Constructivism does not only happen in the individual: sociocultural theory and early childhood education

Abstract

This paper examines recent movements in the early childhood education literature that have began to relate sociocultural explanations for human development to the early childhood curriculum. The paper reports the findings from an investigation conducted to determine early childhood educators’ conceptions of the curriculum and their understandings of its theoretical informants, including constructivism and developmental theory. This paper reports a small sample of findings from this larger study and examines the conceptions of the term ‘constructivism’ held by three practicing early childhood educators. In each of these examples, the educators were found to express understandings of constructivism that made reference to ideas central to sociocultural explanations for learning and development, such as the zone of proximal development and inter‐subjectivity. The paper considers these findings in relation to Vygotsky’s and Rogoff’s theories of development and considers the implications this particular perspective holds for the field of early childhood education when considered in relation to the more traditional cognitive constructivist perspective.