Engestrom and Sannino (2010) ‘Studies of expansive learning…’

Expansive learning sees itself as distinctive. Whereas, within traditional learning, the outcome is known, the tutor has possession of the knowledge, and the learner follows a path to get there, in expansive learning, according to Engestrom and Sannino ‘learners learn something that is not yet there’ (2010, p.2). Hence, the outcome and the route are both unknown, and have to be figured out by the participants in a partnership relationship with the tutor.

Engestrom and Sannino offer a structured account of how expansive learning happens (2010, p. 7). The first act is questioning, ‘criticizing or rejecting some aspects of the accepted practice and existing wisdom.’ The second action is analysis, trying to examine causes of the present situation (what might be termed the ‘why?’ stage). The third stage is to construct a model of a new idea. Stage four is analysis of the new model, and stage 5 its implementation. Thereafter, the implementation of the new idea is reflected upon and evaluated (stage 6), leading to its consolidation (stage 7).

Other theories of learning, such as Kolb’s learning cycle, have similar stages, including the implementation of new practices, and reflection and evaluation. However, the distinctive feature of expansive learning is that it starts with an act of potential dissent, with the critical interrogation of an accepted and established practice. In this sense expansive learning is disruptive.

Questioning established practice is not always welcome in educational settings, and it generates a potential contradiction within an activity system (Activity Theory being the analytical lens enabling expansive learning), but, for Engestrom and Sannino, questioning is a necessary stage for enabling the construction of new knowledge: ‘Most importantly, contradictions are the driving force of transformation’ (p.5).

A further, central characteristic of expansive learning is that it requires human agency: ‘Changes must be initiated and nurtured by real, identifiable people, individual persons and groups’ (2010, p.6). Hence, while a contradiction, disruption, critique or manifestation of dissent is the starting point of expansive learning, the learning does not happen organically: ‘Contradictions are  the necessary but not sufficient engine of expansive learning in an activity system’ (2010, p.7). Hence, although ‘the theory of expansive learning sees contradictions as historically evolving tensions…’ (2010, p.4) they do not play out as a matter of historical necessity and, instead, require intervention to bring the expansive learning to fruition.

In terms of outcomes, expansive learning is again distinctive. Whereas traditional learning theories envisage the outcome as a change in the subject, expansive learning sees learning manifested as ‘changes in the object of the collective activity’ (2010, p. 8). Moreover, and within the Activity Theory framework, a change in the object impacts on the other nodes in the activity system. However, change does not axiomatically imply progress: ‘Expansion necessarily involves also the possibility of disintegration and regression’ (2010, p.11). Therefore, ‘Researchers should not expect nicely linear results from their efforts’ (2010, p.10). Consequently, the change needs to be managed, and this may be what Avis refers to when he argues that Activity Theory and expansive learning eschews the revolutionary implications of its own analysis, becoming instead ‘comfort radicalism’ and a management technique (2009, p.161). 

According to Engestrom and Sannino therefore, expansive learning is ‘a historical reality rather than an outcome of a designed policy. On the other hand, it does make sense to develop and pursue policies that can make expansive learning less painful and troublesome’ (2010, p. 18). Expansive learning is ultimately a managed, though unpredictable process.

References

Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Engestrom, Y. and Sannino, A. (2010) ‘Studies of expansive learning: Foundation, findings and future challenges’ Educational Research Review, vol. 5, pp. 1-24.

Smagorinsky, P. (2001) ‘If meaning is constructed, what is it made from?’

One of the implications of Disruptive Technology/Disruptive Innovation theory is that meaning emerges from usage. Users construct a meaning for a technology, which may differ from the designer’s original intentions.

For Activity Theory, too, the meaning of a tool, its purpose, arises from usage; the subject employs the tool to serve a specific purpose, with the design of a tool having only limited power to determine its epistemic use (Engestrom 2007). Samgorinsky echoes this view when he writes: ‘… the same implement may serve as a different tool for different users, no tool at all for other users, or a different tool for the same user in different situations, depending on how (or if at all) it is conceptualized’ (p. 139). 

