Concepts, Contexts, and Transformation

This special issue continues the discussion initiated by Piaget and Vygotsky on the nature of and relationship between spontaneous and scientific concepts, and comes out of a sense of continuity with and a reconsideration of ideas presented by Vygotsky over 60 years ago. Two themes run through current discussions and are reflected in the articles written for this issue: First, the relations between children's learning before they enter school and the learning they do in school and, second, flowing from analysis of the first theme, pedagogical approaches that will facilitate learning for all children and that all the articles are motivated on the latter score is evident. Of interest, however, is that they differ in their interpretations of Vygotsky's writing about the relations between scientific and everyday concepts. Their different interpretations in turn lead them to different conclusions about Vygotsky's view of classroom learning.