Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization

Yrjö Engeström Professor of Adult Education at University of Helsinki. Director of the Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) at University of Helsinki. Professor Emeritus of Communication at University of California, San Diego. Has received an honorary professorship from University of Birmingham in UK and an honorary doctorate from University of Oslo in Norway. Most recent book is From Teams to Knots: Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and Learning at Work, published by Cambridge University Press in Applies and developes cultural-historical activity theory as a framework in studies of transformations and learning processes in work activities and organizations. Known for the theory of expansive learning and for the interventionist methodology of developmental work research.

Cultural-historical activity theory Activity theory and its concept of expansive learning are examined with the help of four questions: (1) Who are the subjects of learning, how are they defined and located? (2) Why do they learn, what makes them make the effort? (3) What do they learn, what are the contents and outcomes of learning? (4) How do they learn, what are the key actions or processes of learning? In this paper, these four questions are used to examine the theory of expansive learning, (Engeström, 1987) developed within the framework of cultural-historical activity theory.

Generations and Principles of Activity Theory Three generations. First generation: Cultural-historical activity theory was initiated by Lev Vygotsky (1978) in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was further developed by Vygotsky’s colleague and disciple Alexei Leont’ev (1978, 1981). Mediation. Triangular model with Stimulus / Response / Mediative artifact. Subject / Object / Mediative artifact

The individual could no longer be understood without his or her cultural means; and the society could no longer be understood without the agency of individuals who use and produce artifacts. This meant that objects ceased to be just raw material for the formation of logical operations in the subject as they were for Piaget. The limitation of the first generation was that the unit of analysis remained individually focused. This was overcome by the second generation, centered around Leont’ev. Leont’ev explicated the crucial difference between an individual action and a collective activity.

Studies were often with children playing and learning, contradictions were extremely touchy, but from the 1970’s the West started to study and involve work as an activity, among other new activities. The idea of internal contradictions as the driving force of change and development in activity systems, so powerfully conceptualized by Il’enkov (1977, 1982), began to gain its due status as a guiding principle of empirical research. This led to the theory becoming more international, the third generation. Different cultural and historical traditions became issues to consider

Activity theory – 5 principles. The first: … Goal-directed individual and group actions, as well as automatic operations, are relatively independent but subordinate units of analysis, eventually understandable only when interpreted against the background of entire activity systems….. The second:.... An activity system is always a community of multiple points of view, traditions and interests. Multivoiced. The third:…. Their problems and potentials can only be understood against their own history. Historicity The fourth: …. Contradictions are historically accumulating structural tensions within and between activity systems.Not the same as problems or conflicts The fifth: ……. As the contradictions of an activity system are aggravated, some individual participants begin to question and deviate from its established norms.

Expansive Learning—A New Approach Standard theories of learning are focused on processes where a subject (traditionally an individual, more recently possibly also an organization) acquires some identifiable knowledge or skills in such a way that a corresponding, relatively lasting change in the behaviour of the subject may be observed. But: What to learn is not stable. “We build the plane as we are flying.” Gregory Bateson’s (1972) theory of learning, three levels: Learning I, reproduction, i e correct answer inn the classroom Learning II, ‘hidden curriculum’. adaption. Learning III, collective endeavour, « We must do something.» Rare/dangerous. communities of practice or functional systems, such as task-oriented teams or work units,

to look for well-bounded communities of practice or functional systems, such as task-oriented teams or work units. Chart or Matrix:

The Learning Challenge in Children’s Health Care in Helsinki The four questions: Who and Where are the Subjects of Learning? – look for well-bounded communities of practice or functional systems, focus your attention on centers of coordination, not individuals Why do They Learn—What Makes Them Make the Effort? Contradictions are revealed, acknowledged, accepted from others, individuals accepts change of behaviour for the sake of the bigger cause, make children healthier / happier. to change the system – individual actions must change. What are They Learning? Other actors have other challenges, problems or focus, for the best of the cause we must put contradictions to side, look forward for the solutions and change the system by many individual acts – systematically. How do They Learn—What are the Key Actions? Questioning, analyzing, modeling, examining the new model, implementation actions. (The manifold implementation actions open up a whole different story of tensions and disturbances between the old and the new practice, a story too large and complex to be entered in this paper)

Conclusion: directionality in learning and development Learning is not only vertical, but also sideways, you step into new situations and act/react different We all act a little different ( or a lot) – that will make huge impact on the systems effect. We all doesn’t need “Higher knowledge”, merely have insight in the contradictions for all groups in the system, then we can develop the system further if we find the “proper cause”-

Sources: (lest ) Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2001 Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization, YRJÖ ENGESTRÖM