Applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory in Educational Settings

Learning, Development and Research

May Britt Postholm, Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo, May Britt Postholm, Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781032085135
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000721799
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory in Educational Settings harnesses research and development for educational improvement, bridging the gap between research and practice. Exploring how collaborations between researchers and practitioners can be used to co-construct solutions to real-world problems, this book considers key concepts in cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), including models as resources that can be used to build and facilitate collaboration between researchers and practitioners.

The chapters of the book draw on research findings from the practices of learning communities in diverse educational settings: teacher education, the education of school leaders, early childhood education and driving teacher education.

Applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory in Educational Settings is an excellent resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to construct new knowledge and develop practice, or wishing to expand their knowledge of CHAT.

1 The texts in context

May Britt Postholm and Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo

The intention of this introductory chapter is, as the title indicates, to position the chapters within their theoretical perspective, which is cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). We present key concepts in CHAT that the researchers use in their chapters to make a running red line within and across the chapters in the book. Before we deal with CHAT and its concepts and models, we place our research in the political discussion of today.

Currently, there are strong expectations placed on national governments to meet European and international challenges of achieving high educational quality. For example, governments are increasingly striving to develop collaborative universal models that bring practitioners and researchers together and engage them in this important work. By ‘universal’, the meaning is that a model should be applicable to different educational settings whilst being flexible at the same time to meet local needs. Nowadays, it is not unusual that governments provide funding for practice development, which has the requirements of researcher involvement and collaboration between academia and educational institutions, such as schools. Our research findings are culled from practices of learning communities in different educational settings. They will give future researchers and practitioners who are seeking to co-construct new knowledge and develop practice with an idea of the complexity of the processes for handling challenges. Likewise, the findings are expected to encourage them to take advantage of the possibilities in such collaborative environments that are locally established.

CHAT is developed on the basis of Lev Vygotsky’s thoughts and ideas. In the western part of the world, in Europe and in the US, perhaps the most common label for CHAT is socio-cultural theory (Wertsch, 1991; Wertsch, Rio, & Alvarez, 1995). The roots of this theory are usually associated with Russian scholars Alexi Leont´ev and Alexander Luria, in addition to Vygotsky. However, it is Leont´ev’s theoretical work that has had the influence on the consolidation and integration of the ideas of Vygotsky into what is known as theory of activity (Wertsch, 1981). In the following, we will use the label CHAT that Cole (1996) has given to name the theory.

CHAT has several features that correspond to Vygotsky’s fundamental thoughts. Leont´ev claimed that activity breaks down the distinction between the external world and the world of internal phenomena (Wertsch, 1981). In CHAT, activity has a prominent place and is analysed on three different levels. The constructs activity, action and operation, developed by Leont´ev, indicate that activities are distinguished on the basis of their motive and the object toward which they are oriented, actions on the basis of their goals and operations on the basis of the conditions under which they are carried out (Wertsch, 1981). In Chapter 6, Vivi Nilssen and Torunn Klemp use these three levels to identify goal-directed actions, their conditions and how the goal-directed actions move a teacher’s practice towards the object.

These three levels of analyses are the first features of CHAT. The second major feature of the theory is that it involves the notion of goal and goal-directed action, and these actions are concerned with conscious goals that are conducted to move the practice towards the object. The third main feature is that activity is mediated (Wertsch, 1981). Vygotsky (1978) extended the notion of mediation by tools to mediation by signs and thus also the use of language. Words likewise became a central mediating artefact in CHAT (Cole, 1996). The fourth main feature of CHAT is its emphasis on development or genetic explanation, and both culture and history are considered in the understanding of development. The fourth main feature is closely related to the fact that development approaches are important. This feature implies that human activity and the artefacts, tools and signs that mediate it have emerged through social interaction. The sixth and final feature is internalisation (Wertsch, 1981). This feature refers to Vygotsky’s (1978) general genetic law of cultural development. Vygotsky explained the relationship between internal and external processes as follows:

An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one. Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological).

(p. 57)

Although Vygotsky (1981) and his colleges saw social reality as having a primary role in determining the nature of the mental processes, the individual was not looked upon as a passive part of this process. According to Vygotsky, the consciousness is not a product of society; rather, it is produced in the interactions between individuals and society. The Vygotskian approach rejects the assumptions that the structures of external and internal activities are identical and that they are unrelated. External and internal activities have a developmental relationship – external processes are transformed to create internal processes. Vygotsky (1981) said that ‘It goes without saying that internalization transforms the process itself and changes its structure and function’ (p. 163). Thus, the individual is active with both transforming the process and also changing its structure. In CHAT, the externalisation process is likewise central (Leont´ev, 1981; Engeström, 1999). The two processes, internalisation and externalisation, continuously operate at every level in human activity. Internalisation is related to the reproduction of the culture in question. Externalisation refers to the processes that create new artefacts or new ways to use them, thus enabling development and creative processes (Engeström, 1999). We will come back to the relationship between internalisation and externalisation when we present the expansive learning cycle, which represents the actions conducted to move practice towards the object of an activity (Engeström, 1987, 2001). We have now mentioned the word ‘object’ several times. Before we describe the three generations of CHAT, we first reflect on this concept.

Leont´ev (1978) wrote

The object of the activity is twofold: first, in its independent existence as subordinating to itself and transforming the activity of the subject, second; as an image of the object, as [a] product of its property of psychological reflection that is realized as an activity of the subject.

