Dissemination of l. S. Vigotski's cultural-historical theory in Brazil

Introduction

The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the dissemination of Lev Semionovich Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory in Brazil. To this end, information was sought from the Directory of Research Groups in Brazil (DGP-CNPq) ¹, managed by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and linked to the Lattes Platform, a Brazilian database designed to record and monitor scientific and technological activity in the national science, technology and innovation system.

In Brazil, the creation of this Directory by the CNPq was anchored in two reasons: (I) "the need to build a single science and technology (S&T) information system to support the formulation of indicators" (Chiarini et al., 2022, p. 6); and (II) the continuous advance "of information and communication technologies (ICTs), with computerization and the boom of the internet and the world wide web (www)" (Chiarini et al., 2022, p. 6) which, in a way, forced many countries to adopt these tools. It was launched in 1993, before the Lattes Platform, with the aim of achieving unity and uniformity in data and statistics on science and technology in Brazil. It was gradually institutionalized and then the biannual censuses, statistical summaries and a tool for drawing up dynamic tables became available free of charge to the entire academic community, all coupled to the Lattes Platform (Chiarini et al., 2022). Since the production of knowledge is a collective activity, the CNPq understood that it would be up to the State to create a scientific and technological information base for groups of researchers, thus treating the research group as a unit of analysis with one or, exceptionally, two senior researchers who would lead the assistant researchers, the technical support staff, as well as the students, all around a common interest, sharing equipment, facilities and resources in the scientific research activity. Since it was set up, the DGP-CNPq has undergone several updates and has proved to be an efficient, accurate and fast tool, able to identify the researcher, where they are, what they do and what they have produced recently.

It has been common to analyze the characteristics and scientific output of research groups via the DGP to characterize the state of the art of research areas in Brazil (see, for example, Prado and Sayd, 2004; Moreira, Vilan Filho and Mueller, 2015).

Therefore, due to its characteristics, the DGP is an instrument capable of providing precise information and indications of the ways in which Lev Semionovich Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory has been assimilated and disseminated in Brazil.

Methods and materials

It is quite difficult, if not almost impossible, to pinpoint the date on which Lev Semionovich Vygotsky arrived here. Perhaps we can only point to past events and some dates that attest to when he had already begun to wander around this remote West. In other words, we can identify clues and, by following them, perhaps we can establish some signs of his presence among us and the times when he began to visit us.

For example, on a copy of the book by A.R. Luria and F.I. Yudovich, bought at a bookstore around 2023, entitled Language and intellectual development in children, you can see someone's signature in ink, with the date Aug/94. The copy belongs to the 2nd edition (1987) of a translation by José Cláudio de Almeida Abreu, a professor at the Faculty of Languages and Literature of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. The first edition of the work was published by Artes Médicas in Porto Alegre in 1985. As we know, A. R. Luria was one of Lev Semionovich's closest collaborators and there are several mentions of him in the book mentioned here. The same occurs in two books by the same author published previously in Brazil: (1) in Curso de psicologia geral, especially in volume IV, published in 1979; and (2) in Fundamentos de neuropsicologia, published in 1981. So, we already know that since 1979, Vygotsky was already in these tropical parts of the West, accompanying Luria.

We know that the book The Social Formation of the Mind, (originally published in English under the title Mind in society - the development of higher psychological processes) had been circulating here in Brazil since 1984. However, the organizers of this volume state in the preface: "The work of bringing together originally separate works has been done quite freely. The reader should not expect to find a literal translation of Vygotsky, but rather an edited translation from which we have omitted apparently redundant material and to which we have added material that seemed important in terms of making Vygotsky's ideas clearer" (John-Steiner et al, 1999, p. XIV). In other words, it cannot be said that the texts were written by Vygotsky, so the decision has been made here to disregard him.

Furthermore, and more importantly, we also know that by tracing the dates of publication of translations of works by Lev Semionovich and his two closest collaborators, A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontiev, we can begin to identify the trails that lead us along the map of the assimilation of cultural-historical theory in Brazil. Table 1 shows information on works translated into Portuguese that have circulated and are still circulating in these surroundings and of which we are aware.

