Anna Stetsenko, born in the former Soviet Union, is a developmental psychologist at the City University of New York. She has developed theories about infants' concepts of thinking and speaking based on the research of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky and Jean Piaget. Stetsenko has expanded Vygotskyan and Piagetian ideas of how children learn through memory and experience.
Stetsenko received her doctorate in general and developmental psychology from Moscow State University, and spent several years in research at the University of Moscow. She also conducted extensive research at the Institute of General and Education Psychology of the Russian Academy of Education. In Berlin, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute; she was an Invited Visiting Fellow at the Center of Cultural Studies in Vienna, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Stetsenko has outlined a socio-cultural activity theory and its potential positive and negative outcomes within the human development and learning. She has carried out extensive empirical research on adolescents and social development, closely related to issues of gender, self-concept and motivation. Her works are closely connected with the social-cultural interaction and daily activities of adolescents and children. Stetsenko's writings have a strong emphasis on multicultural theories in developmental psychology. She has also conducted research on the works of Vygotsky, Leontiev and Alexander Luria. Stetsenko has published numerous book chapters, textbooks, and journal articles in German, English, and Russian.
Stetsenko is a professor at the City University of New York and former head of the Ph.D program in developmental psychology at the university.
Publications and editorial activities
Stetsenko, A. & Arievitch, I. (in press). Expanding Vygotsky's perspective on teaching, learning, and development. Cambridge University Press.
Stetsenko, A. (2005). The birth of consciousness: Early stages in the development of systems of meanings [Rozhdenie soznanija: rannie etapi v razvitii sistemi znachenij]. Moscow: CheRo Press.
Stetsenko, A. (2004). Introduction to "Tool and sign" by Lev Vygotsky. In R. Rieber and D. Robbinson (Eds.), Essential Vygotsky (pp. 499–510). NY etc.: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum.
Robbins, D., & Stetsenko, A. (2002) (Eds.). Vygotsky's psychology: Voices from the past and present. New York: Nova Science Press.
Stetsenko, A. (2002). "Vygotsky's cultural-historical activity theory: Collaborative practice and knowledge construction process". In D. Robbins and A. Stetsenko (eds.), Vygotsky's psychology: Voices from the past and present. New York: Nova Science Press.
Stetsenko, A. (2002). "Sociocultural activity as a unit of analysis: How Vygotsky and Piaget converge in empirical research on collaborative cognition". In D. Bearison and B. Dorval (commentary chapter), Collaborative cognition: Children negotiating ways of knowing (pp. 122–135). Westport, CT: Ablex.
Stetsenko, A. (2002). "Adolescents in Russia: Trends and developments". In B. Bradford Brown & R. Larsson (Eds.), The world of adolescence: Changing paths to adulthood around the globe. New York etc.: Cambridge University Press. (Awarded the SRCD prize in 2002 as best book of the year)
Stetsenko, A. (1999). "Social interaction, cultural tools, and the zone of proximal development: In search of a synthesis". In M. Hedegaard, S. Chaiklin, S. Boedker, & U. J. Jensen (Eds.), Activity theory and social practice. Proceedings of the ISCRAT 1998: Keynote speeches and panels (pp. 235–253). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Grob, A., Stetsenko, A., Sabatier, C., Botcheva, L., & Macek, P. (1999). "Across-national model of subjective well-being in adolescence". In F. D. Alsaker & A. Flammer (Eds.), The Adolescent Experience: European and American Adolescents in the 1990s (pp. 115–131). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stetsenko, A. (1998). "Teorii tvorchestva: sotsiokulturnij podhod" [Theories of creativity: Views from a sociocultural perspective]. In D. B. Bogojavlenskaja (Ed.), Teorii tvorchestva [Theories of creativity] (pp. 315–328). Moscow: Molodaja Gvardija.
Stetsenko, A., & Arievitch, I. (1996). "The zone of proximal development"". In J. Lompscher (Ed.), Entwicklung und lernen aus kulturhistorischer Sicht [Development and learning from a cultural-historical point of view] (pp. 81–93). Marburg: BdWi-Verlag.
Stetsenko, A. (1995). "The psychological functions of children's drawing: A Vygotskian perspective". In G. Thomas and Ch. Lange-Küttner (Eds.), Drawing and Looking (pp. 147–158). New York etc.: Harvester Wheatsheaf. (Also in Italian: "La funzione psicologica del disegno infantile: una prospettiva Vygotskiana" (2000). In Bambini, Anno XVI, n. 4, pp. 19–31. Translation and foreword by Prof. Mariolina Bartolini-Bussi)
Stetsenko, A. (1991). "Naturalisticheskaja i sotsio-kulturnaja paradigmi v issledovanijah fenomena odarennosti" [Naturalistic and sociocultural research paradigms in the study of giftedness]. In A. Matjushkin (Ed.), Obshestvennije dvizhenija i sotsialnaja aktivnost molodezhi [Social trends and activities in modern youth and adolescence] (pp. 203–215). Moscow: Institute of Sociology Press.
Stetsenko, A. (1990). "Printsip predmetnosti v teorii dejatelnosti" [The principle of object-relatedness in the theory of activity]. In V. V. Davydov & D. A. Leontjev (Eds.), Dejatelnostnij podhod v psihologii: Problemi i perspektivi [Activity approach in psychology: Problems and perspectives] (pp. 20–35). Moscow: USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences Press (also published in English translation in Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 1995, 33, 54-69).
Stetsenko, A. (1988). "O diahrinicheskom printsipe istoriko-psihologicheskogo analiza nauchnih kontsepsij" [Some principles in the historical analysis of psychological conceptions]. In A. Zhdan (Ed.), Izuchenije traditsij i nauchnih shkol v istorii sovetskoj psihologii [Scientific schools and traditions in the history of Soviet psychology] (pp. 46–51). Moscow: Moscow University Press.
Stetsenko, A. (1986). Issledovatelskaja zadacha i struktura psihologicheskogo znanija [Research task and the structure of psychological knowledge]. In A. Barabanchikov (Ed.), Metodologija psihologicheskogo issledovanija [Methodology of Psychological Research] (pp. 10–23). Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences Press.
Arievitch I., & Stetsenko, A. (1988). "Dejatelnostnij podhod k probleme soznanija" [Activity-based approach to the analysis of consciousness]. In A. Prokhorov et al. (Eds.), Genezis, struktura i funktsii individualnogo soznanija [Development, structure and functions of individual consciousness] (pp. 3–7). Ivanovo: University Press.
Stetsenko, A. (1981). "Vygotskij i problema znachenija" [L. S. Vygotsky and the concept of meaning]. In V. V. Davydov (Ed.), Nauchnoe tvorchestvo L. S. Vigotskogo i sovremennaja psihologija Scientific works of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology (pp. 148–151). Moscow: USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences Press.