(p. 52)

The object may therefore be material or ideal. The object could, for instance, be a lump of clay and its properties (its independent existence) that one is attempting to shape into a nice vase (as an image of the object), or it could be classroom management, which schools are required to work on, as mandated by national authorities (its independent existence); however, both teachers and leaders in schools can focus their effort on, for instance, developing communication between themselves (as an image of the object) to enhance pupils’ learning (outcome). As we have already written as a part of CHAT’s first feature, activities are distinguished on the basis of their motive and the object towards which they are oriented. Leont´ev (1981) pointed out that ‘the object is the true motive’ (p. 59) for people’s actions. This means that people in educational settings aiming to develop their practice towards an object at least need to know about or, even better, share a collective motive to act on the object. In this way, the object becomes ‘invested with meaning and motivating power’ (Sannino, Engeström, & Lemos, 2016, p. 602). In school, teachers’ motivation should thus be built into the object because it is their practice and needs that serve as the starting point of loading them ‘with initiative and commitment’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2017, p. 81). In Chapter 2, May Britt Postholm describes the start-up phase in a research and development work project and how time is needed to develop a shared object amongst teachers.

The first generation of CHAT is represented by Vygotsky’s (1978) triangle. The intermediate link between stimulus (S) and response (R) is not just an improvement of this operation, but it is a qualitatively new process. This is visualised in Figure 1.1 below:

Figure 1.1 Vygotsky’s (1978) triangle showing the intermediary step between stimulus and response through the auxiliary stimulus, representing the first generation of CHAT

The limitation of the first generation of CHAT is that individuals are the unit of analysis. This was overcome by the second generation of CHAT developed by Leont´ev. In his example of the collective hunt (Leont´ev, 1981), he introduced division of labour and thus described collective activity. Every person conducts goal-directed actions that together can satisfy their needs, as in the example of hunting directed to the object of obtaining food. One person is chasing, another is preparing for the ambush and another should fire the rifle. Engeström (1987, 2001) developed this second generation of CHAT into the activity system. The upper triangle in the activity system (see Figure 1.2 below) is the same as Vygotsky’s fundamental triangle, but it is turned upside down, with the mediating artefacts at the top.

Figure 1.2 The activity system representing the second generation of CHAT

The activity system as a unit of analysis is presented and used in several chapters of the book (Chapters 2, 3, and 9), and the nodes constituting it are thoroughly described in Chapters 2 and 3. The third generation of CHAT was developed by Engeström (1987, 2015). This generation focuses on collaboration between two or more activity systems and thus forms networks of interacting systems. The basic model of CHAT, the activity system, is therefore expanded to include, at the minimum, two systems in the graphical development of the third generation. In their networking, the subjects acting in various systems act on the object that is partially shared between the systems. The third generation of CHAT is visualised in Figure 1.3 below.

Figure 1.3 A network of activity systems representing the third generation of CHAT

In Chapter 3, Eva Dalland uses the third generation of CHAT to describe and analyse the collaboration between students, two researchers and two supervisors in one activity system and eight refugees, a centre leader, one employee and interpreters in another activity system. The primary objectives of this study are to find a way to communicate with newly arrived refugees about road safety and to identify some pedagogical tools and methods to do so. The intention of this research, therefore, is to create knowledge that can enhance the education of immigrants. In this chapter, learning is emphasised for all parties. Learning for both participants and the researcher is also the topic in Nina A. Vasseljen’s chapter (Chapter 9). In Chapter 5, Janne Madsen focuses on learning in the triads of teacher education, student teachers and schools. A critique of some of our studies that focus on the collaboration between two arenas is that they do not adequately emphasise the learning potential for researchers’ own activity system.

Boundary crossing is an important concept in CHAT. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) wrote a review article on the concepts of boundary, boundary crossing, boundary object, dialogicality and learning theory, and this article is frequently referred to in the book. According to Engeström, Engeström and Kärkkäinen (1995), boundary crossing is characterised as ‘horizontal expertise where practitioners must move across boundaries to seek and give help, to find information and tools wherever they happen to be available’ (p. 332). The concept of boundary crossing is useful when focusing on the collaboration between, for instance, teacher educators, leaders and teachers in school. The adoption of ideas from one another in a ‘shared meeting ground’ (Engeström & Toiviainen, 2011, p. 35) can lead to developmental transfer (Engeström & Sannino, 2010), for instance, from school to teacher education and vice versa. The findings in our studies, as already mentioned, focus mainly on learning in settings that are supported and researched on, not on horizontal learning that goes both ways. This situation can be a remnant of the traditional view of learning, in which someone teaches people who need to learn. Research questions grounded in the third generation of CHAT could or even should focus on the development transfer between networking activity systems in both ways. This perspective should be more present both in our future research a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1. The texts in context
• 2. Schools conducting research in collaboration with researchers
• 3. Young refugees meeting another road safety culture: Development work in bridging a road safety gap
• 4. Inspired by the concept of boundary objects in arts education
• 5. Cultural-historical activity theory as the basis for mentoring student teachers in triads
• 6. Encouraging working and communicating like mathematicians: An illustrative case on dialogic teaching
• 7. Realizing data-driven changes and teacher agency in upper secondary schools through formative interventions
• 8. A study of case-based problem-solving work in groups of principals participating in a school leadership programme
• 9. Cultural-historical activity theory framing and guiding professional learning in school-based development
• Index