Smagorinsky’s article is interested in what influences the construction of meaning, and how the potential uses of tools are conceptualised. The construction of usage and hence meaning is not an unfettered process and, instead, is shaped by pre-existing power structures in a given society. Hence, ‘dominant cultures have the power to define their version of reality as reality, thus establishing their values as authoritative and sovereign’ (p. 136). In practice, in learning and teaching situations, ‘teachers emphasise specific reading conventions and discourage others’ (p.138). Consequently, socio-economic groups socialised within the dominant culture have an educational advantage, as their values and practices have already been constructed, and reaffirmed by dominant culture. Hence, and unsurprisingly, ‘school becomes a much more hospitable and rewarding experience for some groups than for others’ (p. 138).

For Smagorinsky, therefore, meanings constructed are, in turn, shaped by history, economics and politics, all mediated through the culture of texts and other tools. Meanings are shaped by history in the sense that existing possibilities for the use of a tool will have been constructed by previous societies and individuals, thereby comprising a range of established uses. Meanings are shaped by economics and politics in the sense that some social groups will share the dominant culture because it affords them certain privileges and protections, whereas other groups will be disadvantaged by the dominant culture and are thus less likely to share its norms. Smagorinsky writes of readers: ‘Though alone, they engage in culturally mediated processes, in dialogue with the great history of texts… Though alone, they act in relationship with other readers and readings, participating in communities of practice where social positioning and powerful readings have consequences for others… meaning emerges for the worlds they inhabit and the lives they lead within their worlds’ (p.163). Meaning is constructed within, or against, a framework established by a dominant culture which articulates history in order to legitimise its own dominance.

Smagorinsky reminds us that the use of tools does not occur in a creative vacuum; individuals do not approach a tool as an unlimited index of possibilities. Furthermore, Smagorignsky’s understanding of knowledge overlaps with Wenger’s when the latter writes, ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually’ (1998, p. 141). Hence, when users use tools in innovative, unexpected ways it may be worthwhile trying to understand users’ prior experiences and their position in relation to the dominant culture. It would further be interesting to explore any correlations between dissent (whether explicitly voiced or articulated through practice) and innovation.

References

Engeström, Y. (2007) ‘Enriching the Theory of Expansive Learning: Lessons From Journeys Toward Coconfiguration’, Mind, Culture and Activity, vol. 14, nos. 1-2, pp. 23-39.

Smagorinsky, P. (2001) ‘If meaning is constructed, what is it made from?’: Toward a cultural theory of reading author(s)’, Review of Educational Research, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 133-169.

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

 

Engestrom et al. (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory (4)

Engestrom (1999) provides a close analysis of activity theory, activity systems and expansive learning, the latter occurring when tensions in an activity system are exposed. The exposure of tensions within an activity system can lead to the system’s reconfiguration, via expansive learning. 

Engestrom touches on the Marxist roots of activity theory, by affirming it ‘is based on a dialectical theory of knowledge and thinking’ (p. 378). The tensions within an existing system are the breeding ground for new forms of knowledge.

Engestrom is particularly interested in the object node in an activity system, and in the determining effects of the object node. Activity theory argues that purposeful human activities are mediated through tools (material or symbolic), but Engestrom also argues, ‘Activities are social practices oriented at objects’ (p. 380). Hence, ‘the object gains motivating force that gives shape and direction to activity. The object determines the horizon of possible actions’ (p381). The object of the activity system, therefore, shapes the parameters of the activity, as the activity is configured to attain the object (though an object and an eventual outcome need not be one and the same).

