Cultural-Historical Scientific School: the Issues that L.S. Vygotsky Brought up

The report highlights the fundamentals of L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory and discusses the system of concepts of this scientific school. The report analyses L.S. Vygotsky’s approach, according to which the basis for the development of human psyche is created by a qualitative change of the social situation or, in A.N. Leont’ev’s terms, by a change of human activity. The importance of intelligence and emotions, which are internally connected, is demonstrated in relation to the change of human activity. The role of social interactions in learning and development of children is discussed referring to the challenges of the “new school”.