Claudia Lopes da Silva
University of Sao Paolo
Research supervisor: Dr. Teresa Cristina Rego
Email: psi.clau@gmail.com
As I work as a school psychologist and in teacher training for the state school system, the issue of Brazilian state education, especially inclusive education, is a topic of great interest to me in my academic and professional life. Soon after I came into contact with the work of Vygotsky and other scholars of cultural-historical psychology, I realised that this could be an extremely rich theoretical tool in my field of interest. I refer above all to research based on social reality drawing on Marxist theory, which is particularly helpful for understanding Brazilian reality, allied to the fact that Vygotsky devoted his energies to researching development amongst people with disabilities, such as in his work on defectology.
Neuroscience is garnering increasing interest and kudos in our times, such that there is something of a trend for poorly-digested ideas to be appropriated by people in education to put the blame for certain students’ lack of success in school on some innate learning difficulty, like dyslexia, attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity. I believe we must be wary of this trend, and see neuroscience as something that can contribute towards the goal of helping students realize their full potential, as Vygotsky proposed, rather than merely justify their supposed failings.
I am very keen to present and discuss my research with other scholars and make contact with other people interested in how neuroscience and cultural-historical psychology are interrelated.
Presentation “Brain cultural‐historical concept in Vygotsky’s work”
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