Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

376 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
solving. Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) is instructive in understanding
this relationship. He defined the ZPD as the distance between the actual development level of
the learner and the level of potential development “determined through problem solving under ...
guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978). The zone is where mediated
assistance, such as teaching or facilitating, (through the resources of a more experienced
other as cultural agent) and the individual (student or teacher as learner) development potential
interface.
Extending the concept of ZPD into human activity systems, Engeström explained mediation
as “the distance between the present everyday actions of the individuals and the historically new
form of the societal activity that can be generated as a solution” (Engeström, 1987). Mediation,
then, represents the use of cultural artifacts (ideal and material) to assist less experienced individuals,
less cognitively and consciously aware individuals, to learn in situ—as situated cognitive
development within communities of practice.
Artifact Mediation—Three Levels of Artifacts
A central principle of cultural–historical theory, as Cole (1996) explains, is the use of artifact
mediation: semiotic mediation through the use of different levels of artifacts. All human actions
are mediated by the use of cultural artifacts: culture is defined as a system of shared meanings
and as the social inheritance embodied in artifacts. Thus, culture mediates human interactions,
shaping and in turn being shaped by the use of artifacts. Artifacts are, as Cole explains,
an aspect of the material world that have been modified over the history of its incorporation into goaldirected
action. By virtue of the changes wrought in the process of their creation and use, artifacts are
simultaneously ideal (conceptual) and material. They are ideal in that their material form has been shaped
by their participation in the interactions of which they were previously a part and which they mediate in the
present. (p. 117)
Defined in this way, the distinction between the ideal and material properties of artifacts
both affirms the inseparability of the material from the symbolic and affirms the equal force of
mediating human actions through use of artifacts whether one is considering language or a more
concrete artifact such as a pencil.
Importantly, in cultural–historical theory, Cole (1996) identifies three levels of artifacts, including
primary artifacts (words, writing instruments, words, telecommunication networks, a
mythical cultural personages, etc.); secondary artifacts (traditional beliefs, norms, constitutions,
etc.); and tertiary artifacts (imagined worlds, creative representations, play, schemas, scripts, notions
of context, etc.). These three levels of artifacts enable semiotic mediation of human action;
most importantly they animate learning with the cultural-historical nature of human interaction
in educational settings.
Internalization/Externalization
Cultural–historical activity theory explains that internalization/externalization processes regulate
human actions/interactions within cultural activities. Internalization is a transformational
process with changes in the structure of activity; internalization is the transfer onto an internal
psychological plane of external performances. The process of internalization is, in part, an appropriation
of cultural knowledge, as ideal/conceptual artifacts, and therein contributes to the
reproduction of culture. In contrast, externalization creates new artifacts that enable the transformation
of culture.