Social Constructivism

Imagine you are studying for an exam. Maybe you’re skimming your notes, watching a video online, or being quizzed by a classmate. No matter your study preference, your understanding of the course material is entrenched in the language used to convey it to you, the biases of your teachers and peers, and your socio-cultural environment.

Introduced by Belarusian cognitive psychologist Lev Vygotsky in his posthumous 1978 publication Mind and Society, social constructivism asserts that learning never happens in isolation. Whether it’s a conversation with a classmate or help from a teacher, social processes are required components for cognition, learning, and development. Vygotsky saw learning as a product of a collaboration between an individual and the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO), a mentor figure who helps guide them to develop skills within their Zone of Proximal Development, the period during which learning is most effective.² Eventually, the individual begins to internalize their social interactions with the MKO — that is, they learn from the MKO by transforming the information that they acquire from them into their own knowledge. Throughout all stages of life, our learning is continuously molded by the cultural practices, languages, and expectations that make up our social environment.