Looking at Table 1, as far as we know, Luria was the first author of the troika to be translated into Brazilian Portuguese. This was done by Paulo Bezerra, who translated directly from Russian, and was published in 1979. In the excerpts from the translation below, we can see, right at the beginning of the first volume, Luria's grandiose presentation of his master and friend L.S. Vygotsky: 1. "The ways of overcoming the crisis in psychology were first formulated by the outstanding Soviet psychologist Lev Semionovich Vygotsky (1896—1934); they became the basis for the subsequent evolution of psychology as a science, at first in the USSR and then beyond its borders" (Luria, 1979, p. 5); 2. “… For Vygotsky, the main task in overcoming this crisis consisted in making the higher and specifically human forms of conscious activity the object of research and focusing on them from the point of view of scientific analysis, causally explaining their origin and defining the objective laws to which they are subordinate" (Luria, p. 6, emphasis added); 3. "... As Vygotsky observed, the attempt to focus on the psyche as an immediate function of the brain and to look for its source in the recesses of the brain is as futile as the attempt to consider the psyche as a form of existence of the spirit. The psychic life of animals arises in the process of their activity and is a form of representation of reality, it is carried out by the brain, but it can only be explained by the objective laws of this representational activity. Similarly, the higher forms of conscious activity, active attention, arbitrary memorization and logical thinking that are specific to man cannot be considered a natural product of the evolution of the brain but are the result of the specific social form of life that is characteristic of man. In order to causally explain the higher psychic functions of man, it is necessary to go beyond the limits of the organism and look for their sources not in the recesses of the soul or in the peculiarities of the brain, but in the social history of mankind, in the forms of language and social work that have been constituted throughout the history of society and have brought to life more perfected types of communication and new forms of conscious activity" (Luria, 1979, p. 6, emphasis added).

Luria's presentation is undoubtedly highly motivating for the reader who is looking for new insights into the study of human behavior. Certainly, his words motivated new searches in the direction of the theorist he was talking about. In other words, Vygotsky was already looking for us and we undoubtedly went to meet him.

Table 1. Works by Luria, Leontiev and Vygotsky published in Brazil (in alphabetical order by the first author's surname)

Source: prepared by the authors.

Table 1 shows that between 1979 and 1989, five works by L.S. Vygotsky — and his main collaborators — were translated into Portuguese; between 1990 and 1999, seven; from 2000 to 2010, eight; and from 2011 to 2025, fifteen. In other words, there was a slight increase from one decade to the next. Although the increase is not huge, it is significant if we look at the density of translated works: there has indeed been a notable increase in the size and importance of works translated into Portuguese in Brazil. These data therefore seem to point to the fact that the beginning of the 21st century is perhaps the period of dissemination and assimilation of cultural-historical theory in Brazil.

Approximately a century after Vygotsky's birth, we are beginning to learn more about and assimilate the cultural-historical psychology he created. That's a long time, and it certainly had the contribution of the censorship imposed on the author in the Soviet Union itself, coupled with our own weaknesses.

How did this process of disseminating his ideas take place in Brazil? That's what we'll see next, by examining the groups registered with the DGP-CNPq. First, however, it is interesting to note that, as far as we have been able to investigate, the first Brazilian studies based on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory did not take place in the field of psychology, but in the area of chemistry teaching. These were four papers published by an interdisciplinary research group working at the Federal University of São Carlos, in the interior of the state of São Paulo (Tolentino et al, 1986; Silva et al, 1986; Rocha-Filho et al, 1988; Tunes et al, 1989).

It is known that L.S. Vigotski's work was silenced in the Soviet Union for more than 20 years and, when it began to be published again, it suffered from cuts and interference from publishers. Although the book Michlenie i retch [Thought and Speech] (Vygotsky, 1934), for example, was first published in its entirety at the end of 1934, six months after Vygotsky's death, this was not the case when the same book was published in the collection Izbrannie psirrologuitcjeskie issledovania [Selected Psychological Investigations] (Vygotsky, 1956), in 1956, 22 years later. In this volume, edited by A.N. Leontiev and A.R. Luria, the text of the aforementioned book came out with cuts and was thus republished in the 2nd Volume of Sobranie sotchineni [Collected works] (Vygotsky, 1982), in the early 1980s, without making the necessary corrections, 26 years later. What's more, Vygotsky's important and fundamental book was only published again uncut and according to the original archive in the early 2000s.

However, while in the Soviet Union the book suffered occasional edits and cuts, in the West it arrived in 1962 in a shattered edition, reduced to 168 pages, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Prestes, 2012) and it was this version that proliferated around the world, also landing in Brazil in 1987, in an English version, under the title Thought and Language (Vigotski, 2005). In the fact sheet for the 2005 edition, you can see how the transliteration of the author's surname changes: if in the first edition it is Vygotsky, then Vygotski appears and, in the most recent edition, Vigotski. We believe that this book was not written by Vygotsky and, for this reason, we have not included it in Table 1.

