Signification and the Culture of Public Schools

Soviet psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky’s visionary conceptualization of culture as a force

of shaping human consciousness sparked a paradigm shift in the institutions of psychology and

later, education. While the Pavlovian view at the time understood human behavior solely as a

reaction to stimuli or signals Lev Vygotksy understood humans as possessing an active role in

sensing and acquiring meaning from their environments. As seen by J.V. Wertsch (1985), this

creation and use of a complex system of symbols or “artificial signs” is defined by LevVygotksy

as “signification” (p. 90). In this paper, I will employ the concept of signification as one way to

understand how institutions and human behavior are simultaneously shaping themselves. I will

specify how Vygotsky’s representation of signification originates from the social life of humans,

and explore how that theme resurfaces in semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “social

languages” and context-dependent meaning (p. 56). I will outline four key ways that public

schools can reform the utilization of signs in order to more positively influence the learning and

development of all students. Lastly, I will address the wider social implications of the

internalization of signs, as well as how an unexamined ideology of class and racial domination

underpinning public school messages marginalizes entire groups of students, oftentimes without

their knowledge.

1. Signification and Institutions

Vygotsky’s departure from Pavolv’s position on signal systems and human response is

evident in his description of human actions and responses to words (p. 89). According to

Vygotsky, “words have built up a second signal system signaling reality” (p. 90). One could

describe it another way as a system of communicating meaning through sensing environment.

 

 

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While it is a system that is undoubtedly fluid and artificially pieced together, it is the very system

that makes us human. Vygotsky maintains that this outgrowth of words as signs—and beyond

that signification—stems from the complex system of relational ties that has resulted from

human life (p. 90). Consequently, social ties render possible the “subordination of the

individual’s behavior to social demands” (p. 91). For humans, signification has become the

mechanism through which signs actually influence behavior, namely “either the behavior of

another or one’s own behavior” (Wertsch, 91). To this end, signs are a social, “man-made”

product with powerful influence on groups’ and individual’s realities. Signification and its role

for regulating behavior due to humans’ social relationships is the cornerstone of Vygotksy’s

definition of “higher mental processes” (p. 91).

Signification as a means of shaping human action is a theme heard again in the writings

of Russian semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin. In his writings, Bakhtin examines signs as carriers of

meaning through his concept of “social languages” (p. 56). Telescoping from signification as a

system of artificial signs that stimulate behavior, the notion of social languages takes the concept

further to describe how signs, meanings, and discourses can be “unique to a specific stratum of

society within a given social system at a given time” (p. 57). In many ways, social languages can

be seen as a way of organizing words and meaning; Bakhtin asserts that speaking involves the

“appropriation of at least one social language…and because social languages are socioculturally

situated…meaning is inextricably linked with historical, cultural and institutional setting” (66).

Focusing on the institution of schools, I will examine how the social language within the public

education system in the United States codifies student profiles into a binary view of intelligence

that frighteningly translates the message of “worth our resources” or “not worth our resources.”

 

 

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This dichotomoy has clear impact in the minds of all students, particularly students of color,

English as a Second Language students, and those who are at the intersection of multiple labels.

2. Applying Signification to the Culture of Public Schools

As exemplified in Vygotsky’s description of signification, signs are basic tools in a

system for conveying information and meaning. Thus shaping human behavior. It is worth

considering what makes ups the signs students see most frequently in school. What information

are they absorbing? How can school leaders and teachers better use their resources to engage the

mind of all students, and to give students a hope for a healthy future. I propose the following

three recommendations to school leaders and community members seeking to increase academic

and social-emotional achievement through the enriching experiences of our diverse community.

i. Expose all students to college-bound and post-secondary opportunities

School staff should work to dispel the myth of graduation as just a piece of paper called a

diploma. Disillusioned students and family members, however, are right in seeing the current

role of their community schools that way if meaningful learning activities fail to exist. A school

and school-supporting community should strategically allocate resources—financial and,

possibly more importantly, community resources to offer enrichment programs such as sports,

STEM clubs, Student Council, theatre arts, music, debate clubs, cultural exchange clubs, etc. for

their students. These clubs are essential for healthy student emotional, social and academic

development. They are also now standard requirements of college-bound students. Students and

school leaders should meet to ask themselves, “how easy it is for students to participate in these

activities? Can students on any given afternoon stay after school and, through signs in the main

 

 

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office, community bulletin, or room names find out information on a wide variety of enrichment

activities?

