Anna Stetsenko

Activity as Object-Related: Resolving the Dichotomy of Individual and Collective Planes of Activity

This article suggests that the principle of object-relatedness, introduced by Vygotsky and expanded by A. N. Leontiev, can be used to conceptualize human subjectivity within a profoundly social view of human development. This is achieved by reformulating the premises of cultural-historical activity theory to include the notion that material production, intersubjective exchanges, and human subjectivity form a unified three-fold dialectical system. Focusing on the constant manifold transitions among components of this system as its modus vivendi reveals (a) individual and collective processes as being interrelated and co-evolving levels of activity, and (b) the practical relevance of human subjectivity alongside the human relevance of material practices. Such an expanded view posits human subjectivity on a continuum of regulatory mechanisms of social practice, to which both individual and social processes belong. It is further conceptualized as a form of practical transformative pursuits in the world, and as a lawful and necessary moment of human life endowed with the capacity to generate new activity cycles. The co-evolution of collective motives and personal goals, as well as the practical relevance of theoretical constructions, are used as illustrations.

The Self in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Reclaiming the Unity of Social and Individual Dimensions of Human Development

This paper suggests a framework in which the importance of the individual dimension and agency can be reclaimed within a profoundly social and relational view of the self. Juxtaposed with recent research on the self, cultural-historical activity theory is discussed, including its foundational premises formulated by Vygotsky and its conception of the self articulated by Leontiev. Expanded in a number of ways proposed in this paper, this theory helps to theorize the self (a) in its practical relevance, as a lawful and necessary moment in human collective practices, (b) as endowed with the capacity to generate new cycles of practice, and (c) as immanent in activities that position individuals to contribute to meaningfully changing the world. The concept of ‘self as a leading activity’ is discussed as a way to capture what the self is, where it is located, and what its purpose and relation to society are.

Embracing History through Transforming It Contrasting Piagetian versus Vygotskian (Activity) Theories of Learning and Development to Expand Constructivism within a Dialectical View of History

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 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.

Teaching–learning and development as activist projects of historical Becoming: expanding Vygotsky's approach to pedagogy

This paper considers pedagogical implications of Vygotskys project expansively reconstructed on the grounds of the notion that collaborative purposeful transformation of the world is the principled grounding for teaching–learning and development. Using a transformative ontology of continuous historical Becoming through answerable deeds in which cultural tools are seen as omnipresent, I argue that knowing and learning are rendered meaningful through their embedding as tools in identity development that represents an activist project of forming and carrying out purposeful life agenda aimed at contributing to social practices. Therefore, teaching–learning needs to integrate knowledge revealed: (a) as stemming out of social practice – as its constituent tools; (b) through social practice – where students need to rediscover these tools through their own active pursuit, efforts and inquiry; and (c) for social practice – where knowledge and ‘facts’ are rendered meaningful in light of their possible use in activities significant to students, that is, engendered by and engendering their identities.

The Quality of Cultural Tools and Cognitive Development: Gal’perin’s Perspective and Its Implications1

Vygotsky theorized that instruction plays a key part in cognitive development by providing culturally evolved cognitive tools which, once internalized by the child, mediate and advance the child’s cognitive functioning. Gal’perin further elaborated this approach arguing that it is the quality (specific character) of cognitive tools (such as concepts, criteria, schemas) acquired by the child that to a large extent defines the specifics of cognitive development. He theoretically explicated and empirically tested an alternative type of instruction which, unlike traditional instruction, directly generated cognitive development by providing cognitive tools of a higher quality (based on theoretical concepts as opposed to empirical concepts). The often overlooked yet important implications of Gal’perinian perspective are: 1) that there is a need for the theory of development to conceptualize and integrate the processes related to learning, and 2) that most existing theories of development capture just one possible version of development – the version that is bound to deficient cognitive tools employed in the currently dominating type of instruction.

