Introduction

Study activity, as a guiding activity for school-age children and also in its pedagogical and didactic dimension, has been a recurring subject both in scientific literature based on historical-cultural theory, more broadly, and in contributions from developmental didactics⁴. This occurs not only in Brazilian articles, theses and dissertations publications that cover the topic, but also in the translation of important works by Soviet authors, founders of these theoretical approaches and essential in the theory of study activity development since its genesis, and which are now released in Portuguese for the first time, with a direct translation of the original work in Russian.

Regarding to the most recent research productions, we highlight, among others, the thematic dossier organized by the Obutchénie Journal and published in 2021 with the title “Atividade de estudo e prática docente: entre a teoria e a prática, a busca de caminhos possíveis para um processo pedagógico transformador”.⁵ This journal issue brings together Brazilian and foreign texts, most of which focus on different discussion elements about study activity and contribute to advancing the understanding of the phenomenon and the applicability of the teaching practice concept.

As for the works of Soviet authors, it is worth highlighting the translations of several unpublished texts in Portuguese on the subject, organized by ^{Puentes, Cardoso and Amorim (2020}) in a book entitled “Theory of Study Activity: contributions by D. B. Elkonin, V. V. Davidov and V. V. Repkin”. As the title already makes clear, this work will specifically address the productions related to the Elkonin-Davidov-Repkin System, authors considered central to the construction of the theory, bringing together texts from 1961 to 2018, covering approximately 60 years of production by these researchers. We can also highlight the translations of texts by the aforementioned authors and other researchers of the same system in the work organized by Puentes and Mello (2019), with the name “Teoria da Atividade de estudo - livro 02: contribuições de pesquisadores brasileiros e estrangeiros”, and in the book “Teoria da Atividade de estudo: contribuições do grupo de Moscou”, organized by ^{Longarezi, Puentes and Marco (2023}).

In this sense, we have identified productions that contribute significantly to an advancement in the theoretical body and in the understanding of different crossings implied in the phenomenon, namely: the problem of research about study activity (^{DAVIDOV, 2020a}, ^2020b), the formation of study activity (^{DAVIDOV, 2020c}; ^{ELKONIN, 2020a}, ^{REPKIN, 2020a}, ^2020b), the structure of study activity (^{DAVIDOV, 2020d}; ^{ELKONIN, 2020b}; ^{REPKIN, 2020c}, ^2020b), the personal meaning of study activity (^{ASBAHR, 2014}; ^{ASBAHR; SOUZA, 2011}; ^{MENDONÇA; ASBAHR, 2019}), study activity and organization of teaching work (^{SFORNI; SERCONEK; LIZZI, 2021}); the diagnosis of the levels of development of the study activity (^{ZAIKA; REPKIN; REPKINA, 2020}), among others.

However, we observed the need to systematize discussions and produce analyses and syntheses that allow the understanding and defense of the collective character of this activity, and this will be our objective in this work. This need is initially identified by the scarcity of works that address the specificity mentioned, but, in essence, the justification for the research is supported by two dialectically related principles.

The first refers to the perception that, in most schools, there is a devaluation and discouragement of collective activities to the detriment of individual activities (^{ASBAHR, 2018}). Thus, on few occasions the organization of teaching proposes the performance of collective study actions and tasks, which weakens the development of the study, given the conception that higher psychological functions are initially shared interpsychically and later internalized (^{VYGOTSKY, 1995}). In other words, understanding the aforementioned collective character can make significant contributions to the process of organizing teaching and, consequently, to schooling, as will be discussed later in the text.

The second deals with understanding the neoliberal impacts on Latin American education, especially in the psychological formation of hegemony way competitive and individualistic moral values, as pointed out by ^{Mesquita (2018}). Thus, thinking about socialization based on the collective, both in the classroom and in other school spaces, which reinforces democratic management and student participation, has a potentially revolutionary character for an education aimed at human emancipation.

Therefore, in order to achieve the proposed objective, we will systematize the discussion based on three points that underpin the conception that we will defend here and that justify the relation of the collective character with the development of the activity, namely: 1) the collective character as a premise for the development of the activity of study; 2) the collective character as a means for developing the study activity; 3) the collective character as an end in the development of the study activity.