Engestrom’s analysis becomes more complex when he distinguishes objects from goals: ‘Objects are not to be confused with goals. Goals are attached to specific actions. Actions have clear points of beginning and termination and relatively short half-lives. Activity systems evolve through long historical cycles in which clear beginnings and ends are difficult to determine’ (p. 381). The essential difference appears to be one of scale; specific actions can be directed towards goals, but activity systems are more longitudinal, in the sense that, being dialectical, they exacerbate and expose tensions over time.

Building on his understanding of the importance of objects in activity systems, and on the distinction between objects and the more localised, immediate and thus more easily identifiable goals, Engestrom writes, ‘being a horizon, the object is never fully reached or conquered’ (p. 381). It appears to me that activity systems are more likely to get reconfigured under the pressure of their own internal contradictions than they are to get fully and unproblematically realised, other than in the short term context of a specific action leading to a goal. Tension between nodes appears to be the natural state of activity systems over time. 

Given the focus on change over time, and the distinction between objects and goals, Engestrom draws a further distinction, between innovative learning and an expansive cycle. The former can be localised, but the latter needs a more substantial temporal frame in which to play through: ‘Miniature cycles of innovative learning should be regarded as potentially expansive. A large-scale, expansive cycle of organizational transformation always consists of small cycles of innovative learning. However, the appearance of small-scale cycles of innovative learning does not in itself guarantee that an expansive cycle is going on’ (p. 385). Hence, the localised event of innovative learning can signify the emergence of expansive learning, but need not necessarily do so. However, one form of innovative learning prompting another and another comprises the ground work and the catalyst for expansive learning.

Engestrom also constructs a similar distinction between a solution innovation and a trajectory innovation: ‘A solution innovation typically applies only to the specific case for which it was invented, whereas a trajectory innovation is aimed at becoming a more or less permanent, repeatedly used procedure. Of course, it is possible that a solution innovation is subsequently repeated consciously in similar new situations, thus becoming a trajectory innovation. Conversely, a trajectory innovation may fail to generalize beyond the first application, thus effectively becoming a one-time solution innovation’ (p. 387).  Again, the essence of the distinction is between a localised event, and a bigger, structural change. However, the solution innovation can comprise a template that can be applied to solve other problems, hence establishing itself as a trajectory innovation, without having been conceived as one in the first place.

Engetsrom’s article as a whole brings additional complexity to activity theory, activity systems and expansive learning. The article argues that changes in activity systems and the emergence of expansive learning are only observable over time (typically, 2 to 3 years in research studies). However, individual innovations can develop into expansive transformations. Individual innovations, therefore, are unlikely to arise on the basis of an analysis of an activity system, and are more likely to be constructed in the face of an immediate, not recognisably structural, problem. However, localised solutions can accumulate, thus creating the conditions in which existing, structural problems are more manifest, leading to a collective desire to overhaul the existing structure, and replace it with an activity system better suited to its current context.

Reference

Engestrom, Y. (1999) ‘Innovative learning in work teams: Analyzing cycles of knowledge creation in practice,’ in Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 377-404.

 

 

 

 

Engestrom et al. (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory (2)

Further notes on Engestrom, Y., Miettinen, R.  and Punamaki, R. L. eds. (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press.

Brostrom (1999) writes, ‘In play activity children very often go beyond the current contextual frame. Children not only appropriate the social surrounding world, they also make unexpected creative changes. Observations of play in preschools indicate that children not only adopt [sic] to and internalize the local institutional culture but expand beyond it as well. Through this activity new knowledge, skills, and actions often appear’ (p. 251). It would be interesting to substitute ‘people’ for ‘children’ in this passage, as creativity can emerge from seemingly aimless activity undertaken by children or adults. New knowledge and understanding can occur serendipitously, or when boundaries are weakened or removed. Therefore, while Activity Theory relates to activity that is purposeful, the process and development of play suggests that Expansive Learning (Engestrom 1987, 2001) can happen, and may happen more easily, without goal-directed action. As Hakkarainen (1999) notes, ‘There is no necessity to produce any concrete results or attain previously formulated goals in play’ (p. 234). The products of play, because they are not pre-figured, can be new, and revelatory,

Brostrom also writes, ‘If the teachers make room for children’s creative activities, they themselves will generate such expanding elements. The opposite will occur if the teachers put too much structure into the play. Expansive play will not appear’ (p. 261). Again, we can apply this to learning generally, rather than to the learning of children in particular. Expansive Learning requires an appropriate environment in which to flourish. The more learning is controlled, the fewer the outlets for creativity, though it is unlikely that it could ever be suppressed entirely.

