East European Psychology Research Articles

Digital animation: New conditions for children's development in play‐based setting

AbstractThere is increasing recognition of digital childhoods [Danby, S., Fleer, M., Davidson, C., & Hatzigianni, M. (Eds.). (2018). Digital childhood. Amsterdam: Springer] and a corresponding body of research into young child's engagement with digital devices across a broad range of contexts [Marsh, J. A., Plowman, L., Yamada‐Rice, D., Bishop, J., & Scott, F. (2016). Digital play: a new classification. Early Years, 36, 242–253. doi:10.1080/09575146.20161167675]. What is missing from the literature is an understanding of if and how these devices, when used with animation apps in play‐based programs, change pre‐school practices and the developmental conditions of children's play. In drawing upon Vygotsky's [(). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Voprosy Psikhologii, 12, 62–76] conception of play as the leading motive of pre‐school‐aged children, the naturalistic study reported in this paper seeks to address this gap. Video observations of children (3.3–5.8 years) and teachers digitally engaged across five sites during free‐play time (413.8 h of video observations) were studied using a cultural–historical conception of play [Vygotsky, L. S. (2005). Appendix: from the notes of L.S Vygotsky for lectures on the psychology of preschool children. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 43, 90–97]. The findings show that digital animation in a free‐play program where role‐play is featured can enrich the play opportunities of children which in turn promote play complexity and increase social and cognitive demands on children, which together can be theorized as a positive force for children's development. These developmental conditions emerged as a profile of five interrelated key digital practices and psychological characteristics, adding to our understandings of digital play.

‘We set up a small world’: preschool teachers’ involvement in children’s imaginative play

ABSTRACTGrounded in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, this paper examines how often teachers are involved in children’s imaginative play and discusses their beliefs about their role in supporting children’s imaginative play. To investigate this problem, video (65 hours of digital observations) and interview data (two hours and 30 minutes) of 60 children with 7 teachers from two preschools in Australia were analysed. Using Vygotsky’s [1966. “Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child.” Voprosy Psikhologii 12 (6): 62–76] cultural-historical concept of play, and Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s [2010. “Play in the L.S. Vygotsky’s Nonclassical Psychology.” Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 48 (4): 25–41] conception of ‘subject positioning’ (being inside and outside of the play), it was found that despite the general importance of play, teachers’ involvement in developing children’s imaginative play appears to be minimal. The interviews showed that teachers’ beliefs about their role in children’s imaginative play are directly related to the distance of their physical proximity and understanding of the play narrative being enacted. This paper argues that focusing on teachers’ involvement in children’s play is an important but under-researched dimension of play-based pedagogies in early childhood education.

Майкл Коул как медиатор и интегратор культурно-исторической психологии

The article describes the ideas and tuning points of M. Cole's career — the famous American psychologist, his theoretical, methodological and empirical contribution to modern psychology. It is composed of three sections. The first one considers Cole—Luria's cooperation for many years: scientific as well as personal interactions in the process of acquiring Cultural-Historical Psychology of Russia. It summarizes the outcomes and methodological problems of interdisciplinary cross-cultural studies that M. Cole and his colleagues conducted in Africa and on the Yucatan Peninsula. The second one outlines M. Cole's important role as an international mediator in Soviet and post-Soviet psychology that revealed both through his own studies and his translations of L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria's works in English or their editing. Plus his occupations with “Soviet psychology” (later — “Journal of Russian and East European Psychology”). The third section briefly evaluates Cole's theoretical efforts on the integration of Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev's ideas as much as recasting them in the context of modern trends in Cultural psychology. Significant place is given to a context-activity approach developed by M. Cole in Cultural in the framework of integrated "Cultural-Historical Activity theory". The erroneous labeling of the context-activity approach as an anti-historical one is discussed. The authors come to the conclusion that M. Cole's context-activity approach is not far remote from Cultural-Historical Psychology but complements its development with new concepts, methods and points of growth.

Introduction

In this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, we continue publication of the articles on psychogerontology, growing out of the joint efforts of Lydia Borozdina, Rick Scheidt, and their colleagues, that we began in the previous issue. As before, each of the two articles from this psychogerontology series presented here is followed by a commentary from an American colleague. We hope that this kind of dialogic exchange can be broadened and deepened, speeding interactions among Russian and other national psychological traditions that were so long frozen by the cold war.

Introduction

We begin this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology with Mikhail Iaroshevskii's analysis of an interesting and disturbing trend in contemporary Russian popular culture— the tremendous popularity of television personalities who engage in various forms of mystic healing and soothsaying. Every day millions of Russians tune in to fortune-tellers, New Age prophets, and would-be tele-psychotherapists in the belief that the special powers of these "miracle workers" can be transmitted through the television set. Iaroshevskii notes that so widespread is belief in the efficacy of such practices that some politicians have adopted their procedures in hope of influencing voters.

Introduction

I am grateful to Jacques Haenen for bringing together the articles included in this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology and for providing a succinct and informative introduction to Aleksei N. Leont'ev, whose legacy these articles explore.

Author Index to the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Volume 32 (January-December 1994)

Author Index to the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Volume 32 (January-December 1994)

Introduction

The articles constituting this issue of the Journal of Russian & East European Psychology are diverse along several dimensions, reflecting, in part, the momentous cultural/political changes that have been occurring in Eastern Europe in recent years.

Introduction

The first three articles presented in this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology are devoted to work by Ukrainian psychologists from Kharkov University. As G.K. Sereda comments in his introduction to these articles, the Kharkov school of psychology played an important role in the development of Soviet psychology. It was in Kharkov that the "activity approach" to psychology, deriving from the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky and his colleagues, first flowered. (See Soviet Psychology, 1979-80, 18(2), which deals with the early work of this school.)

Index to the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Volume 31 (January-December 1993)

Index to the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Volume 31 (January-December 1993)

Introduction

The first four articles in this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology follow, and complete, the cycle on "Time, personality, memory" begun in the July-August issue. These articles, brought together by Nina N. Korzh, of the Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Sciences, seek to explore the phenomenon of memory at many levels of psychological complexity.

Introduction

A broad spectrum of topics is addressed by the contributors to this issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology. Victor Petrenko uses techniques developed in the United States to address a classic problem in Russian psychology. More than half a century ago, L.S. Vygotsky proposed word meaning as the basic unit of analysis for the study of human thinking. In recent years this view has been criticized on the grounds that the meaning of words depends upon the contexts of their use, so some larger unit, such as a speech act, a phrase, would be a more appropriate unit.

Comparative-Cultural Research in Soviet Psychology

In this special issue of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, readers will get a glimpse of a research tradition in Soviet psychology that has never been widespread. It could barely emerge in the midst of the social turmoil of the 1920s, but came alive in the work of Alexander Luria in the early 1930s (Luria, 1931a, 1931b, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1974, 1976), and then vanished into the oblivion of Soviet ideological discourse for decades. A comparative-cultural focus in psychology in the USSR remained largely nonexistent (with very few exceptions) until the breakup of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, its relevance in the history of the cultural-historical line of thought initiated by Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria is profound.

Author Index to the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Volume 30 (January-December 1992)

Author Index to the <i>Journal of Russian and East European Psychology</i> Volume 30 (January-December 1992)

A Word About the Change from Soviet Psychology to Journal of Russian and East European Psychology

With the final disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the title Soviet Psychology suddenly belonged to history. After considering all the unsatisfactory alternatives, the editors and I have decided to rename it Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.