Social experiences play a vital role in the development of children. Theories of child development have been created to help us to understand how children’s minds develop, taking into account the differences between cultures around the world. Some of these theories explore the possibility that children gain knowledge, develop new concepts and bridge new ideas through interaction with experience and cognitive schemata. Some theories explore the theory that development also plays a role in social experience.
There are many theories of development, but some are more influential and have inspired a lot of …show more content…
Piaget reasoned that children benefit from exposing one another to conflicting perspectives, which causes them to adapt and develop their cognitive schema. This development does not occur when children are in contact with adults, as they see adults as authority figures, and thus would be willing to accept an adult viewpoint without questioning it, which does not allow them to form new ideas or critique old ideas.
The fourth and final theory of development that will be discussed is the social constructivism theory. This theory is similar to the constructivist theory as it proposes that children are active agents in their own learning and development. The social constructivism theory extends the constructivism model by introducing the roles of other agents, and by emphasising the role of interaction in the process of learning. The constructive theory places emphasis on social interaction as an important tool in cognitive development, and that schema are formed by children mostly through social interaction, not just through creating the ideas on their own . Vygotsky was a social constructivist whose theories can be contrasted with Piaget’s contructivist theories. Piaget believed that children are the main agents in developing their own knowledge and cognitive schemata about the things they have experiences in the environment. In contrast, Vygotsky placed more emphasis on the development of social schemata through the internalisation of social