Lompscher (1999) follows Brostrom’s analysis by summarising conventional learning: ‘in most classrooms students are objects of didactic actions aimed at the transmission of knowledge and skills (and norms and values, as well) from the teacher’s head (or from the textbook) to the pupils’ heads’ (p. 266). Conventional learning, therefore, obstructs creativity. By giving learners (and workers) more creative opportunities, educational institutions and workplaces create more opportunities for the creation of new knowledge and understanding. The implications for this approach, as far as Activity Theory is concerned, is that it challenges the role of the ‘Object’ node, and may encourage a new configuration of the structure.

References

Brostrom, S. (1999) ‘Drama games with 6-year-old children: Possibilities and limitations,’ in Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press.

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research.Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 8 July 2011).

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Hakkarainen, P. (1999) ‘Play and motivation,’ in Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press.

Lompscher, J. (1999) ‘Activity formation as an alternative strategy of instruction’ ’ in Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press.

An activity system triangle

Literature round up June 11

Young (2001) identifies some structural features of activity systems and expansive learning (Engestrom 1987, 2001) , pointing out that expansive learning ‘assumes a common goal’, and hence learning is a means to an end (pp. 159-160). In order for expansive learning to work, contradictions are identified and explored, and thus questions have to be asked. However, Young argues that socialisation within learning contexts can disable the expansive learning model: ‘The theory of expansive learning quite rightly gives a key role to questioning by learners. However, questioning in either a workplace or classroom context can easily be perceived as trouble making. It is possible, therefore, that a student or trainee begins by questioning, but later learns to keep quiet – thus providing a barrier to the continuation of the expansive learning cycle’ (p. 160). With specific regard to workplace learning, Rikowski (2000) has argued that recruiters look for attitudes rather than skills, with the desired attitudes including obedience. Hence, a culture can emerge that discourages the questions necessary for expansive learning to work.

Mc William (2008) argues higher education pedagogy is outdated: ‘mainstream pedagogical practice, particularly in universities, very much parallels a twentieth-century work culture focused on accessing information and using it to solve relatively predictable problems or complete routinised transactions of one kind or another’ (p. 264). She argues for more fluid pedagogies, reflecting both the impact of technology on twenty-first century living, and reflecting too the emerging demands of the workplace. She further argues for play as a pedagogical tool, seeing its experimental, error-welcoming characteristics as better suited to our age. Many years earlier, Huizinga (1938) argued that play turns to seriousness and seriousness turns to play, a belief which will be familiar to anyone who has become absorbed in winning a game or a sporting contest, and to anyone who has dressed up in costumes and intoned ritual phrases in courts or at church altars.

McWilliam’s core argument, that our pedagogies are no longer suited to our contexts, has been made elsewhere (e.g., Prensky 2001). However, her contention that the lecturer needs to become ‘a usefully ignorant co-worker’ (p. 265) lends itself to an activity system perspective, with the lecturer having to relinquish their authority within the division of labour, in order for effective and relevant learning to occur. Young argues that expansive learning presupposes a context in which contradictions are encouraged to come to the surface, whereas many workplaces and educational contexts suppress contradictions. Engestrom would argue that the surfacing of contradictions is an inevitability over the long-term, but it is likely that long-suppressed contradictions will be more disruptive when they finally emerge.

References
Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 13 June 2011).

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

McWilliam, E. (2008), ‘Unlearning how to teach,’ Innovations in Education and Teaching International, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 263-269.

