3 Generation social constructivism Cultural Historical Activity Theory

3. Generation (social) constructivism: Cultural Historical Activity Theory: CHAT

3. Generations of socio-cultural theory • 1. generation Vygotsky • 2. generation Leontjev & Luria ( Russian psychologists) • 3. Vygotsky revisited – adapted to the US. ( though firmly embedded in the Sovjet society made fewer explicit references to marxism) • M. Cole, LCHC, Y. Engeström, Jean Lave and others 2

CHAT ”reinvents” Vygotsky • The separation of intellect and affect as subjects of study was a major weakness of traditional psychology, since it made thought process appear as an autonomous flow of ”thoughts” thinking themselves, segregated from the fullness of life , from the personal need and interests, the inclinations and impulses of the thinker”(p. 10) 3

Why activity and practice theory ? • An emphasis on the dialectical character of the fundamental relations constituting human experience ( determined and determining) • A focus on experience in the world that rejects the structure and dynamics of psychological test procedures as a universally appropriate template. • A shift in the boundaries of cognition and the environment such that cognition is stretched across mind , body, activity and setting = distributed cognition 4

Increasing interest in CHAT (review of Educational Research 2007 77: 186) 5

Tensions in education and learning • • • Epistemological: Theory – praxis Decontextualised and embodied knowledge Individual and social learning Problems of transfer • CHAT offers the possibility to overcome some of these divides besides recovering more humane forms of education. 6

Key Concepts in CHAT • Context ( from container to rope (weaving)) • Activity • Legitimate peripheral participation(Lave and Wenger) • Practice • Artifacts and tools • Culture • Situated cognition, distributed cognition 7

The meaning of context • ” What is designated by the word ” situation” • is not a single object or event or set of objects and events. For we never experience nor form judgments about objects and events in isolation, but only in connection with a contextual whole. This latter is called a situation. • In actual experience there is never such isolated singular object or event, an object is always a special part, phase or aspect of an environing experienced world – a situation. 8

Cognition, context & situation. • Isolating what is cognized from life circumstances is obstructive to understanding cognition. • isolation ( typical of experimental procedures in psychological studies of cognition) gives rise to the illusion that our knowledge of any object, be it ” an orange, a rock, a piece of bread or whatever” is knowledge of the object in isolation from the situation in which it is encountered. 9

Ecology of human development ((Urie Bronfenbrenner 1979) • Bronfenbrenner describes embedded systems starting with the microsystem at the core and proceeding outwards through mesosystems to the macrosystem. However • While more inclusive levels of context may constrain lower levels, they do not cause them in a unilinear fashion. 10

Meaning of context: ” that which surrounds” School district parents country principal teacher International institutions Learner, task, le concept lesson classroom School organisation Community organisation 11

CHAT: Context as that which weaves together. • Context _ contextere(latin): ” that which weaves together”. ” Context might be compared to a rope. The fibres that make up the rope are discontinuous, when you twist them together , you don´t make them continuous, you make the tread continuous… even though it may look in a tread as though each of those praticles are going all through it, that isn´t the case. ” 12

The meaning of context 13

Context and tools • The relevant order of context will depend crucially upon the tools through which one interacts with the world and these in turn depend upon one´s goals and other constraints in action. • The combination of goals tools and setting constitutes the context of behavior and ways in which cognition can be said to relate to that context. 14

Mediational triangle of cultural historical school Artifact Subject Object 15

Artifact-mediated action • Mediated action does not replace basic path (subj-obj). • Culture does not replace biology. • ”One does not cease to stand on the ground and look at the tree when one picks up an axe to chop the tree” 16

Artifact –mediated action • The incorporation of tools into the activity creates a new structural relation in which the cultural and natural routes operate synergistically. • Through active attempt to appropriate their surroundings to their own goals, people incorporate auxilliary means (including other people) in to their actions, giving rise to the distinctive triadic relationship of subject-medium -object. 17

Practice & Habitus • The French sociologist/anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu(1977)uses the concept of habitus. • Habitus is the product of the material conditions of existence and the set of principles for generating and structuring practices. Habitus constitutes the (usually )unexamined background set of assumptions about the world. Habitus is history made nature(p. 78). 18

Practice & Habitus • ” The habitus is the universalizing mediation which causes an individual agent´s practices without either explicit reason or signifying intent , to be none the less ” sensible” and ”reasonable”. (p. 79) 19

Activity Theory ( Engeström) • Engestrøm represents his conception of activity in a manner that both includes and enlarges upon the early cultural-historical psychologists notions of mediation as individual action. 20

