his school [Rubtsov, 2024; Rubtsov, 2020; Rubtsov, 2018], different types of collective interactions of children with each other and among themselves were identified (pre-cooperative, pseudo-cooperative, cooperative, meta-cooperative (A.V. Konokotin [Rubtsov, 2024]), characterizing different levels of children’s and educational groups’ ability to coordinate actions and restructure the form of organizing joint actions. The conditions for the transition from one level of collective interactions to another were identified.
- The types of collective interactions and the associated modes of action of the participants in these interactions are the basis of emerging communions in which conditions arise for their participants to trace the connection between the form of collective objective action and operational-objective structures of thinking, changing forms of social relations and the subject of joint action (N.N. Nechaev [Nechaev, 2020]).
- The most important role in organizing the processes of collective interactions, in which the transformation of the form of organization of joint action occurs, is played by the processes of mutual understanding (Yu.V. Gromyko), reflection (A.Z. Zak, I.M. Ulanovskaya), communication (N.N. Nechaev, A.V. Konokotin). When implementing these processes, the limitation of the existing form of joint action is revealed and the "space of new possibilities" (V.V. Rubtsov, B.D. Elkonin) is determined on the basis of the transformation of the form of organization of joint action.
- In numerous studies by V.V. Rubtsov and his school, different types of individual actions were identified in the transformation of the form of organization of joint action, characterized by the tendency and readiness of the participant in the interaction to rely to a greater extent on speech statements, pictorial gestures and messages ("speech-makers"), operational structures of subject action ("operationalists") and the organization of cooperative action ("organizers").
- It is precisely in the conditions of specially organized collective interactions that the processes of generating new images by children on the basis of the development of imagination (V.T. Kudryavtsev[Kudryavtsev, 2020]) and the processes of the emergence of new speech and symbolic means of expression on the basis of understanding and achieving mutual understanding through the formation of the meaning of joint action (Yu. V. Gromiko) are carried out. The genesis of thought and forms of community can be associated for participants in collective interactions with the genesis of image and speech.
- V.V. Rubtsov developed and repeatedly implemented a method of genetic-modeling experiment, allowing to trace the acquisition by participants of educational collective interactions of concepts, methods of generalization, methods of classification, structures of operational subject action during the transformation of the form of organization of joint action.
- The technological "secret" of the genetic modeling experiment in the works of V.V. Rubtsov is a specially developed symbolic construction, a sign-material objectivity, into which a child can be included so that he, independently orienting himself in the experimental situation, demonstrating situational perceptiveness in interactions with other children and an adult, carries out an action. And Vitaly Rubtsov repeatedly constructed such special objects (with R.Ya. Guzman, A.V. Korostelev, with Laura Martin, with A.V. Konokotin and others), which is the basis of his experimental method. The objectivity created and constructed by V.V. Rubtsov can be compared with the objectivity of other famous names in psychology — J. Bruner, J. Piaget, A.N. Perret-Clermont, N. Ach, L.S. Vygotsky, P.Ya. Galperin, V.V. Davydov. It is precisely the comparison of these constructed objects of action that allows us to obtain new results.
These fundamental studies by V.V. Rubtsov allowed him to substantiate and prove the advanced-revolutionary nature of the practice of developmental education by V.V. Davydov—D.B. Elkonin, and also to put forward a number of the most important provisions in the field of modern educational policy concerning the problems of developing the project of the Russian School of the Future (jointly with Yu.V. Gromiko, V.A. Guruzhapov, A.A. Margolis ), social policy in the interests of children to ensure a prosperous childhood, inclusive education of children with special needs, fundamental training of research psychologists, and digitalization of education.
Key provisions of V.V. Rubtsov's approach in the field of practice of development of Russian and world education
The most important provisions of V.V. Rubtsov’s approach in the field of practical development of Russian and world education are as follows.
- Numerous studies by V.V. Rubtsov and his school have shown that, on the basis of specially organized collectively distributed forms of educational activities of schoolchildren, when resolving conflict situations, collectively integrated methods of joint educational action arise, which ensure the mastery of the content of theoretical concepts of various academic subjects, constructed on the basis of V.V. Davydov's theory of substantive generalization, and also contribute to the formation of specific educational actions associated with setting an educational task, modeling, transforming models, etc.