Prensky, M. (2001) ‘Digital natives, digital immigrants’ On the horizon, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 1-6.

Rikowski, G. (2000) ‘That Other Great Class of Commodities: Repositioning Marxist Educational Theory,’ paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Cardiff University, 7-10 September 2000.

Young M. (2001), ‘Contextualising a New Approach to learning: some comments on Yrgo Engestrom’s theory of expansive learning,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 157-161.

Allman et al. (2003) ‘After the Box People…’

Allman et al. argue, from a Marxist perspective, that education plays a key role in perpetuating capitalist society. They see the underperformance of working class students, relative to their middle class peers, as an inevitability given the function of education in capitalist society, and see research that identifies the relative underperformance of working class students as ‘non-research’ (p. 2).

Where Allman et al.’s analysis overlaps with Activity Theory (Engestrom 1987, 2001) is in relation to dialectics, but Allman et al. centre their analysis on the primarily economic and political concept of class. They argue, ‘All dialectical contradictions are internal relations’ (p. 6) which links with Activity Theory in the sense that Engestrom argues conflicts occur internally between nodes in an activity system. Allman et al. develop their argument by suggesting that one of the antagonists in a dialectical relationship benefits from the status quo and will thus have an interest in sustaining it, whereas the other party can only marginally improve its circumstances within the existing relationship and will therefore have an interest in getting rid of the relationship. Engestrom’s analysis is less interested in the balance of power in conflicts between individual nodes.

Allman et al., citing Rikowski, also see tension within the subject: ‘We are social beings incorporating antithetical social drives and forces’ (Rikowski 2001, p. 20, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 18). Where Engestrom sees the subject as a node within a system in which conflict is inevitable, Allman et al. see conflict inhering within the subject. Moreover, Allman et al. cite Merrifield’s analysis, which argues that ‘class is always a dynamic process, an intricate battle of roles and relationships’ (Merrifield 2001, pp. 74-75, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 21). Applying the Activity Theory framework to Merrifield’s analysis, class itself becomes an activity system, with its own social nodes and inevitable conflicts.

Allman et al. argue conflict between labour and capital is inevitable, as the wealth generated by people in their labour exceeds what they obtain for their labour, with the surplus being retained by the capitalist. They cite Marx in Volume 1 of Capital who, writing before the advent of mass state education, identifies a structural feature of work which prevails irrespective of the kind of work being undertaken: ‘a school master is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, makes no difference to the relation’ (Marx 1867, p. 644, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 8).

Viewing education and society through an explicitly political lens, Allman et al. see the expansion in higher education as serving an end of capitalism: ‘One of capital’s needs, on a global scale, is millions of young people with a similar skill level – often a very high level. This is not because there are jobs for all of these people. Rather, their level of skills will make them eligible to compete with one another for the jobs that do require this level of skill, thereby, as is true of all competition, driving down the value of their labour-powers expressed as wages’ (p. 9).

Allman et al. argue that educators can present alternative value systems to students, calling their approach ‘revolutionary critical education.’ However, rather than lay down a template for how this new approach might look, they argue it is more ‘praxiological than prescored. The path is made by walking, as it were’ (p. 19). There is a further, and presumably unintentional, overlap with Engestrom in this regard, as his theory of Expansive Learning (1987, 2001) is centred on constructing new knowledge out of existing conflicts, but without the end of learning being known a priori.

That there are similarities between Allman et al.’s Marxist reading of education and Engestrom’s Activity Theory is not surprising, as Activity Theory has its roots in research undertaken in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The modern link between the two may be found in Avis (2009) who argues that Engestrom eschews the political implications of his own analysis.

