Entrevista com Carl Ratner

Abstract

C.Ratner: I developed my approach to psychology that I call macro cultural psychology as an extension of Vygotsky's works, and I strongly believe that Vygotsky was a macro cultural psychologist in his outlook. Most of his work did not explore macro cultural factors in detail. Most of his work explored more general interpersonal relations: the way caregivers socialize children, like the zone of proximal development. But I think it's very clear that really the impulse that motivated his work was a deep concern with social factors, especially social transformation. Vygotsky was a very strong supporter of the Russian Revolution, he was clearly a Marxist; he was very concerned about issues of exploitation and social class. One of his quotes is that the individual psychology is structured by his social class position; he strongly believed that social transformation was necessary for psychological development and psychological improvement. So, he mentions these things throughout his work, even though he didn't have time to explore them. And because he didn't have time to explore them, I decided that would do that. Another reason for developing macro cultural psychology is because cultural psychologists, even psychologists who follow Vygotsky also did not develop his macro cultural perspective.