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In recent years many similarities, especially centering on the notion of dialogue, have been noted in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky. Although both attend to the dialogical character of speech and thought and the role of dialogue in the social constitution and genesis of mind, we argue that their understandings of dialogue are different in important ways. We consider the implications of such differences for a broader cultural-historical view of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) by focusing on three issues: dialogue, otherness and voice. These issues lead us to consider extending the domain of the ZPD to incorporate Magistral, Socratic and Menippean dialogues. These dialogues constitute three regions on a continuum with centripetal Vygotskian and centrifugal Bakhtinian poles, and each emerges at a different point of development of the ZPD. This broader perspective on the ZPD provides a medium for cultural and historical change as well as for individual socialization.

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Externalizing, or separating the person from his/her problem-saturated story, is a central approach in narrative therapy. Michael White, one of the therapy's founders, lately revised his map of the externalizing process in therapy according to Vygotskian theory. In this study we sought to determine whether White's proposed process was evident in therapy sessions. Sequential analysis indicated that therapists scaffolded children's responses according to White's map, and therapists' and children's utterances tended to advance across the levels of the map over the course of a session, indicating that White's model of narrative therapy matched the therapy's empirical process.

Persons with intellectual disabilities are more likely to experience victimization and have their rights infringed upon than are people without such disabilities. While legislative and policy interventions have afforded a certain degree of protection against such rights violations, people with intellectual disabilities continue to experience restrictions of their basic human rights. This article describes the development of a Human Rights Project being developed in Canada and aimed at promoting human rights awareness in individuals with intellectual disabilities. Following a brief history of the project, we focus on its current phase: the development of a multimedia human rights training CD. We address the empirical and pedagogical foundations for the use of simulated instruction, aspects of the project that reflect its participative orientation, and the use of dramaturgical methods for training persons with intellectual disabilities to be actors in the video scenarios that appear on the training CD. We conclude by highlighting the importance of a systemic approach to human rights training, as well as the implications of such an approach for understanding the relationally and situationally emergent nature of human rights knowledge.