Governing Activity

Each cycle has a guiding activity, and the other activities performed by students are hierarchically organized around it. (Signatures: Leontiev, Elkonin, Wallon, and Davidov)

As explained in the first chapter, the Historical-Cultural School postulated the criterion of guiding activity to differentiate one cycle from another. The concept of guiding activity allows Elkonin to formulate the thesis that school cycles should be differentiated by the change in the central activity performed by the student throughout their school life.

According to this concept, the main guiding activities of each cycle would be the following:

• In Exploratory, the core activities will be those required in the child's adaptation process to school, his or her peers, rules, tasks, schedules, and spaces. Entering school, particularly the "big school," profoundly alters the child's journey. From then on, life begins to revolve around school activities, the emphasis is on socio-values, and the central activity that characterizes the child will be adaptation to the school system. At the cognitive level, the child inquires, explores, and adapts to the new institution that welcomes him or her, but this will depend on his or her adaptive process.


• In Conceptual, the central activity is study, and as such, it is a predominantly cognitive cycle with an emphasis on reading. From a cognitive perspective, children in the Conceptual cycle are typically tasked with understanding the main concepts of science, and they turn to reading to try to answer their questions.


• In Contextual, the essential thing a young person does is talk and reflect with others about contextual factors. What is essential is resatelization and communication among peers (Ausubel and Sullivan, 1983). Preadolescents reflect and interact with groups of people, question their surroundings, and define their initial positions regarding them; and for this, reflection and dialogue with peers are essential. They form groups, which initially begin with close friendships of the same gender. It is a cycle essentially focused on social interaction and sociolinguistic skills.


• In Projective, the essential element is debating with the peer group and defining one's life plan. Young people spend most of their time discussing and debating with their peers; this will allow them to define their own ethical, political, ideological, religious, and artistic positions. A young person, one might think, is a young person as long as they are part of a group and debate with it. It is a cycle for defining one's life plan, with an emphasis on the socio-affective dimension and identity.