Sociocultural-Historical Theory

From WikEd

Summarizing Vygotsky’s research on cultural mediation, Rogoff elaborates on the situated nature of individual development within social, cultural and historical context. From the cultural-historical perspective, she explains, individual development is interdependent with sociocultural activity. In this view, thinking involves learning to use symbolic and material tools in ways specific (i.e., object oriented) to their design. Children are “apprenticed” in the use of cultural tools through activity with skilled mentors. The degree to which they are able to advance with skilled assistance is referred to as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). In turn, cultural tools are adapted to novel purposes, allowing the collective cultural commons to evolve and grow. In short, individual and cultural processes are mutually constituting: People contribute to the creation of cultural processes and cultural processes contribute to the creation of people.

Question

1. Is there room for a theory combining sociocultural “tool use” with the “object oriented” nature of new media tools/software?