The great Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky has long been recognized as a pioneer in developmental psychology. But his theory of development has never been well understood in the West. Mind in Society corrects much of this misunderstanding. Carefully edited by a group of outstanding Vygotsky scholars, the book presents a unique selection of Vygotsky's important essays.

THE NEO-VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT
For the first time, the neo-Vygotskian approach to child development is intro- duced to English-speaking readers. Russian followers of Vygotsky have elaborated his ideas into a theory that integrates cognitive, motivational, and social aspects of child development with an emphasis on the role of children’s activity as mediated by adults in their development. This theory has become the basis for an innova- tive analysis of periods in child development and of the mechanism of children’s transitions from one period to the next. In this book, the discussion of the neo- Vygotskians’ approach to child development is supported by a review of their em- pirical data, much of which have never before been available to English-speaking readers. The discussion is also supported by a review of recent empirical find- ings ofWestern researchers, which are highly consistent with the neo-Vygotskian analysis of child development.
Yuriy V. Karpov is Professor and Associate Dean at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology of Touro College. He did his undergraduate and grad- uate studies and then worked as a faculty member at the School of Psychology of Moscow State University, the center of Vygotsky-based studies in the former Soviet Union. His studies on the implementation of Vygotsky’s ideas in educa- tion, psychological assessment, and the analysis of child development have been published as books, chapters, and journal articles in Russian, English, and Spanish.