ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I review the Vygotskian tenets that are central to understanding human difference, as outlined in his 1993 volume on “defectology.” Defectology refers to the study of human difference that treats departures from the evolutionary norm as potentially productive ways of being and that focuses not on treating those exhibiting difference as disabled or disordered but rather on educating the people who surround those individuals. I have extrapolated these principles to propose a reconsideration of “mental illness” in which it is not an individualized pathological condition located within the skull, but a whole-body, socially distributed phenomenon that requires a shared social responsibility through which social groups—rather than individual, sick people—become accountable for finding ways to cultivate their potential. Using this framework, I then apply salient principles to questions of L2 learning, especially among learners who, because of immigrant or outsider status, are constructed by mainstream society as a menace to societal stability.