- Under the guidance and in collaboration with V.V. Rubtsov, a team of researchers (V.V. Ageyev, R.Ya. Guzman, I.M. Ulanovskaya, I.V. Rivina, A.M. Medvedev, and others) developed special diagnostic methods, that make it possible to identify the level of development of a student’s cognitive actions in different forms of educational interactions; types of cooperation and emerging educational communities of students and teachers, and the students themselves; forms of coordination of search and testing actions; the level of development of meta-subject competencies, reflexive analysis of methods of action; forms of educational communication, mutual understanding. The special subject matter of educational interactions created by V.V. Rubtsov for these methods differs from the specified target (normative) subject matter of mastering theoretical knowledge, developing skills and abilities. This difference between the language of educational interactions of students with each other and with the teacher, specially created by V.V. Rubtsov, and the language of target formation in the teacher's activities made it possible to determine and study the level of development of intellectual abilities in various educational systems, as well as the subjectivity of the educational activities of schoolchildren. It has been established that the intellectual development capabilities of modern students, achieved in the developmental education system, significantly exceed the level of development that the traditional Russian school is aimed at.
- V.V. Rubtsov, together with V.K. Zaretsky, A.A. Margolis, E.I. Isaev, A.V. Konokotin [Rubtsov, 2024], significantly specified the concept of the zone of proximal development in educational practices as processes of transition from pre-educational to educational community in the course of collective interactions of students with the teacher and with each other. The construction of an educational community leads to the discovery of a space of new opportunities in the educational activities of students in the zone of proximal development. This space of new opportunities for students is determined by the emergence of a common emotional-semantic field and a special type of educational interactions initiated by the teacher, based on the coordination of individual actions, communication processes and reflection. During these interactions, students transform the form of organization of joint educational activities based on reflection of the limitations of the established method of individual actions and setting an educational task to overcome these limitations as a result of constructing joint action.
- The specification of the processes of intellectual and affective development of students at different age periods of personality development (preschooler, younger schoolchild, primary and secondary teenager) in the study of developmental education practices allowed V.V. Rubtsov and a team of co-authors (Yu.V. Gromyko, V.A. Guruzhapov, A.A. Morgolis [Rubtsov, 2024]) to identify and design a socio-cultural type of post-Soviet school — the Russian School of the Future. This socio-cultural type of the nationwide Russian school of the future is revealed through systems of interconnected formative activities (game activities, educational activities, project activities) at different stages of age development of schoolchildren when solving the most important life problems and in accordance with personal-semantic contextual motivations. The achievement of personal and meaningful motives in solving life problems by students is carried out in the ecosystem of children-adult educational communities that determine the co-organization of learning processes, non-declarative education, age development, socio-cultural and professional self-determination in the practices of developmental education of the school of the future. The most important characteristic of children-adult educational communities of the school of the future are freely forming game, educational, project communities, in which the subjectivity of students' activities is initiated. Thus, educational communities of students and teachers, and the students themselves, are determined by a free, spontaneous type of coordination of individual actions in constructing the subject of joint educational activity when setting an educational task that requires overcoming (B.D. Elkonin) the achieved individual development capabilities of students. This type of interaction between students, pupils and teachers, which is not authoritarian, not administratively forced, not sclerotized by bureaucratic efforts, creates conditions for the exchange of development opportunities between participants in the emerging game, educational and project communities of the school of the future. It is the free type of educational interactions, which simultaneously requires efforts to overcome the limitations of the established method of action in the formation of the subject of joint action in coordination with other students and the teacher, that creates the conditions for new approaches to inclusive education of children with special needs (V.V. Rubtsov and A.V. Konokotin [Rubtsov, 2024]) and more broadly social strategies in the interests of children to ensure a prosperous childhood (V.V. Rubtsov).
- Activity-based practices of developmental education require the advancement of new approaches to the digitalization of education, the use of generative artificial intelligence (ChatGPT), video games (O.V. Rubtsova), and the development of a digital platform for the Russian School of the Future. The main limitations of existing approaches to digitalization and gamification of education are that digital systems are created not for the development of children’s intellectual abilities, but for behavioralization and management of consumer behavior. They use electronic systems that absolutize the moment of exercise and the effective control of completed operations (V.V. Davydov, V.V. Rubtsov and a group of authors). While the most important capabilities of generative artificial intelligence can be associated with educational modeling (V.V. Rubtsov, A.A. Margolis, A.L. Pazhitnikov) of subjects of joint action, objects of study, various types of actions in a situation, acts of communication, the thought acts themselves and the processes of interaction of students with each other and with the teacher. Models of thought acts, which in turn model various objects of action and objects of study from different disciplines, create conditions for the development of special thought-digital semiotics (model languages of image and representation of thinking and activity in general), allowing to design, construct the subject of collective interactions and experiment with new languages and ways of thinking, with new forms of collective interactions. One of the most important characteristics of this semiotics is the models of processes in the form of moving "dynamic signs" (V.V. Rubtsov [Rubtsov, 2024]). In general, when creating a digital platform for the Russian School of the Future, it is necessary to distinguish and contrast the digital-algorithmic approach and the digital-cognitive approach to organizing the content of education. The digital-algorithmic approach correlates the student's answers with a certain established rule, a given set of operations for obtaining the desired answer. The digital-cognitive approach serves to expand the possibilities of cognition, ensures the creation of conditions for modeling, depicting and presenting acts of thinking and action in the educational work of schoolchildren for the students themselves and the teacher.
