Vygotsky and Creativity

This text presents a Vygotskian perspective on children's and adults' symbolic engagement in play, multi-modal meaning making, and the arts. Psychologists, artists, and educators present research and practice in a variety of learning environments through the lens of Vygotsky's cultural historical theory. The connections between creative expression, learning, teaching, and development are situated in a theoretical framework that emphasizes the social origins of individual development and the arts. The authors share a view of learning as an imaginative process rooted in our common need to communicate and transform individual experience through the cultural lifelines of the arts.
This book is suitable for readers or courses in the following areas: art and aesthetics; art education; art therapy; cultural historical activity theory; communication; creativity studies; early childhood education; education; educational perspectives; educational psychology; emotional development; cultural and societal foundations; language, literacy, and sociocultural studies; learning and development; mental health and catharsis; multiliteracies; multimodal meaning making; play; play therapy; psychology; semiotics; social construction of meaning; trauma, resilience, and therapeutic processes and practices; and Vygotskian approaches to psychology.

Autorentext

M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Literacy & Children's Literature at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland. A bilingual educator, professor, and advocate, she has drawn on her visual arts education to inform her research and professional activities in language, literacy, and sociocultural studies on behalf of the education of culturally and linguistically diverse children in the US. Vera John-Steiner, Ph.D. is Emerita Presidential Professor of Linguistics and Education at the University of New Mexico. She is an authority on creativity, collaboration, and cultural-historical activity theory, having published and presented internationally for the past 50 years. Dr. John-Steiner has sustained a lifelong interest in dance. Ana Marjanovic-Shane, PhD. is an Associate Professor of Education at Chestnut Hill College and the deputy editor-in-chief of Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal. Her professional interests are focused on dialogic meaning making and creativity in human development. Her articles in English and Serbian have been published in various journals and as book chapters on play and education.