Cultural Historical Activity Theory

More Info: Co-authored by P. H. Sawchuk and A. Stetsenko

Publication Date: 2008

Publication Name: Mind, Culture and Activity

Embodied Mind and Cognition, Activity Theory, Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, Cognitive Tools, Internalization, and 1 more

Publication Date: 2014

Publication Name: A. Yasnitsky, R. van der Veer, & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cultural-Historical Psychology (pp. 217-244). New York/London: Cambridge University Press

Publication Date: 2015

Publication Name: International Journal of Early Childhood

This chapter dialogues with and suggests ways to further advance models of educational research predicated on broadly defined emancipatory goals of developing equitable futures for students, especially those from disa... more abstractThis chapter dialogues with and suggests ways to further advance models of educational research predicated on broadly defined emancipatory goals of developing equitable futures for students, especially those from disadvantaged populations. A transformative activist stance (TAS) (see Stetsenko, 2008, 2010a, b) provides theoretical grounding that combines similar commitments with a politically non-neutral interpretation of Vygotsky’s project, Freirean critical pedagogy, and Bakhtin’s dialogical approach in a model for educational research with a transformative agenda. TAS is based in a radical revision of the core principles of human development and learning, especially in its shift away from the notion of adaptation to the status quo toward the notions of social change and activism. From this perspective, development and learning are collaborative achievements of an activist nature that are not confined to adapting to what is “given” in the world. Instead, these processes rely upon people forming and carrying out future-oriented agendas within collaborative projects of social transformation. These agendas centrally involve taking an activist stance grounded in a vision, or “endpoint,” of how community members believe present practices can be changed and what kind of future ought to be created. From this perspective, educational research always is, and invariably has to be, an activist endeavor too. It is based on researchers and participants working out together and committing to a common project of social transformation that contributes to creating a future viewed by researchers and participants as worthwhile and desirable. In this process, learning is utilized to provide and co-construct critical-theoretical tools necessary for researchers and participants to position themselves vis-à-vis current community practices and their histories, while at the same time developing activist commitments to how these practices can and ought to be changed. By highlighting notions of social change and activism as constitutive of the processes of being, doing, and knowing, TAS provides strong warrants for educational research as social practice infused with ideological and political dimensions requiring continuous contestation and critical dialogue among all participants. The purpose of research in education, from this position, is to intervene into the status quo by providing access to cultural tools that facilitate participants taking an activist stance toward creating their futures in a society that itself needs to be created, rather than merely reproduced or adapted to. This chapter is divided into two sections with a brief conclusion. The first section outlines the present landscape in educational research and provides a theoretical rationale for TAS as the new grounding for research with a social justice agenda. It also spells out specific implications of TAS for educational research models. The second section provides an illustration of this approach from a collaborative activist project conducted in a group home for adolescent boys. It also addresses the joys and challenges of engaging youth in a transformative activist project that creates a nontraditional learning context where students are agents of social change in charge of their own future.

Critical Theory, Developmental Psychology, Participatory Action Research, Qualitative methodology, Critical Pedagogy, and 8 more

Teaching and Learning, Learning and Teaching, Cultural Historical Activity Theory, Vygotsky, Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, and 1 more

This paper contrasts the notions of learning, teaching and development as these are conceptualized in two versions of constructivism: the socio-interactional one (in which Piagetian and Vygotskian insights are often m... more abstractThis paper contrasts the notions of learning, teaching and development as these are conceptualized in two versions of constructivism: the socio-interactional one (in which Piagetian and Vygotskian insights are often merged) versus the one founded by Vygotsky and expanded in activity theory (especially by Galperin and Davydov). We reveal a broad conceptual commonality that makes these frameworks compatible at one level, but draw profound contrasts in their premises concerning history (including cultural tools) and the concept of the social. Examples of educational practices (including results of our own year-long observation) are used to illustrate implications of these premises. We argue that the Vygotskian framework expanded by a dialectical view of history can be used to devise education that takes history to the fullest and yet does not fall into the traps of a conservative agenda with its two extremes of unidirectional authoritarianism or laissez-faire individualism. It is on this foundation that a coherent and unified constructivist approach committed to ideals of social justice can be construed in the future.