The main provisions of cultural-historical psychology, clarified and specified as a result of the research program implemented by V.V. Rubtsov
As a result of the fundamental research program of various forms of educational interactions in the practices of developmental education implemented by V.V. Rubtsov [Rubtsov, 2024; Rubtsov, 2018], V.V. Davydov’s clarified and concretized basic provisions of cultural-historical psychology can be summarized as follows:
- The most important point for the development of higher mental functions is the interaction of children with an adult and with each other in contact with an adult. There is no initial "individuality" of development, although a specific individual child develops.
- The productivity and effectiveness of the development of these interactions is determined by specific actions of mediating contact between an adult and a child and other children, when a special type of mediation action arises (B.D. Elkonin [Elkonin, 2016]) — invitations to contact, entry into contact, disclosure of new possibilities in contact.
- The most important role in the course of these interactions is played by the actions of sign mediation, the transformation of a sign into a means (instrument) of controlling one’s own behavior through controlling the behavior of an adult based on a sign (semiotic) attitude toward an object.
- It is precisely the unity of mediation (the organic-corporeal form of the very co-movement of an adult and a child, children interacting near an adult on the basis of intonation, expressive gesture, entering into contact, the discovery of the impulse of the leader by the follower (B.D. Elkonin [Elkonin, 2016]) and mediation (A.N. Leontiev) — a symbolic transformation of the focus of consciousness on how to compose and connect objects-things, what to see in general, what to pay attention to ( V.V. Rubtsov), — that determines the initially active nature of the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky without L.V. Vygotsky himself using the category/word "activity".
- The acquisition of cultural norms of human activity occurs only within the child’s interactions with adults and other children, where culture acts as a model of activity revealed by an adult — a direction of achievements that the child strives to master, supported by an adult through special teaching practices that are not limited to copying or imitating the proposed behavior patterns.
- The constant, tireless improvement of attempts and tests to carry out various types of activity, the qualitative complication of such tests by the child is directed by the adult through special teaching practices in interaction between the child and the adult, the child and other children (learning leads to development).
- The greatest effects of teaching a specific child are achieved in the zone of proximal development, which is built by the adult teacher, revealing new opportunities for the child-student beyond the boundaries of the child’s established and mastered activity when overcoming difficulties that have arisen.
- The most important areas of change in a child in the learning process are the development of thinking, speech (L.S. Vygotsky) and action (A.N. Leontiev and the Kharkov school), which "have… different roots", but are integrated into the processes of interaction between a child and an adult, and the children themselves under the guidance of an adult.
Problems of development of cultural-historical psychology and psychological anthropology of development in general
The summarized provisions of cultural-historical psychology based on educational interactions in the practices of developmental education allow us to formulate the most important problems of the development of cultural-historical psychology and psychological anthropology of development in general.
- The very idea of socio-genetic psychology of V.V. Rubtsov [Rubtsov, 2024; Rubtsov, 2018], when considering the processes of educational interactions, reveals and outlines the theoretical "cell" of a huge new theoretical field of psychological anthropology of the development of various age stages and various practices of developmental education. This area involves the simultaneous consideration and tracing of the relationship between two genetic processes — the process of sociogenesis of communities,communions and the process of the emergence of consciousness, which mutually determine each other. In this case, we are not talking about individual consciousness, but first of all about the collective consciousness of a forming community, when its participants carry out transformative actions and create various signs, coordinating sign (semiotic) relations to highlight the subject of joint action. The obvious interconnection between these two emerging new formations — proto-consciousness and proto-social relations (the emerging proto-sociality — the social relations of the future for the new generation, simultaneously transforming the system of established social relations and growing into them) — is revealed in the project activity of a teenager. A teenager develops a practical project-oriented consciousness, and the teenager himself forms new social relations and connections in the project team, which will become an element of the society of the future, formed by the new generation. Tracing the connection between these two processes requires going beyond the framework of rigid individualistic educational psychology, which denies interdisciplinary connections and does not include genetic epistemology (the origin of knowledge and structures of thinking in the course of educational interactions), activity-based cognitivism, the analysis of semiosis in joint activities, the theory of consciousness and the theory of sociogenesis.