This work is characterized as a theoretical synthesis developed mainly from works by classical authors of Soviet Psychology.⁶ However, we also base ourselves on national productions of Historical-Cultural Psychology, as well as on discussions proposed by other Marxist authors who are linked to the theme. In this sense, although there is no intention, in this article, to develop a systematic literature review, the choice of works within the aforementioned scope was centered on criteria such as: a) theoretical relevance: works that present concepts and fundamental for the production of the synthesis about the collective character of the study activity; b) diversity of authors: consideration of works by various authors, from classics to the most recent, ensuring temporal scope, as well as Brazilian and Soviet productions.

The collective character as a premise for the development of the study activity

We will start from the assumption that all human activity has a collective character, even if it is developed from actions and operations at a predominantly individual level. In other words, if we understand the historical genesis of human activity, we will also understand that in its essence there is no purely individual activity.

As it had already widely discussed by the authors of Historical-Cultural Psychology, we defend the concept that human activity, in a dialectical process, constitutes and is historically constituted from social relations, determining and being determined by human psychic qualities.

According to ^{Luria (1979}), most of the knowledge, skills and behaviors of human beings are not the result of each person's individual experience or their genetic inheritance, but are acquired through the assimilation of the historical-social experience of generations. And this is a trait that radically differentiates the conscious activity of man from the behavior of animals.

However, all of these typically human psychic characteristics are not only assimilated in social relations, but also developed from them. For example, Luria explains that the transition from natural history to social history, that is, when we began to differentiate ourselves qualitatively from animals, is based on two factors: the development of the social form of work and the emergence of language. For the author, both factors are dialectically related. The very origin of language lies in the realization of the joint form of activity (due to the need to designate objects and actions that are part of joint work) and the language development of produces essential changes in the psyche and consequently in human activity.

In this way, the emergence of language gradually enables human beings to acquire new abilities, such as discriminating and distinguishing objects, turning their attention to them, storing them in memory, working with them in the field of imagination (without the need for their physical presence), generalizing the characteristics and functions among objects, etc. In this way, there is also a substantial transformation in the process of perceiving the outside world, since the possibility of designating qualities (objects, shapes, colors, smells, etc.) arises, allowing our perception to be deeper and more complex.

Thus, as pointed out by ^{Luria (1979}), the language development is a fundamental element for the beginning of social history, because it is a necessary vehicle for humanity to transmit the complex information produced over centuries, which allows human beings to assimilate this experience and master an immense cycle of knowledge and skills, which can only be the result of the collective experience of humanity, and it would never be the result of individual experience (of an isolated individual).

According to ^{Oliveira (1993}):

Man is a synthesis of these relations, insofar as he acts as an agent, but not as a mere singular being who carries out a purely individual activity. This activity is not the activity of an isolated subject, but a social activity of a given subject who lives and acts within certain social relations. The social nature of the activity of this or that individual does not have an abstract and eternal character, but a concrete (because historical) form of a given society. (p.35)

Therefore, we understand that what is typically human in us is not the result of a purely individual activity, but rather of the collective activity developed since the beginning of humanity up to a certain historical and social context, with certain concrete living conditions, in which the subject is inserted and carries out his/her activities. In this sense, the ontogenetic and phylogenetic characteristics of development are intrinsically linked, since we start from the assumption that the acquisition of human psychic qualities by an individual is only possible from the concrete social relations reproduced in a given society.

^{Vygotsky (1991}), when dealing with the process of acquisition of higher psychological functions by children, explains that these appear twice in the course of development. The first time as interpsychic functions (in collective, social activities) and the second as intrapsychic functions, as internal properties of the child's thought (individual activities). In other words, the very understanding of the genesis of higher psychological functions is premised on social, collective activity.

According to ^{Asbahr (2005}), to understand the development of consciousness, one should not limit it to an internal and isolated world, but rather recognize it as closely linked to activity. The development of consciousness does not occur otherwise than through interactions between individuals and their relationship with the world around them, that is, in a social manner.

Thus, we can consider that any human activity, even if carried out by just one individual, has a collective character, since it is premised on its interpsychic origin. However, it is worth noting that in some activities the collective character is expressed more than in others, which is due, in particular, to the way in which the activity is organized in our society and responds to a need characterized as more (or less) collective.