School leaders should examine to what extent their college-level classes are accessibly by

students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Is your school rigidly tracked? “Tracking”

or “sorting” in education is a common practice that categorizes students by curriculum level;

among its stated purpose is homogenizing of students into groups of similiar ability. Tracking is

organized by words like “foundational”; remedial”; “average”; general; “advanced”; “honors”

and “college-level”. Against the backdrop of signification, one begins to see that these terms are

far from neutral; their explicit associations with rank and position within the social system of the

school. Once labeled it is difficult for students to maneuver outside of that track for the

remainder of their secondary school experience. The label arguably becomes a self-fulfilling

prophecy, and affects students’ identities in ways that undermines a culture of healthy

development. Mixed-ability classes where students have the opportunity to receive instruction

from more experienced teachers signifies a culture of high expectations for all students.

ii. Eliminate the presence of metal detectors and reduce the presence of safety/police

officers

The presence of metal detectors, “safety officers,” or school police is incongruous with the

context of a quality public school experience that is free from bias and unusual punishment.

While the social language around “how to create safe schools” is well-disposed, the solution is

arguably more complex than merely increasing the presence of law enforcement figures intended

to be seen and used as absolute disciplinarians. In the context of signification, metal detectors

can be seen as instruments which are part of the “school-to-prison” pipeline. They work to

reinforce the identity of “student as criminal” and the overwhelming majority of school-based

 

 

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arrests in metropolitan public schools in the US are arrest of Black students who are detained for

weeks without due process—further keeping them out of the school environment. Instead, school

leaders should work to promote signifying elements of restorative justice, mediation, and safe

spaces. These messages (literally in the forms of signs indicating “this room is a safe space” or “I

am an ally”) promote healthy relationships and can perhaps serve as a more effective buffer

against community violence.

iii. Examine practices that label kids with terms like “ability” and “disability”

Access to a free and appropriate public education is possible without schools reinforcing the

artificial binary of “ability” and “disability” in learning. School leaders, teachers and staff should

work to ensure that students with IEPs are not excluded from the social language of school

community participation and student achievement. This may point to a bigger need for school

leaders to examine practices around referring, assessing and diagnosing “disability” particularly

in light of the racial disproportionality in disability categories affecting students in the United

States (Artiles, 2013). A student should enter a school culture that explicitly conveys the

possibility for all students to academically and emotionally excel. This can be in verbal messages

or in the visual materials posted in public spaces. Perhaps more meaningfully, school community

can work to capture experiences of growth in their everyday classrooms and hallways. This can

include visual materials such as posters, banners, signs and artwork reflecting a culturally

responsive environment.

3. Implications of Signification

Lev Vygotksy’s initial theory of signification and its subsequent articulations profiled in

the literature have allowed humans to construct an increasingly complex world of words and

signs with infinite meanings. I chose to examine how signification is at play in shaping the

 

 

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institution of public schools because communities should be aware of how we are shaping our

kids. Do we want to continue reproducing images perpetuating a message that is anti-Black, anti-

poor, and anti-immigrant? Schools are undoubtedly used as agents to reinforce structural

oppression. Increasing access to strategic resources for some schools and limiting access to

resources for others benefits no one. Moreover, I specifically chose these three recommendations

to address how signs have become vehicles of disguised racism within schools. As Vygotsky

determined, social signs dictate peoples’ internal thinking and eventual behavior. Thousands of

students every day experience messages from their public schools that define their role in society

for them. Thus, there is a very real process of “schooling” yielding inequality that is, as it were,

unconscious. The unexamined practices of tracking, adding police officers to the school day, and

evaluating and diagnosing students with “disabilities” are part of what I see to be an exhaustive

effort to disempower and criminalize young people, specifically poor, minority, and immigrant

students. In the context of signs and messaging, these practices rationalize segregation and

results in Black, Latino, poor and low-achieving students in “classrooms with lower-achieving

peers and less-experienced teachers” (Kalogrides, 2013). This practice puts a low ceiling on

child and human development in ways that have lasting effects as healthy citizens. Looking at

the broader landscape of US society, one finds a haunting picture of a racism that covers up

modern day slavery. Using a Vygotskian lens to understand signs and language as integral parts

of our institution is crucial in dismantling oppressive messages, and replacing them with a

language to have schools that provide learning and healthy development for all.

Works Cited

Artiles, A. J. (2013). Untangling the Racialization of Disabilities. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(02), 329-347.

 

 

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Kalogrides, D., & Loeb, S. (2013). Different Teachers, Different Peers: The Magnitude of Student Sorting Within Schools. Educational Researcher, 42(6), 304-316. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotksy and the social formation of mind (pp. 58-128) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action (pp. 46-92, 119-147). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.