Unfortunately, it was this edition (whether in English or Portuguese) that initiated studies of Vygotsky's thought in Brazil, as well as another book which, in our opinion, is also impossible to consider as belonging to the thinker's pen and, for this reason, we have also left out of Table 1. We are referring to the book Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes (Vygotsky, 1984) which, here in Brazil, came out under the title A formação social da mente: o desenvolvimento dos processos psicológicos superiores (The social formation of the mind: the development of higher psychological processes) (Vygotsky, 1999), a collection of texts adulterated by the organizers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and which, despite numerous academic works published in Brazil indicating the absurdities committed by this edition with Vygotsky’s work, continues to circulate and still "underpins" monographs, dissertations and theses in our country.

We carried out a survey to see how many research groups are active in Brazil working with cultural-historical theory, specifically in the areas of education and psychology. The survey was carried out through a series of searches on the DGP-CNPq's parameterized consultation page4, between June 1 and 10, 2025.

Before we go on to detail our procedure, there are some very important considerations that directly impact any study produced with data extracted from the DGP- CNPq: the most important is that, although it is our main reference for obtaining this information, the platform has instabilities, not only because of frequent periods of downtime, but we also found significant discrepancies in the display of results when equivalent input specifications were used in the search options when carried out at a different time, even when running on the same version of the platform. In other words, the platform displays divergent search results depending on when the search is carried out, so that, for example, a particular group located using certain search criteria is no longer found weeks later using the same parameters, even though it is still active. These instabilities had already been identified by other researchers, such as Asbahr and Oliveira (2021) and Carvalho, Silvino and Souza (2022). In addition to these instabilities, we found other problems with the platform, such as: (A) the names of the group leaders could change between those that appeared in the search and those that appeared in the group's mirror; (B) eventually, the search returned some groups, in smaller numbers, that did not have the keyword searched for anywhere in their mirror; and (C) the opposite of the previous item also occurred, i.e. research groups that contained the keyword in their mirror did not appear in the search. The procedures adopted to remedy this last problem will be discussed below.

In order to collect information on the DGP-CNPq, we used the following specifications: in the "Consult - Current base" section, we considered the current census, entering the keywords - which will be discussed in the next paragraph - in the "Search term" field and selecting the "Groups" option in the "Consult by" field - since the platform also offers the option of searching by names of researchers, leaders, lines of research, among others. In the "Apply the search to the fields" section, we selected the options "Group name", "Research line name", "Research line keyword" (these three were already selected by default) and "Group repercussions", with all the others unchecked. In our tests, checking the "Certified" and/or "Not up to date" options in the "Status" field did not show any differences in the results displayed, so we opted to keep the platform's default options. Furthermore, no additional filters were used.

The keywords used to carry out this procedure were: (1) Vigotski; (2) Vygotski; (3) Vygotsky; (4) Vigotsky; (5) Leontiev; (6) Luria; (7) Historical-cultural; (8) Socio-historical; (9) Socio-historical; (10) Activity theory; (11) Socio-cultural; (12) Sociocultural; (13) Socio-interactionism; (14) Socio-interactionist; (14) Socio-constructivism; (15) Socio-constructivist; (16) Soviet psychology; (17) Psychology and Marxism; and (18) Marxist psychology. The keywords, with the exception of "Activity theory" and "Marxist psychology", had the "All words" option selected in their searches, while the "Exact search" field was selected in the two exceptions mentioned.

In all the searches, we checked whether the group in question actually worked with the chosen theoretical framework and, to this end, we organized the results for each keyword into five groupings: (a) "Search", which represented the exact number of results for each keyword without any filtering by area or theme; (b) "Outside the parameters", which included groups from areas of knowledge not covered by the study, i.e. research groups that appeared in the results, but which are not in the area of Education or Psychology; (c) "Excluded", which are the results within the areas researched which, for some reason, appeared as a result in the search although, on their respective pages, they are listed as excluded on the platform; (d) "Withdrawn from the search", which are the groups for which, after verification, not enough evidence was found to affirm that they carry out studies based on cultural-historical theory; and finally, (e) "Selected", which are the groups that met the criteria, i.e. presented evidence that they use the theoretical framework in question in their research output. In this way, the sum of the results of groupings "b", "c", "d" and "e" is exactly the amount of "a". Except for the excluded groups incorporated into item "c", the other situations encountered - groups certified by the institution, not being filled in or not updated in the last 12 months - were considered in the others.

