Cand. Sci. (Psychol.), Leading Researcher, Child Development Laboratory, Research Institute of Urban Studies and Global Education, Moscow City University, Moscow, Russian Federation
Background. The foundation of any preschool educational practice is built upon implicitly embedded assumptions about a child’s psychological characteristics and developmental pathways. This may constitute not a systematic but rather an eclectic set of beliefs with poorly understood foundations; however, for effective practice, education must be grounded in a holistic system of psychological views based on a sound psychological conception. Furthermore, the conception itself, as it evolves, requires continuous reflection on its key tenets, including through the process of their interpretation in various practical implementations. The transfer of a scientific theory into a different cultural and linguistic space is of particular interest for its development. Yet, understanding the specifics of such a transfer necessitates dedicated research methodologies.
Objectives. This paper presents the authors’ original model for analyzing the representation of ideas from Lev Vygotsky’s Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) in scientific discourse and educational practice. The aim of developing this model is to enrich the understanding of CHAT ideas within national preschool education systems by examining how they exist within the context of both the target and the original scientific traditions and educational systems.
Sample. Hong Kong, representing a unique blend of cultural traditions, was selected as the testing ground for the model. Based on developed criteria, a sample of 50 open-access scientific, regulatory, and methodological texts in English by Hong Kong authors was selected.
Methods. The study was conducted through a textual analysis of these documents according to the authors’ model, which implies analyzing the presence of references to the founder of CHAT and his followers, the use of the theory’s key concepts, and the context of their application — whether for scientific discussion or practical development.
Results. The testing of the model demonstrated its applicability for analyzing the representation of CHAT ideas in the scientific discourse and educational practice of Hong Kong. The model allows for tracing the trajectory of Vygotsky’s influence on scientific discourse and educational practice, as well as the connection between scientific discourse and practical application.
Conclusions. The model can be applied to advance preschool education in various countries.
Background. The article presented as a discussion brings up the variety of relevant topics on the dialectical thinking formation: “Why is the modern education not interested in developing the dialectical thinking?”; “If based on the dialectical and formal logic, will educ programs be marked with internal inconsistencies?”; “Can psychology define the operational structure of dialectical thinking as well as in the theory of formal-logical thinking?” The discussion emphasises that digitization calls for new didactic methods to build a mind able to find flexible solutions in contradictory situations.
Objective. The discussion advocate for using both the dialectical and formal logic in the modern education.
Results. The discussion explores the highlights of N. E. Veraksa dialectical thinking concept. The discussion also demonstrates the operational structure presented by the dialectical mental actions of unification, transformation, reversal or change of alternative. The article considers the preferable age to start training dialectical thinking in a child: despite Jean Piaget’s thesis that a preschool child’s mind is insensitive to contradictions, the study recommends to start teaching children to solve contradictory situations at an early age. The article analyses the opportunities and prospects of implementing dialectical thinking concepts in the modern education.
Conclusions. The main conclusion of the article is that digitization of childhood featuring information-dense social situations of development encourages the psychological science to come up with methods of developing thinking in new cultural environment. One of such children’s cognitive development methods is dialectical thinking in solving contradictory problems.
Relevance. The problems of puppet theater in kindergarten are analyzed in the article at the intersection of two areas of psychological knowledge: the psychology of play and the psychology of art. Asking to what extent playing puppet theater with preschoolers is an art and a game and has a developing effect allows us to discover new features of the organization of the theatrical process in kindergarten.
The aim of the study is to research of the possibilities of one of the types of puppet theater (Petrushka theater) for the psychological development of preschool children.
The methods are historical analysis; phenomenological analysis; case analysis (the article analyzes the experience of staging “Petrushka” performances in the kindergarten “White Rabbit” “School No. 547” in Moscow; the building of an extra-theatrical space (both subject and activity), the design of the linguistic environment of the performance).
Progress of the study. The article presents a brief history of the Petrushka theater in Russia with its characteristic properties: areal character, improvisation and violation of norms accepted in certain strata of society; this places petrushka performances in the space of the “carnival culture” of M.M. Bakhtin and the Russian laughing culture of D.S. Likhachev. It is proposed to consider the Petrushka theater as a form of working with the normative space, loosening it both in order to develop a creative attitude to the norm, and to reveal deeper relationships in the surrounding world.