The Structure of a human activity System ( Engeström 1987) Mediating artifacts: Sense , meaning 21

Yrje Engeström • Professor of Adult Education and Director of the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research at University of Helsinki. ( Now CRADLE) • Professor of Communication at University of California, San Diego, where he served as Director of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition from 1990 to 1995. Works within the framework of culturalhistorical activity theory. 22

CRADLE • • Welcome to the web pages of the Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning – CRADLE. We are a multidisciplinary research unit, focused on transformations and learning in collective activity systems and individuals facing new societal, cultural and technological challenges. Our work is inspired by cultural-historical activity theory and more broadly sociocultural approaches to human development. We are a community of researchers based at University of Helsinki. Our research is based on interplay between theory and practice. We work in close collaboration with various work organizations, educational institutions, and other communities of practice. Much of our research uses formative interventions, such as Change Laboratories. We are part of a growing international network of research groups which share a similar theoretical approach. In our Center, we have a good number of research projects as well as a doctoral program and a Master’s program. Feel free to contact our researchers and students. Your questions and suggestions are welcome. We will be happy to give you more information. Yrjö Engeström and Kai Hakkarainen Directors of CRADLE • http: //www. helsinki. fi/cradle/index. htm • Contact Email: yrjo. engestrom [at] helsinki. fi / Homepage >> Tel. +358 9 191 44574, fax +358 9 191 44579 23

Michael Cole • Michael Cole, Professor, Ph. d. • Cole's work focuses on the elaboration of a mediational theory of mind. He has conducted crosscultural research on cognitive development, especially as it relates to the role of literacy and schooling. His recent research has been devoted to a longitudinal study of individual and organizational change within educational activities specially designed for afterschool hours. These systems link universities and local communities and allow a study of the dynamics of appropriation and use of new technologies and cultural-historical approaches to human development. mcole@ucsd. edu 24

The Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition • • • The Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition was established at UCSD in 1978. As its name implies, members of LCHC pursue research which takes differences among human beings as a starting point for understanding human mental processes. They adopt an ecological approach to our subject matter, looking at systems that include mediating tools, people, representations, institutions and activities. Populations varying in age, culture, biological characteristics, social class, schooling, ethnicity, etc. are studied in a wide range of activity settings in various social institutions (schools, hospitals, workplaces) and countries. Correspondingly, we use a wide range of methods (such as participant observation, ethnography, experimentation, discourse-analysis) to bring in the role of culturally inflected collective social practices, change over time, and the cultural-historical context of the people among whom we work in the phenomena we study. • • http: //lchc. ucsd. edu/mca/ ( Mind, Culture and Activity) • 25

Break Jette Steensen: jest@viauc. dk 26

Critique of schooling • ”The process of schooling seems to encourage the idea that the ” game of School” is to learn symbolic rules of various kinds that there is not supposed to be much continuity between what one knows outside school and what one learns in school. There is growing evidence that not only may schooling not contribute in a direct qnd obvious way to performance outside school, but also that knowledge acquired outside school is not always used to support in-school learning. Schooling is coming to look increasingly isolated from the rest of what we do. (Resnick, 1987, p. 15) 27

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3 approaches to break the encapsulation of school learning • Expanded learning as a didactical transformation of activity theory • ” Ascending from the abstract to the concrete” (Davydov) • ”Legitimate peripheral participation ( Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger) • Learning by expanding (Yrje Engström) 29

Davydov • Davydov´s theory suggests that the encapsulation of school learning is due to an empiricist, descriptive and classificatory bias of traditional teaching and curriculum design. • School knowledge becomes inert because its ”kernels” are never discovered by the students and they do not get a chance to deduce, explain and master practically concrete phenomena and problems in the environment. 30

Davidov The method ascending from the abstract to the concrete, models Eg. The phenomenon of the A theoretical phases of the moon in the context of astronomical Concept related Astronomical discoveryon The student And the group phenomena Code of behavior Standards of grading classroom Teachers teach and control Students study 31

Lave & Wenger criticizes Davydov. • Davidov´s theory does not predicate qualitative changes in the rules, community and division of labour existing in traditional school learning. • Davidov´s approach might be conceived close to a narrow cognitive and scientistic idea and consequently is criticized by Lave & wenger: • ” there is no account of the place of learning in the broader context of the social world ” 32

Legitimate peripheral participation Lave and Wenger • ” There are strong goals for learning because learners as peripheral participants can develop in view of what the whole entreprise is about, and what there is to be learned. Learning itself is an improvised practice: a learning curriculum unfolds in opportunities for engagement in practice. ”(Lave & Wenger 1991) 33

