ABSTRACT
Although it was not apparent at the time, 1896 was an auspicious year for developmental psychology, a field that at the time did not even have the firm identity that it does today. During their lifetimes, so disparate in length and circumstances, Piaget and Vygotsky each contributed to our understanding of learning and development in ways that we now appreciate as revolutionary. Yet these two men of the same age developed their respective visions within very separate cultural and intellectual communities. Although aware of one another’s work, they never met, and, with a few isolated exceptions, did not profit from a dialectical interchange of ideas. Today, we have that advantage.
