Scaffolding in context: Peer interaction and abstract learning

The emphasis of research into scaffolding is task success during scaffolding itself. However, to be regarded as educationally relevant, scaffolding must support generalization to tasks whose relation to the scaffolded task is relatively abstract. With reference to published research, this paper shows that while scaffolding can potentially support such ‘abstract learning’, it does not invariably do this. Proposing that scaffolding contextualized within peer interaction might prove more reliably successful, the paper then summarizes four relevant and encouraging studies. The specific message from the studies is that scaffolding should be presented as support for the reconciliation of conflicting perspectives, a role that is inadequately theorized in current literature but provides a clear structure for future research.