Consequences for school learning Lave and Wenger • The logical solution would be to create good communities of practice within schools. • The social organization of the school should be changed so that it would allow for communities of practical activity demonstrating Lave & wenger+s 3 main criteria: 34

School learning ( Lave & Wenger) • A. participants must have broad access to different parts of the activity and eventually proceed to full participation in core tasks. • B. There should be abundant horizontal interaction between participants • C Technologies and structures of the community of practice must be transparent, inner workings can become available for learner´s inspection. 35

School learning (Lave and Wenger) • The legitimate peripheral participation approach seems to propose to solve the problem of encapsulation of school learning by • pushing communities of practice from the outside world into the school. 36

Legitimate peripheral participation model Technologies of transparency and simulation, stories, tools of established practice Phases of the moon in the context of practical reproduction mastery The student as a legitimate participant Code of behavior Standards of skill Community of practice within the school 37 Tasks assigned according To experience, proceeding from simple to more complex, from parts to whole

Expansive learning (y. Engeström) • The expansive learning approach would break the encapsulation of school learning by a stepwise widening of the object and context of learning. • The expanded object of learning consists of • the context of criticism, • the context of discovery, • and the context of application of the specific curricular contents under scrutiny. • This kind of expansive transition is itself a process of learning through self-organisation from below. The selforganisation manifests itself in the creation of networks of learning that transcend the institutional boundaries of the school and turn the school into a collective instrument. 38

Learning by expanding • Key questions: • Why not let the students themselves find out how their misconceptions are manufactured in school ? • Why is this being taught and studied in the first place ? • Learners must have an opportunity to analyze critically and systematically their current activity and its inner cocntradictions. 39

Critical analysis • In a school setting , the critical analysis of current practice could well start with a hard look at textbooks and curricula in particular content areas. • Secondly the learners must have an opportunity to design and implement in practice a way out, a new model for their activity. This means that the learners must work out a new way of doing school work 40

Breaking the encapsulation of learning (Resnick) • Davidov: create powerful intellectual tools in instruction that students can take into the outside world and grasp its complexities with the help of those tools. • Lave & Wenger: create communities of practice within schools and participate in communities of practice outside school. • Expansive learning: widen stepwise the object and context of learning. The expanded object of learning consists of the context of criticism, discovery and application 41

Model of expansive learningl School as a collective instrument Instruments of criticism + Lave and Davydov astronomical Knowledge as socially phenomena i Criticism, discovery constructed practice + Expanded structure and application Team of students , teachers practitioners + local people Complementary codes of criticism, discovery and application of learning activity Community network of learning classroom Designed according to the specific object and context 42

Expanded learning (Engeström) • The relationship between • *the context of criticism, • opportunity to analyse current activity and inner contradictions (textbooks, schooling etc) • * the context of discovery • Davydovian process of finding, modeling and using a kernel abstraction to make sense of the entire subject matter • * the context of practical social application • Involvement in using and reproducing concepts in releant social practice inside and outside school. 43

Arguments for expansive learning • People must become ”good adaptive learners so they can perform effectively when situations are unpredictable and tasks demand change”(resnick 1987, p. 18) • ”collectives of people must become good expansive learners, so they can design and implement their own futures as their prevalent practices show symptoms of crisis”(Engestrøm 2005, p. 173) • ” The expansive learning approach exploits the actually existing conflicts and dissatisfaction among teachers, students, parents and others involved in or affected by schooling and invites them to join in a concrete transformation of the current practice”(Engeström 2005, p. 173) 44

Dilemmas • • • Informal – formal learning Inside – outside school Collaborative learning – individual learning Behaviorism vs cognition Direct instruction vs constructivism Mentoring vs facilitating Learnercentred – teacher centred Individual vs society Elite education vs mass education Skills vs critical thinking 45

• Bourdieu, P. (1977): Outline of a Theory of Practice. New York: Cambridge University press. • Brown, J. S. , Collins, A. , Duguid, P. (1989: Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher 18, 32 – 42. • Dewey, J. (1938/1963) Experience and Education. New York. Macmillan. • Engeström, Y. (1987): Learning by expanding. Helsinki: Orienta-Sonsultit Oy. • Resnick, L. B. (1987) Learning in school and out. Educational Researcher 16(99, 13 -20 • Gardner, H. (1990) The difficulties of school: Probable causes, possible cures. Daedalus 119(2), 85 -113 • Lave, J. and Wenger, E(1991)Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. • Palincsar, A. S. (1989). Less chartered waters. Educational Researcher, 18(4), 5 -7 46