References
Allman, P., McLaren, P. & Rikowski, G. (2003) ‘After the Box People: The Labour-Capital Relation as Class Constitution and its Consequences for Marxist Educational Theory and Human Resistance,’ in J. Freeman-Moir & A. Scott (Eds.) Yesterday’s Dreams: International and Critical Perspectives on Education and Social Class, Christchurch, NZ, Canterbury University Press. Also available at http://gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/Publications/afterthebox_AllmanMcLarenRikowski.pdf (accessed 7 June 2011).

Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Marx, K. (1867 [1976]) Capital: a critique of political economy – Volume 1, Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Merrifield, A. (2001) ‘Metro Marxism, or Old and Young Marx in the City,’ Socialism and Democracy, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 63-84.

Rikowski, G. (2001) ‘After the Manuscript Broke Off: Thoughts on Marx, Social Class and Education,’ a paper presented at the British Sociological Association Education Group, King’s College London, 23 June.

Literature round-up

Awaiting the reports on the pilot study, I’m catching up on reading. I’m also preparing my paper for the European Conference on E-Learning.

The subject node in an activity system is particularly problematic because contradiction can be inscribed within it. If there is a gap between the subject’s use value, the functional value of what they produce, and the subject’s exchange value, the wealth their labour creates for their employer (which exceeds the subject’s rewards for their labour), then some contradiction is created for the subject. Daniels and Warmington (2007) argue the subject node in the activity system is under-theorised, as the system takes insufficient account of the relations within and between subjects.

Part of education’s function is shaped by the economic and political context within which education occurs. Hence, for example, the Education Act of 1870 existed primarily to make UK subjects functioning units within a fully-fledged industrial economy (regulated hours of attendance, regulated conduct within the institution, punishment for transgression). Rikowski (2002) argues, ‘General education… nurtures those attitudes and personality traits pertinent to working in capitalist enterprises in general’ (p. 20).

Activity Theory presupposes that activity is purposeful. There is no activity system without an object. Engestrom and Kerosuo (2007) argue that Activity Theory ‘is strongly committed to pedagogical and interventionist actions to facilitate and change learning’ (p.337). Hence, as a practical approach to learning it is not about waiting for change to happen via the internal pressures of contradictions, but, instead, provoking change through an analysis of activity systems and the contradictions between their various nodes.

Activity Theory argues that human activity is mediated through tools, a term broadly defined to include signs and codes as well as physical artefacts. However, and as with subjects, the tools node is complex, as Engestrom and Blackler (2005) argue (using objects to signify tools, not objects to signify outcomes): ‘First, it would be a mistake to assume that objects are “just given”; objects are constructed by actors…. Second, at the same time it would also be a mistake to assume that objects are constructed arbitrarily on the spot; objects have histories and built-in affordances, they resist and “bite back”’ (p. 310). On the one hand, meanings for objects (tools) are constructed by users through usage, but on the other hand objects have a back-story created by their previous uses, which are likely to exert an influence on how they are used subsequently. Using an object in an unfamiliar way can provoke resistance.

A significant value and potential of Activity Theory is that it can expose contradictions in existing human activity, and posit alternatives. In this sense it is empowering, and can, potentially, resolve contradictions experienced within subjects. Rikowski (2002), placing his analysis within an explicitly political context, defines Marxism as a ‘promethean scream: we are everything, there are no gods, no superhuman forces. People are the sole creators, it is labour alone which constitutes social reality’ (p. 1).

References
Daniels, H. and Warmington, P. (2007) ‘Analysing third generation activity systems: labour-power, subject position and personal transformation,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 377-391.

Engestrom, Y. and Blackler, F. (2005) ‘On the life of the object,’ Organization, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 307-330.

Engestrom, Y. and Kerosuo, H. (2007) ‘From workplace learning to inter-organizational learning and back: the contribution of activity theory,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp.336-352.

Rikowski, G. (2002) ‘Methods for researching the social production of labour power in capitalism,’ University College Northampton School of Education research seminar, 7 March 2002.

Engestrom (1987), ‘Learning by expanding…’ (2)

Notes on ‘3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research,’ ‘4. The instruments of expansion’ and ‘5. Towards an expansive methodology.’