In the case of Study Activity, which is the name used to refer to the activity developed by the child in their learning at school, an institution whose particularity is the transmission of elaborated human culture, we understand that it responds (or should respond) to fundamentally collective needs, even if it is also expressed on an individual level.

Therefore, the genesis of study activity, like that of any other human activity, is collective, but there is a specificity in this activity with regard to its motives. In the study activity, the motives initially appear in response to a historical-cultural need, based on the values identified in the relations in which the child participates, therefore, they are first and foremost external motives. It is important that, in the development of the study activity, the internalization and production of motives in the student are in line with the social need of the activity.

According to ^{Davidov and Markova (2019}), the assimilation of knowledge always has, as its genesis, the joint activity with another person, in a process of communication. This communication can take different forms, from personal communication with another person to “communication with humanity” through the human experience that is fixed in the instruments of culture. We therefore understand its collective character as a premise for learning, whether through the necessary relations with others in the educational process or through the assimilation of content that is historically and culturally produced by humanity.

The collective character as a means for the study activity development

For ^{Martins (2011}), the process of overcoming the humanized being to become a humanized being requires the insertion of the individual in the history of humanity. However, to achieve this, it is not enough to simply be born and live in society and have immediate contact with human achievements. Individuals need to be educated and receive the transmission of material and symbolic culture through other individuals.

In this way, the educational act is guided by social work, by a collective activity. In this regard, ^{Asbahr (2016}) states that the Study Activity, carried out by the student, constitutes a dialectical unity with the Teaching Activity, carried out by the teacher, as both have corresponding motives: the individuals’ humanization. And here we find a first principle to justify the importance of the collective character as a means for the study activity development: this activity does not constitute itself alone and naturally in the individual, the actions of the teacher and the school are fundamental for its formation and development, it is the teaching organization that will provide the production of motives for the study activity and for the students' learning.

As Davidov asserts:

The internalization of collective Study Activity requires experimental research aimed at creating a detailed theory. The creators of the theory of Study Activity know that it is carried out by the subject. Initially by the collective subject and, later, by the individual. [...] it is necessary to examine more deeply, on the one hand, the uniqueness of the collective subject of Study Activity and, on the other, the content of the psychological concept of “individual subject” of this activity. (2020a, p. 281)

In this sense, Davidov also reports about studies developed on the relation between collective and individual in Study Activity, based on materials from Russian language, mathematics, visual arts and physics classes. According to the author, “very interesting results were obtained that allow the conclusion that the main form of Study Activity is its collective execution” (2020b, p.238-239).

In the reflection proposed by the author, the connection with the process of internalization defended by Vygotsky (1995) becomes evident, according to which the true course of development does not go from the individual to the socialized, but vice versa. In other words, specifically human qualities first appear in their collective form (interpsychic), and then emerge at the individual level (intrapsychic).

Let us remember that the activity of studying and the student's attitude are not given a priori. School plays a central role in their development and we can affirm that a good study activity development also involves teaching organized in a way that enhances collective processes in the classroom and outside it, which includes other educational spaces and collective participation possible in the school.

To this end, it is essential that we understand that the child's entry into school, especially in elementary school, modifies their needs and motives, dialectically transforming their position and relation with adults (and with themselves) in a process guided by the appropriation of scientific knowledge. According to ^{Elkonin (2017}), during study activities, there is an intense development of children's intellectual and cognitive strengths, and it is through this that the entire system of social relations between children and the adults around them is mediated.

^{Bozhovich (1985})⁷ makes important contributions to understanding the transformations brought about by entering school and the study activity development. In the first and second years of elementary school, it is possible to observe a greater interest of children in school and in the teacher's requests, because their motivation still has a strong link with the teacher, built in the preschool stage with the role-playing activity and now marked by the transition to study.

