The contributions of Vygotsky and Luria about the construction of higher psychological processes are examined. Their concepts provide a rich heuristic factor to be incorporated into the analyses of schooling and literacy processes. These reflections are based on a 20-year study on such processes and their social, cultural and cognitive outcomes. Research in fact raised a set of theoretical and methodological questions, one of which is to understand the processes through which people from traditional oral cultures build up references on literacy so that they may still perceive themselves as subjects of their own history. The confrontation of the theoretical and methodological principles available in the field of psychology and anthropology has been essential to current search. In fact, it aims at overcoming classical antinomies in the field of psychology: individual and culture; concrete and abstract.
Language development; written language; higher psychological functions