Viviane RONCAGLIO; Cátia Maria NEHRING and Isabel Koltermann BATTISTI
RIAEE – Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educação, Araraquara, v. 18, n. 00, e023010, 2023. e-ISSN: 1982-5587
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21723/riaee.v18i00.16208 5
When a new word is grasped by the child, its development has barely begun:
the word is first a generalization of the most primitive kind; as the child's
intellect develops, it is replaced by generalizations of an increasingly higher
kind - a process which eventually leads to the formation of true concepts. The
development of concepts, or of the meanings of words, presupposes the
development of many intellectual functions: deliberate attention, logical
memory, abstraction, the ability to compare and differentiate.
Thus, the appropriation of the meaning of a concept by the academic involves the
development of superior mental functions and these are related to the structure of the concept,
its formation, the meaning produced in different contexts and the establishment of conceptual
relations. The appropriation by the Engineering student of the concept of Vector expands the
conditions for attributing new meanings to his world, that is, to the context of the profession,
broadens his horizons of perceptions and makes it possible to modify the form of interaction
with the reality that surrounds him. This internalization or appropriation of the concept by the
student occurs from the outside in, from the social to the individual, being a complex process
that requires a deliberate and intentional interaction. It is not enough to present the concept to
the student, he needs to understand the historical and cultural context, it means appropriating
the social experiences built historically by humanity. Once internalized, this concept is part of
the acquisitions of the subjects' development, and can become a tool of their thinking. In
Historical-Cultural Theory, the appropriation of concepts involves “[...] the internal
reconstruction of an external operation” (VIGOTSKY, 1994, p. 74, our translation), which
consists of a series of transformations, which are:
a) An operation that initially represents an external activity is reconstructed
and begins to occur internally. Of particular importance for the development
of higher mental processes is the transformation of the activity that uses signs,
whose history and characteristics are illustrated by the development of
practical intelligence, voluntary attention, and memory.
b) An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal process. All
functions in the child's development appear twice: first on the social level, and
then on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological), and
then within the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary
attention, logical memory, and the formation of concepts. All higher functions
originate in real relations between human individuals.
c) The transformation of an interpersonal process into an intrapersonal process
is the result of a long series of events occurring throughout development. The
process, being transformed, continues to exist and change as an external form
of activity for a long period of time before it becomes definitively internalized.
(VIGOTSKY, 1994, p. 75, our translation)
During this process, learning occurs, which enables transformations in the higher
psychic functions and, consequently, the development of the subject. Learning here is