BOOK REVIEW: "Alexander Luria and the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory: Pieces for the History of An Outstanding Collaborative Project in Psychology"

This book’s appearance is extremely timely—it coincides with the 2002 centennial of Alexander Luria’s birth. The life and scientific heritage of this Russian scholar have been widely celebrated, with several international conferences held to commemorate Luria’s achievements, including one in Moscow organized by his many students and followers, now renowned scholars themselves, working in various institutions in Moscow and around the world. The book that is now available for the English-speaking readers in translation from Russian (the original was published in 1992), is written by Evgenija Davydovna Homskaya—one of the closest students and colleagues of Luria who came to be a prominent neuropsychologist herself, having authored a number of important publications (both with Luria and on her own) and taught many generations of students at the Moscow State Lomonosov University (including the author of this review). Homskaya, who continues her work and teaching today, wrote this book, in her own words, to honor the memory of her beloved teacher, colleague, and friend. The book by Homskaya represents a valuable source of information about this prominent scholar of the 20th century and a unique addition to the existing literature in that it provides a glimpse at Luria’s life and work from within the immediate context of his investigative project and scientific path as it unfolded during the many years of a close collaboration between Luria and Homskaya. The book should be of interest to a broad audience of psychologists for several reasons. First, Alexander Luria’s life is remarkable in and of itself. He represented a rare breed of scientists with a uniquely broad, almost encyclopedic, knowledge and expertise in fields as diverse as biology, psychiatry, anthropology, medicine, physiology, neurophysiology, psychology, forensic science, MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY, 10(1), 93–97 Copyright

Sociological Understandings of Conduct for a Noncanonical Activity Theory: Exploring Intersections and Complementarities

Following a discussion of activity theory as an approach to human development originally rooted in transformational change, we review the historical context and diverse conceptualizations of social conduct from the field of sociology. The discussion of social conduct is broken into theories of social action, theories of enactment, and contemporary sociological attempts at critical integration of the two across local and extralocal social processes. We conclude with an assessment of these sociological contributions in relation to what we term the threefold dialectic of material production, local and extralocal dimensions of intersubjective exchanges, and subjectivity that is fundamental to noncanonical understandings of activity theory.

Connecting Learning and Identity Development through a Transformative Activist Stance: Application in Adolescent Development in a Child Welfare Program

This paper addresses the relationship between identity and learning and how their integration in adolescence is an important part of short- and long-term developmental dynamics. We discuss how social practice theories can be expanded from a position termed ‘transformative activist stance’ that puts emphasis on collaborative practice aimed at changing the world and enacted by individual activist contributions as the grounding for both identity and learning. We further focus on critical-theoretical knowledge as a tool for identity development and a catalyst for merging identity and learning. The developmental trajectory of an adolescent boy living in a group home and participating in a collaborative transformative project showcases a dramatic personal transformation from a victim of oppressive circumstances to an agent of social change with a meaningful life agenda resulting from a merger of his evolving commitment to contribute to transforming his present community practice and of his growing immersion in critical-theoretical learning.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants A Balancing Act of Dialectically Theorizing Conceptual Understanding on the Grounds of Vygotsky’s Project

Defining knowledge and theorizing concepts is a difficult task if only because the target notions/phenomena are centrally (albeit often tacitly) implicated, right from the start and throughout the whole process, in the very ways and procedures employed in this endeavor. How can one define the ways through which we know the world, including concepts, conceptual understanding and thinking, while these very concepts and methods of knowing need to be applied to the task at hand? There seems to be an inherent complexity involved in resolving epistemological issues that are akin to what is infamously known as an attempt to pull oneself by one’s own hair. This complexity, though rather obvious, is paradoxically not often reflected upon by researchers involved with epistemological issues—judging by the largely overlooked situation when the stated epistemic conceptualizations are often at odds with the methods employed to arrive at them. For example, claims about collective and distributed nature of knowing and concept development as never belonging to the individual realm seem to contradict methodology behind these claims employed by individual researchers that often represents a single-handedly construed process of solitary analysis apparently disconnected from collaborative pursuits. It would appear that researchers, who state the radical position on mind as being distributed and not attributable to anything at the individual level, have to struggle to reconcile their position with their own claims to individual authorship and authenticity of theoretical arguments, concepts, and views.

Honor as a value in Finland, Estonia, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland

Using the Schwartz Value Model as a basis, the meaning of the value item, honor (sense of honor) was explored in eight samples in Finland (N = 1877) and in five comparable samples of 15- to 17-year-old adolescents in Estonia, Finland, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland (N = 1788). In Finland, honor was a self-enhancement value in all age and occupational groups, although its importance varied widely. An identical pattern was found for Estonian adolescents, but for Swiss adolescents honor was both a self-enhancement and a conservation value and for Italian and Russian adolescents, a pure conservation value. Male adolescents had higher regard for honor than female adolescents in Finland, Russia, and Switzerland, but no sex differences were found in Estonia, Italy or in the Finnish adult samples. In all adolescent samples, honor was associated with work-related values (e.g., hard work, conscientiousness).