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In this paper, we discuss the past, present, and future of the cultural activity approach as a methodology that aims to integrate the humanities and the natural sciences, psychotechnical and theoretical knowledge. An attempt has been made to conceptualize another crisis in cultural activity psychology. The meaning of the historical crisis of cultural activity psychology is reflected in the future prospects of its development, bridging the gap between classical and contemporary approaches. Reflection on the crisis of cultural activity psychology allows us to underline the following axioms: the need for dialogue with different variants of the cultural activity movement in modern psychology; the need for reflection on the myths and dangers of canonizing certain thinkers; the presumption of decency among professionals who are attracted to the school of Leo Vygotsky, and understanding of their motivation in developing his ideas. In addition to the axioms required for an appropriate dialogue with researchers who are interested in L.S. Vygotsky, there are risks that restrict the understanding and development of his legacy: the risk of science-policy isolationism, the risk of sectarianism, the risk of "jubilee" historicism, the risk of reducing monism to monotheism. These axioms and risks are aspects of the cognitive situation that are important for further development of the research program of cultural activity psychology. Discussing cultural activity psychology as a methodology and a special intellectual movement allows us to emphasize a number of meta-features of cultural activity psychology as a world-view. On the level of specific scientific methodology, we can consider the relationship of cultural activity psychology to other sciences in which the category of "activity" is the key one. Summing up, we refer to the cultural activity approach to social and cultural practices, which expresses the methodological approach of social constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the semiotic analysis of texts from traditional cultures and experimental investigation of thinking in these cultures reveal coincidences between the thinking of adults from traditional groups and the thinking of European children. The fact that followers of Piaget equate the thinking of adults in traditional societies with the thinking of European children was recently criticized by M. Cole, but he too did not explain the reason for the coincidence in experimental results and, correspondingly, in thinking.[10] Second, this paper accepts Vygotsky's proposition that the development of verbal thinking involves the continuous advance in the way words are used in thinking to other ways that are qualitatively different (Vygotsky 1956). The functional approach to thinking that we have adopted leads to the conclusion that ontogenesis of thinking in principle cannot lead to the emergence of thinking in scientific, consciously perceived concepts unless the culture has texts that demand this type of thinking and unless the development of children's thinking is guided a certain way. [Extracted from the article]

This paper is the second of a series of articles dealing with the history and theory of the Zagorsk experiment. The first article was published in No. 3 for 2013. A number of philosophers and psychologists have realized the importance of rearing and educating deaf-blind children in the Soviet Union as they believe it reveals the secret of the origin of the human personality.. This paper examines the question of inconsistency in the facts with the Marxist philosophical-psychological interpretations of the education of deaf-blind children and deals with the question of whether the experiment was falsified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first of a series of articles dealing with the history and theory of the Zagorsk experiment. A number of philosophers and psychologists have realized the importance of rearing and educating deaf-blind children in the Soviet Union as they believe it reveals the secret of the origin of the human personality. This paper also examines the Zagorsk experiment’s “canonical version,” the Marxist philosophical and psychological interpretations of educating deaf-blind children, and raises the question of whether the facts fit these interpretations. It contends that the Zagorsk experiment expressed the spirit and metaphysics of the Soviet epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper supplements the concept of the development of narrative role-playing. The “anchor” of the analysis is the definition, provided more than thirty years ago by D.B. Elkonin, of play and its unit and the concept of the emergence, flourishing, and decline of this type of play. A description is presented of the key points in the development of the form of play activity from the stage when narrative role-playing is merely a future necessity to the stage of its actual form and finally to the point when it becomes a resource for further development. The focus is on the child’s inner experience of the play activity and on the two dimensions and conflict inherent in the transition to a new form of activity. The axis of the description of the ontogenesis of narrative role-playing is the process of the emergence of new forms of activity: “make believe” during the early years; the dual-phase play activity, in which a challenge and a response to the challenge are bound up (preschool years); the internal action plan (school age). The paper presents not only a scientific picture of the development of play based on experimental data, but also the place/prevalence of play in children’s lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reconstructs the history of the problem of mental development using material from children’s play. This study shows how researchers in the school of cultural-historical psychology identified the developmental function of play, established a qualitative leap in its development and attempted to re-create it, beginning with the works of L.S. Vygotsky, then of his followers (the activity-based approach in the interpretation of narrative role-playing: A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, N.Ia. Mikhailenko, N.A. Korotkova, etc.), and, finally, of the researchers who studied a specific act of development in play (L.I. El’koninova, T.V. Bazhanova, K.O. Iur’eva). This research presents the view that the concept of the cultural form of play, containing a Challenge (defined by the boundaries of the possibilities of action and by risk) and the subsequent Response is the basis not only of narrative role-playing but also of games with rules, as well as computer games. The Challenge entails action that changes the action situation; it typifies all forms of play, which are supposed to tie together what is disjointed in a child’s daily life into a semantic knot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]