Engestrom argues that human activity does not occur in a vacuum. Instead, it always occurs within a social context: ‘Human activity is not only individual production. It is simultaneously and inseparably also social exchange and societal distribution. In other words, human activity always takes place within a community governed by a certain division of labor and by certain rules.’

Furthermore, Engestrom argues that meaning is not constrained by design. Instead, meaning is forged out of usage: ‘A tool always implies more possible uses than the original operations that have given birth to it.’ Similarly, ‘The instructor’s task and the learner’s perceived task are seldom the same thing.’ In this specific sense there is a close connection between Engestrom’s standpoint and Wenger’s analysis of how communities of practice work (1998, p. 80): ‘Even when a community of practice arises in response to some outside mandate, the practice evolves into the community’s own response to that mandate.’ Thus, meaning is not a given (though it may be prompted), but a construct.

In addition, Engestrom challenges the scaffolding metaphor which has, in recent years, become a favourite descriptive tool for social constructivists in learning and teaching. Engestrom’s problem with the metaphor is that it still imposes limits on the knowledge that the learner can construct and, ultimately, ‘the idea of scaffolding is restricted to the acquisition of the given.’

Engestrom’s description of the activity system, the tensions therein and hence the creation of new knowledge and understanding, implies that human activity both works within and challenges tradition. Considering creativity, he argues ‘a work of art (or science)… requires simultaneously acceptance of a convention… and passing beyond it’ and, ‘scientific discoveries… are to a large extent achievements of synthesizing and crystallizing elements that were already “there.”’ A similar argument for the creative process is made by T.S. Eliot in The Sacred Wood (1922), in which Eliot accepts that the artist is always working within an inherited tradition, which is there to be used in order to enable new creation, an argument which takes Eliot to the position of ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.’ Both writers, therefore, see creation not as a spontaneous process (generating that which had not been conceived of before) but as a significant reconfiguration of existing, though not static, economic, social and cultural resources.

In seeking to understand how an activity system changes, and having recognised that tension between nodes in the activity system precipitates change, Engestrom uses the metaphor of the springboard: ‘the springboard is a facilitative image, technique or socio-conversational constellation (or a combination of these) misplaced or transplanted from some previous context into a new, expansively transitional activity context during an acute conflict…’ Tension between nodes, therefore, is a precondition for creativity, and springboards offer a route out of tension towards a new activity system, but they do not in themselves comprise the solution to tensions: ‘Springboards do not come about smoothly and automatically. They appear in times of distress, almost as lifebuoys… Springboards are not solutions. They are starters or hints toward a path leading to an expansive solution.’

Engestrom’s analysis is broadly Marxist in the sense that he sees tension as the spur to progress. Furthermore, he uses the Marxist term ‘dialectics,’ though with his own definition: ‘In my analysis, dialectics is the logic of expansion. And expansion is essentially a social and practical process, having to do with collectives of people reconstructing their material practice.’ However, Engestrom argues that existing structures of learning and teaching militate against the collective construction of new knowledge and understanding: ‘Industrial capitalism is the triumph of individualism. Here, the mature form of learning is obligatory school-going. In the obligatory school, the dominant unit of functioning is the individual, spatially and temporally discrete task.’ Therefore, formal education exists to hinder creativity, not to encourage it.

Engestrom’s distinction between the individual and the social may be problematic in the sense that the activity system presupposes that individuals inhabit, inescapably, social contexts. Furthermore, the activity system within which people function, and which they may go on to transform, is a tradition, an inherited set of values and practices. Therefore, the distinction between the individual and the social may be a false one. As Wenger (1998, p. 141) argues: ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually.’

