The Kharkov school of psychology (Харьковская психологическая школа; Ukrainian: Харківська психологічна школа, romanized: Kharkivska psykholohichna shkola) is a tradition of developmental psychological research conducted in the paradigm of Lev Vygotsky's "sociocultural theory of mind" and Leontiev's psychological activity theory.

Kharkov group: the beginning of the school

The school was founded by its leader Alexander Luria, who—along with Mark Lebedinsky and Alexei Leontev—moved from Moscow to Kharkiv, the capital of Soviet Ukraine until 1934. The core of the group was formed by Luria, Lebedinsky, and Leontiev and their Moscow colleagues, Zaporozhets and Bozhovich, along with a group of such local researchers as Galperin, Asnin, P. Zinchenko, Lukov, Khomenko, Kontsevaya, Rozenblyum, etc. The group conducted a wide range of psychological studies on concept formation in children, voluntary and involuntary memory, development of visual-operational thinking, voluntary behaviour, and reasoning, the role of orientation in thought and activity, etc. that laid the foundation for the psychological theory of activity.

P. I. Zinchenko and the Kharkov school of developmental psychology

In the postwar period, the scientific work of the school developed under informal leadership of Pyotr Zinchenko in the field of the psychology of memory. The major achievement of the school is the systematic analysis of the phenomenon of involuntary memory from the standpoint of the activity approach in psychology. Soviet studies of involuntary memory carried out by the representatives of the Kharkiv school influenced psychological research both nationally and worldwide (e.g., memory research by A. Brown, Murphy, Meacham, Sophian, Hagen, etc.).

The information processing or engineering psychology approach to memory and cognition was developed in the research by Zinchenko, Bocharova, Nevel'skii, Repkina. On the other hand, research on the role of involuntary memory in education and memory in thinking and personality development was conducted by Sereda, Ivanova, and associates.

Another major area of research is the theory and practice of developmental teaching (or the system of El'konin-Davydov) associated with such representatives of the Kharkiv school as Repkin, Bodanskii, Dusavitskii.

Selected publications

See also

• Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)
• Leading activity
• Kharkiv Institute of Labor

Sources

• Leont'ev, A. N. (1976/1986). Problema deyatel'nosti v istorii sovetskoj psixologii (Проблема деятельности в истории советской психологии) [The problem of activity in the history of Soviet psychology]. In Voprosy psikhologii, 1986, No. 4 (in Russian)
  • Leont'ev, A. N. (1976/1989). The Problem of Activity in the History of Soviet Psychology. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 27 (1), 22 – 39
• Zaporozhets, A. V. & El'konin, D.B. (Запорожец А.В., Эльконин Д. Б.) (1979). Вклад ранних исследований А. Н. Леонтьева в развитие теории деятельности // Вестник МГУ, Серия 14. Психология, No. 4, с. 14—24 (see English comment to Russian publication)
• Cole, M. (1980). Introduction: The Kharkov school of developmental psychology. In Soviet psychology, 18, 2
• Cole, M. (1994). Introduction. Soviet psychology, 32, 2.
• Ivanova, E.F. (Иванова Е.Ф.) (2002). Харьковская психологическая школа 30-х годов: история создания и методологические принципы // Вісник Харківського університету, N 550, частина 1. Серія психологія, с. 97–98
  • Kharkiv State University Department of psychology website
• Леонтьев А. А., Леонтьев Д. А., & Соколова Е. Е. (2005). Алексей Николаевич Леонтьев: деятельность, сознание, личность. Харьков и вокруг него. М.: Смысл, 2005. С. 8-141
• Sokolova E.E. (Соколова Е.Е.) (2007). Линии разработки идей Л.С. Выготского в Харьковской психологической школе // Культурно-историческая психология, 1, 2007