Vygotsky’s and Feuerstein’s Theories for the 21st century

There is a certain mystery in the current popularity of Vygotsky’s and Feuerstein’s ideas. On the surface, this growing interest is paradoxical – the ideas that emerged in Russia in the 1920s and in Israel of the 1960s are supposed to be light years behind the concerns of Western psychologists and educators of the 21st century. What then makes Vygotsky’s and Feuerstein’s ideas so contemporary? The article suggests that the current popularity of these ideas is related to the almost perfect match between “answers” given by Vygotsky and Feuerstein to the “questions” that, often without any direct impact of their theories, had emerged in Western psychology and education at the end of the 20th century. The discussion is focused around three key issues: Cultural difference, dynamic assessment, and the relationships between cognition and education.