When there were doubts as to whether certain groups actually used cultural- historical theory, we searched for the keywords "Cultural-historical", "Vygotsky" and its variations ("Vygotsky", "Vygotski", "Vigotsky"), "Activity theory", "Socio-historical" - in order to cover the possibilities "Socio-historical" and "Socio-historical" - in the following places, respectively: (I) Text present in "Repercussions of the group"; (II) Name given to the lines of research of the group evaluated; (III) Search in the Lattes of the group leader; (IV) Search in the Lattes of the deputy leader, if there is one. The keywords "Historical-cultural" or "Socio-historical" necessarily had to be associated with a noun such as "Theory", "(theoretical) reference", "Perspective", "Psychology" etc. If they were associated with nouns such as "context", "subject", "diversity" or any other term not analogous to those already mentioned, this search was disregarded and the order listed above was continued. If there were any doubts and/or exclusive use of broader terms, such as "socio-historical", "socio- interactionism", "socio-constructivism" — which do not necessarily indicate a link with cultural-historical theory, as they could be linked to authors from other theoretical frameworks -, it was also checked whether Vygotsky or any of his closest collaborators (Aleksei Leontiev, Aleksandr Luria, Daniil Elkonin, among others) had appeared as a bibliographical reference in at least 2 texts among the articles in scientific journals published recently by the group leader (and vice-leader, respectively).

Based on the criteria listed above, we arrived at the following results:

Table 2. Incidence by category of each keyword

Source: prepared by the authors.

Some research groups were displayed under more than one keyword, so the final number does not correspond to the simple sum of the "Selected" column in Table 1. The total number of research groups we obtained from this methodological procedure was 138, of which 103 were in the field of Education and 35 in Psychology.However, as we mentioned earlier, we found that the platform has a problem: certain groups are not displayed as a result, even though they contain a keyword in their mirror according to the selected criteria. To alleviate this problem, we compared our data with the inventory of Brazilian research groups in cultural-historical theory, made by Asbahr and Oliveira (2021), with data obtained in 2018, and searched DGP-CNPq directly for the names of the missing research groups, in order to confirm which of them were still active or not, following the same selection criteria adopted for the previous groups, especially the delimitations of area of knowledge, given that the aforementioned inventory does not restrict them. With this strategy, we found 16 groups that should have been displayed in the previous searches - due to the problems with the platform itself already mentioned - of which 11 are from Education and 5 from Psychology, totaling 154 groups, of which 114 are from the Education sphere (74,03%) and 40 from the Psychology sphere (25,97%).

Results

As previously mentioned, in order to present an overview of Brazilian research groups that study or establish a dialogue with authors of cultural-historical theory, a survey was carried out on the CNPq platform, more specifically, in the Directory of Research Groups. It is important to note that the data obtained in the previous section does not correspond exactly to reality, as not all groups are registered on the platform. There are higher education institutions, especially private ones, which do not require their researchers to register. Therefore, the scenario we present corresponds to what we found on the CNPq Platform and we emphasize that we are certain that the number of groups studying or carrying out research related to cultural-historical theory in Brazil could be much higher.

The survey showed that of the total of 154 groups found according to the descriptors chosen, 140 groups (90,9%) are in public educational institutions and 14 (9,1%) in private institutions. This data shows the importance that public educational institutions attach to recording activities carried out by groups of their researchers.

Another significant finding is the greater presence of groups in the field of Education. Of the total of 154 groups identified on the Platform, according to the search keywords and eliminating the groups that show no evidence of working with the theory, it was found that 114 (74%) are concentrated in the field of Education and 40 (26%) in the field of Psychology. This data provokes a reflection related mainly to Vygotsky's intellectual production, since it is known that, although he joined the tasks of the field of education after the Russian Socialist Revolution of 1917, his studies concentrated on investigations into the development of human psychological processes, revolutionizing the field of psychology, which was steeped in a biological and deterministic view. From the survey data we can see that, in Brazil, his studies are much more present in research linked to the field of education.

Another important fact revealed by the survey is the regional location of these groups. Brazil is divided into 26 states and the Federal District, where the country's capital is located. When analyzing the data from the survey, it can be seen that of the total (154), most research groups are in the Southeast (65/42,21%) and South (27/17,53%) regions, with the state of São Paulo concentrating the majority (38/24,68%), followed by Minas Gerais (17/11,04%). There is a certain coherence in this data, as the Southeast has historically been the main center of economic and social development in Brazil, attracting greater investment in education, research and culture.

Выготский's surname has been spelled in different ways since his works landed in Brazil. From the survey data, it can be seen that the transliteration most used by the groups is Vigotski (21), although the English transliteration (Vygotsky) still appears with some occurrence (10).

It is worth highlighting a fact identified by the survey, which shows changes in the name of the theory developed by Vygotsky. It is still possible to see that there are groups that use the names socio-historical (17) and socio-cultural (7), but the vast majority name the theory correctly - cultural-historical (107). In addition, the survey shows that the terms socio-interactionism, socio-interactionist, socio-constructivism and socio-constructivist do not appear among the research groups.

