ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some recent pedagogic applications of post-Vygotskian theory and explores the two main points of departure. The first is concerned with the analysis of knowledge content within pedagogic exchange. The second takes the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as the starting point of a discussion of interaction and process. Specific pedagogic modalities constitute an important aspect of the local institutional culture. They create possibilities and constraints for teachers and learners. They may simultaneously be thought of as the micro and the macro of the sociocultural context. The ZPD is where pedagogy and intersubjectivity enters the Vygotskian picture. Davydov insisted that the tradition of teaching empirical knowledge should be changed to a focus on teaching theoretical knowledge and he developed a Developmental Teaching programme which pursued this goal. The connection between the spontaneous concepts that arise through empirical learning and the scientific concepts that develop through theoretical teaching is the main dimension of the ZPD.
