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As for the relationship between Vygotsky’s theory and discourse theories,
Hicknann found the notion of the 'organizing function' of speech useful to
explain children's ability to organize discourse, in particular narrative
discourse, and observes that no other developmental theory ha,wB made
'interactive processes an inherent part of the developmental process'
<Hickmann,1985:237).
Crucially for a picture of development, discourse theory recognizes
that language has evolved in history and that it presents for
children socially maintained ways of speaking and writing,
connected to specific experiences and embedded within institutional
and ideological frameworks. If this is acceptable as a way of
seeing language, than it seems no more than an extension of
Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory to envisage development as an
active, dialectical and potentially critical internalization of the
positions and possibilities of developed discourse.
(Burgess,1984:217).
2 3 .S Relevance for education in underdeveloped countries
A number of considerations indicate the relevance of theories developed
in the Soviet Union to the enormous educational problems faced by
underdeveloped countries. Unlike the course of scientific development In
Western countries, there was in the USSR of the '20s and '30s a delibe-
rate commitment to develop an educational psychology functional to the
demands posed by the massive programmes of democratization and
reconstruction made possible by the Revolution. The body of theories
which emerged as a result was constructed in a situation of permanent
assessment of their educational results: where social processes are more
advanced than theory, a theoretical framework is required to advance
through contradictions and, at the same time, it is constantly revised in
the light of its effectiveness.
In Vygotsky's times, the Soviet Union would have been considered an
underdeveloped country (although in many aspects much better off than