Conclusions

Although the arrival of Vygotsky's works in Brazil took place almost 40 years ago, the dissemination of his thought unfortunately took place based on translations and editions that mutilated his writings and thus misrepresented important ideas from his studies and theoretical-methodological investigations. The survey presented in this text does not go into this issue in depth, nor does it discuss the bibliographical references used in the intellectual production of the research groups registered with DGP-CNPq. We have restricted ourselves to some more general aspects of the current scenario, even though we know, as has been pointed out, that it does not correspond exactly to reality.

We believe that the information presented and analyzed here meets the objectives we set for this article. A future article will probably be able to present more detailed data and analyze the state of the art regarding the works of Vygotsky and his collaborators that serve as the basis for the scientific elaborations of the aforementioned groups listed in the DGP-CNPq.

1 At the time of the search, the Directory was in version 2.0.8.10. Its access link is: http://dgp.cnpq.br/dgp/faces/consulta/consulta_parametrizada.jsf

2 It is not clear who translated it (Fernando Limongeli Gurgueira or the group formed by Luiz Mena Barreto, Martha Kohl de Oliveira, Miriam M. M. de Andrade and Regina Heloisa Maciel).

3 On these works, see Prestes (2012, p. 147—161).

1. Asbahr, F.S.F., Oliveira, M.L.S.A.M. (2021). Inventory of Brazilian research groups in cultural-historical theory based on the CNPq Directory of Obutchénie:R. de Didat. E Psic.Pedag., 5(2), 566—587. https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/Obutchenie/article/view/61477. (viewed: 01.07. 2025).
2. Carvalho, N.G., Silvino, Z.R., Souza, C.J. (2022) Análise do perfil dos Grupos de Pesquisa sobre Gestão em Enfermagem no Brasil. Research, Society and Development [S. l.], 11(10), e214111032834. https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/32834. (viewed: 01.07. 2025).
3. Chiarini, , Rapini, M.S., Ruffoni, J., Pereira, L.S. (2022). CNPQ Directory of Research Groups: trajectory and academic contributions. Text for discussion/Institute for Applied Economic Research. Brasília: Rio de Janeiro: Ipea.
4. John-Steiner, V., Core, M., Souberman, E., Scribner, S. (1999). Prefácio dos organizadores [Preface by the organizers]. The Social Formation of the Mind - the development of higher psychological processes. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
5. Luria, A.R. (1979). General Psychology Course. Volume 1. Translated by Paulo Bezerra. Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization.
6. Moreira, R., Vilan Filno, J.L., Mueller, S.P.M. (2015). Characteristics and scientific production of CNPq/DGP research groups in the areas of Information Science and Museology (1992-2012). Perspectives in Information Science, 20(4), 93—106. (In port.).
7. Prado, D. and Sayd, J.D. (2004). Research on human aging in Brazil: groups and lines of research. Ciência e Saúde Coletiva, 1, 57—68. (In port.).
8. Prestes, Z.R. (2012). When it's not almost the same. Translations of Lev Semionovich Vygotsky in Brazil. Campinas: Autores Associados. (In port.).
9. Rocha-Filno, C., Tunes, E., Tolentino, M., Silva, R.R., Souza, E.C.P. (1988). Teaching concepts in chemistry. III. On the concept of substance. Química Nova, 11(4), 417—419.
10. Silva, R., Rocha-Filno, R.C., Tunes, E., Tolentino, M. (1986). Teaching concepts in chemistry. II. Matter: A conceptual system in terms of its form of presentation. Ciência e Cultura (SBPC), 38(12), 2028—2030.
11. Tolentino, , Silva, R.R., Rocha-Filno, R.C., Tunes, E. (1986). Teaching concepts in chemistry. I. Matter. Example of a system of scientific concepts. Ciência e Cultura (SBPC), 38(10), 1721—1724.
12. Tunes, , Tolentino, M., Silva, R.R., Souza, E.C.P., Rocha-Filno, R.C. (1989). Teaching concepts in chemistry. IV. On the elementary structure of matter. Química Nova, São Paulo, 12(2), 199—202.
13. Vigotski, S. (1999). The social formation of the mind. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
14. Vigotski, L.S. (1956). Izbrannie psikhologitcheskie issledovaniia [Избранные психологические исследования]. Akademiia pedagogitcheskikh nauk RSFSR [Академия педагогических наук РСФСР].
15. Vigotski, L.S. (1934). Michlenie i retch [Мышление и речь]. Moskva/Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Sotsialno-ekonomitcheskoe izdatelstvo [Государственное Социально-экономическое издательство].