Cultural History, Developmental Psychology, Teaching and Learning, Constructivism, Learning and Teaching, and 6 more

In this chapter we describe the implementation of a transformative activist research project (PALC) designed and carried out in collaboration with students in a community college in the New York City metropolitan area... more abstractIn this chapter we describe the implementation of a transformative activist research project (PALC) designed and carried out in collaboration with students in a community college in the New York City metropolitan area. The inspiration for this project was the critical need to expand current educational approaches for community college students, many of whom struggle in college. Guided by ideals of democracy and social justice, our aim was to move beyond instrumentalist conceptions of higher education that seek to only prepare students to fit in with existing social structures by meeting the expected demands of the job market. Inspired by cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT, see Leontiev, 1978; Vygotsky, e.g., 1997, 1998a, b) expanded by the transformative activist stance (TAS, Stetsenko, e.g., 2008), we collaboratively implemented a project in which both students and faculty/researchers endeavored to move beyond the goals of adapting to the world to instead develop activist projects of social transformation in college and beyond. The specific goal was to work in solidarity in striving to break away from a narrow, commodified educational agenda focused on utilitarian learning outcomes geared toward future employability. Our method was based on co-constructing with students, based on critical-theoretical pedagogy (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2011), a collaborative space and tools for activist learning and development to expand active engagement in transforming alienating and oppressive educational practices in the college and in their community practices. Thus, this project consisted in bringing together students and researchers to collaboratively investigate and promote the development of their transformative activist stance, through the tools of learning, by expanding the contribution of each participant to a widening range of community practices, sociocultural practices and discourses.

Critical Theory, Education, Political Participation, Participatory Research, Teacher Education, and 23 more

[excerpt] "In expanding on the key insights of [critical] scholarship and while building on Vygotsky’s dialectical approach, I present a position termed transformative activist stance (TAS). This position engages onto... more abstract[excerpt] "In expanding on the key insights of [critical] scholarship and while building on Vygotsky’s dialectical approach, I present a position termed transformative activist stance (TAS). This position engages ontological and epistemological questions and offers a radical perspective that paves the way for analytical advances in support of research with activist agendas of social transformation. While integrating contributions made by [critical] scholarship, I also delineate contradictions and dilemmas still complicating its progress. The TAS, developed on the foundation of Vygotsky’s approach steeped in dialectical philosophy and progressive socio-political ethos of equality and social transformation, undertakes a bold reassessment of basic assumptions about human ways of being, doing, and knowing with the goal to elaborate foundations for a non-neutral, activist critical scholarship that embraces social action and agency based in political imagination, vision, and commitment to social transformation. Central to this position is the shift away from the ethos of adaptation (so far not sufficiently challenged within critical scholarship) that takes the world for granted and assumes that individuals have to fit in with its status quo, towards the notion that the deliberate, goal-directed and purposeful transformation of the world based in a commitment to, and a vision of, social change is the foundation for human development in all of its expressions encompassing processes of being, doing, and knowing."

Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Education, and 14 more

Publication Name: In T. Corcoran, (Ed.), Psychology in Education, Critical Theory-Practice, pp. 181–198. © 2014 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

Critical Theory, Education, Science Education, Critical Pedagogy, Community Ecology, and 7 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Psychology, Ethics, Feminist Theory, and 15 more

Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Ethics, and 29 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and 22 more

Psychology, Community Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Education, Development Studies, and 15 more

Critical Theory, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Teaching and Learning, Education, and 13 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, and 9 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 16 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 20 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 18 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Psychology, Human Evolution, Ethics, and 19 more

Sociology, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Psychology, Community Psychology, and 19 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 26 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 36 more

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 16 more

More Info: Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2008, 3, 465-485.

Critical Theory, Sociology, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Psychology, and 16 more

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Publication Date: 2005

Publication Name: Mind, Culture, and Activity

Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 27 more

Publisher: lchc.ucsd.edu

Publication Date: 2004

Publication Name: International Journal of Critical Psychology, 12 (4), 58-80.

Critical Theory, Sociology, Psychology, Ethics, Education, and 19 more

Publisher: tap.sagepub.com

Publication Date: 2006

Publication Name: Theory & psychology

Critical Theory, Sociology, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Psychology, and 14 more

Publisher: tap.sagepub.com

Publication Date: 2004

Publication Name: Theory & Psychology

Psychology, Education, Teacher Education, Marxism, Critical Pedagogy, and 7 more

Psychology, Education, Teacher Education, Curriculum Design, Critical Pedagogy, and 9 more

Critical Theory, Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Critical Pedagogy, and 5 more

Publisher: Aarhus University Press

Publication Date: 1999

Critical Theory, Psychology, Social Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, and 5 more

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Publication Date: 1997

Publication Name: Mind, Culture, and Activity

Neuroscience, Psychology, Social Sciences, Marxism, History of Science, and 3 more

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Publication Date: 2003

Publication Name: Mind, Culture, and Activity

Critical Theory, Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Critical Pedagogy, and 3 more

Publication Date: 1993