In his conclusion, Engestrom returns to Vygotsky and the idea that, in human behaviour, a stimulus and a response have ‘a human-created symbolic stimulus mediating between the two.’ Furthermore, Vygotsky’s object of analysis was ‘observations of behaviour in daily life,’ and, more broadly, ‘the historical transformation of cultures.’ Engestrom follows Vygotsky’s lead, but is also interested in where tension is experienced, arguing ‘individually manifested doubt, hesitation and disturbance is the starting point. The direction is from the individual to the societal. However, the individual point of departure is itself understandable only as a cultural-historical product.’ As individuals and collectives respond to tensions and seek to create resolutions, ‘The practical solutions that represent the unexpected, the unrecognizable, are actually initial forms of new theories.’ Tension is necessary to create the new, and the breakdown of one activity system prompts the creation of a new activity system, more suited to its economic and social contexts. Hence, social progress is facilitated by tension, and expansive learning arises when existing activity systems are no longer fit for purpose.

References,
Eliot, T. S. (1922) The Sacred Wood: essays on poetry and criticism, Bartelby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/200/ (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Engestrom (1987) ‘Learning by Expanding…’

Notes on ‘1. Introduction: The futility of learning’ and ‘2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning.’

For Engestrom, problem solving is a reactive form of learning, and purportedly supportive modes of teaching (sometimes characterised by the scaffolding metaphor of teaching) are thus patronising and futile: ‘the poor learners must be helped to cope with the tasks given to them.’ Conversely, effective learning involves reconfiguring the learner as a partner in the fundamental design of learning; we should be ‘enabling the users themselves to plan and bring about the qualitative changes (including the design and implementation of technologies) in their life contexts.’ Engestrom is thus interested in expansive processes which, though ‘elusive and uncontrollable,’ also enable people to ‘transcend the contexts given to them.’

Engestrom links the origins of formal learning with the emergence of literacy: ‘Schools do indeed appear wherever people start reading and writing. In their very generality, reading and writing are such abstract or indirect instruments that they cannot be learned by simply participating in work activity.’ Simple apprenticeships can occur in less formal contexts, but the abstract qualities of reading and writing require a formal context for their transmission, separate from everyday intercourse.

However, for Engestrom, increasing tensions are evident in schooling, because students are simultaneously engaging in production and consumption themselves: ‘today’s pupils are at an early age intensively drawn into the market as relatively independent consumers, even as producers of exchange values (as computer hackers, as sport stars and performers, etc.). When the pupils’ direct participation in the societal production is intensified, the “holding power” of the school is endangered. In this respect, school-going may well be approaching a crisis of new qualitative dimensions. Whether this will mean a breakthrough into learning activity at school – that remains to be seen.’ If students are not dependent on school as a pre-condition for producing and consuming in economic and social contexts, they are less likely to engage with school and will thus bypass it, in terms of their commitment and participation if not their actual, physical attendance. Conversely, learning activities that recognise students’ existences as consumers and producers are more likely to connect with students.

Engestrom goes on to define what is meant by learning activity: ‘The essence of learning activity is production of objectively, societally new activity structures (including new objects, instruments, etc.) out of actions manifesting the inner contradictions of the preceding form of the activity in question.’ Hence, when one element of an Activity System (Vygotsky, 1927) contradicts another, it generates conflict, but thus also an opportunity to construct new knowledge. Learning activities expose contradictions in systems, and imagine what can be constructed out of the contradictions. In this sense, learning activities may be seen to define some of the conditions and outcomes of artistic and scientific production: ‘The learning actions inherent in scientific and artistic activity are those of learning to imagine, learning to “go beyond the given”, not in the privacy on the individual mind but in the public, material objectifications.’

For Engestrom, therefore, problem-based learning is itself problematic because it makes students passive recipients of problems, not active constructors of their own learning journeys. He opposes problem solving with expansive learning activities, which acknowledge contradictions within activity systems and produce new structures out of those contradictions.

References
Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 20 April 2011).

Vygotsky, L. S. (1927/1997) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, vol. 3: problems of the theory and history of Psychology, ed. by R. W. Rieber, and J. Wollock, New York, Plenum.