This article discusses the mediation concept based in Vigotsky and Adorno, reputed authors in social and educational psychology. Although these authors are influenced by Marxism and focused on culture, their approaches are different. Vigotsky outlines the concept of mediation from the social-historical perspective, while Adorno analyzes the contradictions in meditation under a critical theory by the Frankfurtian. On the other hand, Vigotsky understands the mediation as cultural process by learning, based on Marxian referential and the critique of developmental naturalization in the acquisition of superior functions. In Vigotski the mediation establishes a liaison, the sign, the activity and the consciousness interact socially. For Adorno, the mediation, if mystified as a result of action and subjectivity, surpasses itself a contradiction: the objectification of culture and education and in the formation; risk of establishing a false consciousness. The epistemological discussion goes beyond sociology and psychology and slips in the subject-object relation.
critical theory and social-interactionism; mediation; education and critical theory