We have already highlighted the decisive importance for the development of the personality of school-age children that, upon entering school, they also enter a group of children their own age. Of course, even preschoolers, especially if they attend daycare, grow up among children. However, both in terms of the nature of the activity through which children organize themselves and in terms of the interrelations nature that arise among them, the preschool group differs essentially from the classroom group. Common school activity creates a common educational purpose in children. (^{BOZHOVICH, 1985}, p. 234)

According to the author, at school children find a new sphere of life in which they develop their own interests and concerns, as well as interrelations with their peers. The condition of participating in a common activity (study) provokes in children the desire to play, work and be together. The emergence of these collective bonds is marked by the formation of social opinion, by mutual demands and by the appreciation of each other. New feelings and moral needs arise as a result of an intense assimilation of new ways of relating and new demands, now placed not only by the teacher, but also by the group of peers. Little by little, it is these very relations will constitute and enable the fundamental conditions for determining the direction of their personality.

Thus, we come across a second principle that justifies the importance of understanding the social character as a means for developing study activities: acting collectively with other children can contribute to the formation of motives and development of meaning for learning in the student. However, this second principle is closely linked to the first, since the organization of collective actions by the teacher and the school are essential to provide such results.

Therefore, it is important to emphasize the need for teachers to create strategies to create a psychological climate suitable for group work. ^{Davidov (2020c}) suggests that actions should be based on children's friendship and on what they have in common, whether interests (such as musical tastes, preferred games/sports, subjects of interest) or common living conditions (such as living in the same neighborhood, sitting at the same table, etc.). According to the author:

The fundamental objective of educational work, during the first months of school, is to instill in children the feeling that their group, and therefore also the school, is not made up of people who are strangers to them, but rather a supportive and sensitive collective of children of the same age, peers, younger and older peers. (^{DAVIDOV, 2020c}, p.178).

However, if the teacher ignores, when organizing his classes, the new direction of his student's needs and interests, now focused mainly on his peers and his position within the group, he will also be ignoring what motivates (or may motivate) this student in carrying out his activity. An opportunity is therefore lost in the constitution of an educational practice that truly produces meaning in learning.

^{Bozhovich (1985}) states that one of the causes of the decrease in schoolchildren's interest in studying is the weakening of social motivation for this activity. This is related to mistakes in educational work regarding the organization of the children's collective. The author reports that teachers who, during the beginning of school age, organize their classes and establish relations with students based exclusively on their authority, without worrying about preparing the true children's collective, find significant difficulties in developing the educational process.

This lack of interest begins mainly from the third and fourth grade, when levels of indiscipline also gradually increase. This is because in the first and second grade, their interests and experiences are fundamentally related to the new social position generated by entering school. However, from the third and fourth grade, children have already assimilated the new obligations and demands, as well as having become accustomed to this position. The feeling of importance, novelty and pride in the new position, which provoked in them the desire to respond to the demands and requests of the school, now loses its affective strength. (^{BOZHOVICH, 1985}).

As the author points out, more difficulties arise in the following years:

When the fourth grade turns into the fifth, students quickly begin to "lose themselves"; their study activity worsens, their level of social life decreases, discipline diminishes, etc. Educators and teachers begin to take disciplinary measures in these classes that often only lead to students' opposition to the school's pedagogical collective, that is, to a complete crisis in these relations, without which it is not possible to achieve positive pedagogical implications. (^{BOZHOVICH, 1985}, p. 212)

In this sense, school practices that seek to solve the lack of interest or indiscipline resulting from the lack of meaning attributed by students to study and classes through disciplinary measures do not produce positive pedagogical implications in the context of the formation of the children's collective and in their relation with the school.

It is important to emphasize that, when we use the term “children’s collective”, we agree with ^{Pistrak 8}(2005) when he points out that it is not simply a certain number of children gathered in a certain place, a simple quantitative grouping (which we find in all schools), in which we do not necessarily observe the expression of children’s interests. We can state that a collective is formed when individuals “are united by certain interests, which they are aware and which are close to them” (p. 177, author’s emphasis), that is, there is a transformation of quantity into quality, the collective expresses properties that are not identified in individuals alone.

For the author, if we want a children’s collective to be built in school, it is essential to organize the teaching work seeking to develop these new common interests among children. Thus, the teacher’s role should not be limited to teaching content and observing the relations among children; the teacher cannot be a stranger to the children’s lives, but rather take part in them, contributing to the development and formulation of social interests. On the other hand, the teacher cannot direct them completely, in an authoritarian way crushing the children's initiatives, their way of acting and the situations that impose difficulties on their way of organizing.

