Vygotsky’s decolonial pedagogical legacy in the 21st century: back to the future

ABSTRACT This largely theoretical paper traces the continued influence that the work of Vygotsky has in studying teaching/learning in schools. The advent of the 21st century has led to a call for novel pedagogical models to enable children think in ways pertinent to our technologically based societies. Currently, the 4th Industrial revolution is playing out against the backdrop of climate change, a rise in right wing movements, and a call for decolonial education to challenge the hegemony of a colonial worldview. This paper presents an argument for how Vygotsky and the Neo-Vygotskian’s work does not require a novel pedagogy, but rather, that we reclaim its relevance for the 21st century, illustrating how the concepts underpinning it can be used to decolonize contemporary pedagogy. The paper foregrounds aspects of Vygotsky’s work and draws on Hedegaard’s further developments to argue for a decolonial pedagogy that arises from this knowledge base. The problematic addressed in this paper relates to schooling in the 4th Industrial Revolution and suggests that schooling today must be about more than the acquisition of academic content; it must be geared toward developing critical, collaborative forms of thought capable of transforming both the child and the world. In this paper, I argue for the foundation of such a schooling in the work of Vygotsky and the Neo-Vygotskians, by articulating a decolonial pedagogy grounded on this body of work.