- V.V. Rubtsov discovered a fact of fundamental importance in his research. It was shown that children have a special perceptiveness to the coordination of their own response activity to the activity of an adult, other children in a situation of interactions. Is it not this sensitivity the basis of the "natural" readiness of a child who has not yet learned to cooperate, which Michael Tomasello writes about in his book [Michael Tomasello Why, 2009]? Perceptiveness to the coordination of interactions with adults and other children, in whose field the child is from the moment of birth, cannot be reduced to the set of higher mental functions known in psychology. Damage and weakening of perceptiveness to coordination of interactions with adults and other children may lead to various types of autism and communication defects. These different types of perceptiveness and sensitivity (remember the genesis of the sensation of color with the hands by A.N. Leontiev, the ability to feel the magnetic field in N.V. Tseng [Pakhomov, 2022]) are a kind of basis for intellectual processes. Another type of perceptiveness can also be pointed out — situational perceptiveness on the basis of which the orienting basis of action is mastered.
- In the course of special interactions of a child with adults and other children, the development of intellectual processes occurs — thinking, thought communication (flowing speech without fixed meanings in the form of language (N.N. Nechaev [Nechaev, 2017; Nechaev, 2019])) and thought
- The processes of development of intellectual abilities — thinking, thought-communication, thought-action, their above-mentioned intersections, as well as reflection, understanding, schematization, mutual understanding based on mastering the methods of action in the situation of educational interactions — differ from the processes of development of higher mental functions. The development of modes of action underlying intellectual abilities requires special further study. "Interpsychic" as a certain type of interactions based on the created forms of collectively distributed activity is a means of modeling the genesis of intellectual ability in a participant in the interaction. The subject of analysis in this case becomes the independent subjective implementation of the intellectual process by a participant in collective interactions based on the mastered mode of action. As V.V. Rubtsov rightly notes in his monograph: "The uniqueness of the transition from the situation of interaction "adult-child" to the generation of cognitive action cannot be explained by either the formula "from external to internal" or the formula “from internal to external" ([Rubtsov, 2024], vol. 1, p. 58). The genesis of the abilities of reflection, understanding, schematization, depiction of "smart images", and linguistic means of expression requires further analysis.
- After the fundamental works of V.V. Davydov on the presentation of theoretical concepts in the form of a method of objective action, allowing us to trace the genesis of theoretical knowledge, the idea of L.S. Vygotsky’s opposition of everyday and scientific concepts changed radically. The child does not have "everyday concepts", but can give definitions of terms introduced into the discussion and theoretical concepts set by the teacher. These definitions of students are not comparable with the idealizations in the structure of the concept, highlighted through the action of modeling and transformation of models. The most important role is played by the dialogue of students with adults and among themselves in discussing the “conceptual monsters” of students — ways of understanding, the introduced theoretical concept in the form of strange images and schemes, unusual verbal expressions. The theoretical representation of the teacher in the dialogues of students can itself be considered as a "conceptual monster". The processes of schematization of meanings and the depiction of "smart images" of students play a huge role in attempts to identify and present conceptual monsters (V.V. Rubtsov).
Thus, this monograph records the significant results achieved by V.V. Rubtsov and the team of researchers and developers working with him in implementing the program for the construction of socio-genetic psychology, and defines new frontiers in the development of cultural-historical psychology.
1The unity of three processes — thinking, thought communication and thought action as a fundamental basis of the cultural-historical tradition and the activity approach was first presented in the diagram of thought activity by G.P. Shchedrovitsky. The terms “thought communication” and “thought action” were proposed by G.P. Shchedrovitsky to designate processes that are based on thought content and meanings[Shchedrovitskii, 1986].
action1. "Thinking and speech... (and we will add from ourselves, Yu.G. and also the action)… have genetically completely different roots", but in the course of interactions of children with adults and with other children, mutual intersection and interweaving of these processes occurs. In addition to thinking, communication and action in a situation of collective interactions, there is mental communication and communicative thinking, mentally equipped action in a situation and thinking in the form of operationalized actions, communicative action in a situation and communication in the form of spoken actions. The action of mediation [154] identified by B.D. Elkonin is a communicative action that initiates the processes of interaction between adults and children, and between children.