It is not possible to think of pedagogical paths that generate meaning for the student's activity without overcoming the culture of authoritarianism, individualism and the vertical position of school relations. If we want the students' bond with the school, with the people who work there and with the content that is taught there to be based on truly effective reasons for studying, we need to provide, in a planned and systematic way in the organization of teaching, democratic, participatory, cooperative and collective experiences.

The collective character as a purpose in the study activity development

Based on what was explained in the previous lines, we can understand the importance of thinking about and building the organization of the children's collective in the educational process, considering its fundamental place in the development of the study activity and the formation of the student's attitude.

Thus, it is worth highlighting democracy⁹, participation and collectivity, defended as important means for the development of the study activity, are simultaneously reproduced as purposes of this activity, since the experiences based on such values, while determining, can also be determined by the learning originated at school. This occurs because school education plays a central role in the construction of the individual's personality and in their way of seeing, thinking and relating to the world.

^{Asbahr et al. (2017}) highlights how historically our educational process, in general, has been based on authoritarianism, obedience and submission, which prevents or hinders the learning of doing and thinking collectively. In this way, a conformism and consensus is spread that the world around us cannot be changed (or can be changed little). Thus, education begins to contribute to the production of submissive, individualistic and conformist subjectivities.

We agree with Viotto Filho (2021) when he states that:

We can therefore understand that in today's society and school, as individuals are excluded from the possibility of experiencing a community (understood in the Hellerian sense¹⁰), opportunities to adhere to the values of individualism will be much more present in their lives. This situation is worrying and needs to be properly understood, so that we can overcome it from within school education [...], especially when we think about the formation of the consciousness of the singular subjects who find themselves and participate in today's school. (p.7).

In this sense, when we propose to discuss the aspects of collectivity that should appear as objectives to be achieved through the study activity, we are dealing with the collectivist subject formation, that is, the subject based on an ethic of the collective. To this end, we must think about the relations and content organization discussed in the classroom, but beyond that, also strengthening the spaces of democratic management that allow the community’s and students’ participation.

Therefore, we understand that the collective character as the purpose of the Study Activity cannot be approached exclusively from its pedagogical aspect, excluding the psychological aspect, just as the opposite is also true. This means that we need to think about school content that expresses the social needs of humanity and pedagogical strategies that encompass socialization based on the collective, as well as the formation of reasons for learning such content, the students' sense of belonging to the school and the group, participation, protagonist and collective decision-making about important issues to everyday school life. The formation of a collectivist subject requires theoretical appropriation and experiences to form their vision of the world and society, as well as understanding the ways of relating to and acting within this society.

Working with the organization of children's collectives means investing in the formation of another personality, based on collective values. It is about creating conditions to overcome individualism and competitiveness, values that underpin the reproduction of society in neoliberal capitalism, present (not only) in formal education spaces. In order to intentionally promote the formation of this collectivist, supportive and cooperative¹¹ personality, composed of the cultural bases necessary for the construction and becoming of a more just social organization.

Final considerations

The authors of the Historical-Cultural Theory referenced in this article, especially Davidov, Elkonin and Repkin, were mainly concerned with researching and understanding some specific issues related to the study activity, such as its structure, the formation of theoretical thinking, and the formation of the creative subject, thus building a solid theoretical foundation on the theme. However, although the collective character of this activity and the role that the collective has in its constitution are themes announced by these authors, they were not deeply developed.

As ^{Davidov (2020a}) points out, some complex problems related to the subject still need to be answered, for example: how should the distribution of study actions be in the collective resolution of the task? What is the teacher’s role in this process? How can the teacher evaluate the results of the collective solution of study tasks? In what sequence does the internalization of the study activity occur and what role does the children’s mutual understanding play? Among other questions.

Returning to our objective of systematizing discussions and producing analyses that allow for an understanding of the collective character of this activity, our proposal was, based on the theoretical analysis of what the Soviet authors cited here elaborated, to produce a synthesis of what we consider to be the three pillars of study activity in relation to the collective:

We understand the limitations inherent in writing a text that is intended to be an introductory text on the subject and we did not intend, in this article, to answer all the questions raised by ^{Davidov (2020a}) and his interlocutors. However, the need to move forward, based on theoretical and experimental research, towards answers that support the organization of developmental teaching aligned with the complexity of the collective aspect of the study activity is explicit.