The purpose of this paper is to examine prejudicial (stereotypic) thinking based on Lev Vygotsky's (1978) theory of social learning and culture and relate it to educational efforts to facilitate student learning of tolerance. In other words, the paper focuses on Vygotsky's theory and related research in an effort to decide what is needed in order to maximally facilitate tolerant attitudes in children.
Vygotsky's Theory, Related Research, and Applications to Learning Tolerance
Lev Vygotsky (1978) states that social interaction fuels child development. Children, he stated, are constantly trying to extract meaning from the social world and so learn. Vygotsky believed that, at first, a child's mental life expresses itself in interactions with others. Later, however, children evolve "private speech" where private speech is talking to oneself to guide behavior. According to Vygotsky, private speech helps children to understand the world and the people in it.
Private speech was also said to serve an important self-regulatory function. It is the means by which children guide their own thinking and behavior and helps them to avoid regulation by others. However, what if children's regulatory function requires him or her to suppress certain thoughts such as bigoted or prejudiced thoughts? In this regard, Hall and Crisp (2003) have noted that:
The suppression of stereotypical thoughts is a key element of self-regulation in societies with egalitarian norms. Successful suppression in the short run, however, can come at a cost. Following a period of conscious suppression, a "rebound" effect is commonly observed, whereby perceivers implicitly and explicitly demonstrate attitudes and behaviors consistent with heightened stereotype activation (p. 1)
In other words, by trying to be tolerant through suppressing intolerant or stereotypic thoughts of certain people or ethnic groups, children can, at least under some conditions, lead to ...