Research results. The transformation of the Petrushka theater into an agitation or children’s performance with an unambiguous morality deprives it of its specificity and inherent possibilities. The article examines the behavior of a preschooler during a performance, which can be expressed in a direct reaction to what is happening or in a detached spectator; both positions take children’s activities beyond play and art. The Petrushka theater, in which the norm is a natural and active perception of what is happening, becomes a mediating form in which a new norm of contact with a work of art is being established.
Conclusions. The Petrushka theater is a cultural form of violation of the norm: the norm is violated in a normative, specially constructed space of theatrical action, when the normative space of the child expands and opens up a space of opportunities for his own creativity.
The article discusses the results of the study of the emotional well-being of 6-7 years old children of kindergartens in Moscow. The data were obtained through a questionnaire survey of children and their parents using the supplemented Children’s Barometer methodology, consisting of 22 questions for a child and 8 questions for a parent. The study was attended by 151 parent-child couples; children from 15 groups of 5 different preschools. Emotional well-being is based on satisfying the needs of the child, both basic and essential for the age at hand, and essential for personal development including personal relevance, recognition in the group, autonomy and initiative. It was important for us to hear the “voice of the child”, attitude towards kindergarten, what makes child happy and discomforting. It was found that children of 6-7 years old can express their opinion and attitude to what is happening in kindergarten. Organized forms of activity are less interesting for children than free activity; there are discrepancies between children’s and adults’ assessment of issues important for the child; children remember conflicts in kindergarten and it is important for them how the teacher resolves the children’s conflict. The educational environment and style of interaction between adults and children in groups implementing different pedagogical systems influences children’s attitude towards kindergarten, which was shown in significant statistical differences.
The relevance of the topic of the article. Puppet theater is a cultural practice, the use of which in purposeful and systemic educational activity becomes an additional resource. The article examines the connection between the existence of a puppet in a modern puppet theater and the developing possibilities of this type of art for the viewer - a child and an adult.
The aim of the study: to study the possibilities of modern puppet theater as a space for understanding children’s play.
Research methods: theoretical and phenomenological analysis.
Description of the research progress. The study analyzes of the features of cultural-historical development and dependence on the social situation with the invariability of psychological laws of preschool age; the openness of a modern child to the emotional experience of the new, but with a different effect of previous stimuli; the insufficiency of the “miracle of revival” for the emergence of a natural experience in the puppet theater due to the richness of experience of visual transformations and animation of digital content. The analysis of the typology of theatrical puppets and the features of their use in modern theater: tablet puppets as the main type; active use and transformation of the subject environment; increasing the role of a “live” actor. In a modern puppet theater performance, the artist is visible and does not hide that he/she controls the puppet; the doll is small and controlled by the artist, who holds it with his hands or sets it aside so that it remains motionless while he/she performs another action; surrounding objects are involved in the game, which become characters, which makes it possible to talk about an analogy with the actions of a child playing, and about the doll as a child’s toy.
Research results. The study shows phenomenon of the similarity of the puppeteer’s position as a child playing a “director’s game” with a doll, and the features of the game direction accompanying the action, when the child directs what is happening, all the time being inside the process and creates an action along the way, experiencing the “resistance of the material”. The puppet theater is analyzed as a means of teaching adults who come as spectators and children to play, if after visiting the theater, adults implement what they see in playing with children; as an effective aid in overcoming cognitive centralization.
Conclusion. The experience of a modern puppet theater can take the director’s play of a child to a qualitatively new level, taking into account the properties of the “subject doll” and contributing to the regulation of behavior, understanding others with changing properties, which must be guided by for the implementation of the idea, the ability to abandon the most interesting and productive scenario, the ability to quickly respond to emerging obstacles and skills abandon the most interesting and productive scenario. The doll sets its own rules for handling it, which leads to the unity of the accommodative and assimilative orientation of the intellect, when the development of a child is considered in the process of separation from visibility, rigid attachment to the surrounding reality, in going out in consciousness beyond the limits of the close time and beyond the visible.