Learning and Instruction 13 (2003) 465–485 www.elsevier.com/locate/learninstruc Not just Piaget; not just Vygotsky, and certainly not Vygotsky as alternative to Piaget
Michael Shayer ∗
King’s College, University of London, 16 Fen End, Over, Cambridge CB4 5NE, UK

Abstract
There have been many interpretations published on the relative importance of the work of both Vygotsky and Piaget: often to the detriment of the latter. This article represents an attempt to discover the meaning and intention of the former by going back to the specifics of what he said and wrote. By reference to what they said of each other it is argued that by the early
30s they had reached almost identical positions regarding child development, and that the work of each is complementary to that of the other. The implications of this position for a theory of intervention for cognitive acceleration are then discussed.
 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

As we know from investigations of the process of concept formation, a concept is more than the sum of certain associative bonds formed by memory, more than a mere mental habit; it is a complex and genuine act of thought that cannot be taught by drilling, but can be accomplished only when the child’s mental development has itself reached the requisite level. (1)
Throughout the history of the child’s development runs a ‘warfare’ between spontaneous and non-spontaneous, systematically learned, concepts. (cf. the Alternative
Conceptions movement). (2)

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Tel.: +44-1954-231814.
E-mail address: m.shayer@ukonline.co.uk (M. Shayer).

0959-4752/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0959-4752(03)00092-6 466

M. Shayer / Learning and Instruction 13 (2003) 465–485

…the development of nonspontaneous concepts must possess all the traits