Vygotsky and Internet Grooming: The Darker Side of ZPD and Scaffolding

Abstract

Developing a typology for internet grooming offenders is complex and difficult to achieve as online offenders can cross typologies or work through different stages of typologies, therefore any typology associated with online child sex abusers should be seen as fluid. The creation of the internet and the advancement in technology of mobile and portable devices has led to a new set of tools being made available for children to use and a new set of interactions for children to participate in (Berryman et al. in Developmental Psychology and You. Blackwell, Oxford, 2002; Li and Atkins in Pediatrics 113:6, 2004; Rogoff and Morelli in Developmental Psychology – A Reader. Arnold, London, 1998; Vygotsky in Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, London, 1978). Through research involving 859 Scottish school pupils, aged 10–17 years, Vygotsky’s (Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, London, 1978) theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Wood et al.’s (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17, 1976) development of the concept of scaffolding were identified as offering an explanation of the behaviour of both child victims and child sex abusers when online. How these tools could be implemented by child sex abusers to communicate with children within their zone of proximal development can explain the fluid nature of online grooming. It is argued therefore that ZPD and scaffolding provide a promising way to understand the way children and young people’s normal developmental processes can be exploited by unscrupulous people.