Activity Theory

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Activity Theory

• COE 501/EDP 591

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A Brief History of Activity Theory

• Soviet beginnings
• Activity theory comes to America
• Further developments

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AT Soviet Beginnings

• Marx vs. Marx-Lenin Can the revolution be
  accelerated?
• Soviet psychology goals
• To examine how collective culture affects
  individual collective thinking
• Study cognitive development as a process of
  socialization
• To examine the influence of the means of
  production and division of labor on thinking
• Improve peasant life through communism
• Vygotsky, Leontiev, et al. were staunch
  supporters of Lenin persecuted under Stalin

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AT Coming to America

• 1970s Researchers from US study in USSR
  translate Soviets into English
• Influential in education
• Emphasis on the collective
• Emphasis on cultural indoctrination and
  socialization
• Comes with a strong activist message

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AT Further Developments

• Political message of cultural indoctrination
  abandoned
• Study of social influences on learning study of
  artifacts, rather than production consumption

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The Basics of AT

• What is Activity Theory?
• How do you do it?
• When should you do it?

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What is Activity Theory?

• No one is an island Start with the idea that
  all actions are a product of the social dynamic
  in which they arose
• All actions involve interacting entities
  (individuals, organizations, machines, etc.)
• Understand purpose of activities, what shapes
  them, the consequences?Understand a culture

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Tools of Activity Theory

• Ways of mapping the dynamics of activity
• First find a culture
• Traditional ethnographic collection methods
• Long-term involvement in field observation
• Field notes, recordings, memoing, etc.
• Differences in how the data is coded
• Much less emphasis on line-by-line analysis,
  since activities inherently resist reduction
• Greater development of tools for cultural analysis

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The Triangle
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Some Ways of Filling the Triangle

• Mapping of Social Networks Social Transactions
• Put people, institutions, groups, representatives
  (principal or secretary of state) into nodes
• Connect those who interact
• Describe interaction, purpose, outcome, tools
  necessary, etc.
• Artifact Analysis
• Tools shape activity not just physical
  implements, but mental implements
• Photograph and collect the physical tools by
  which people interact, and the external signs of
  mental tools
• Discourse Analysis
• How people talk to one another reveals their
  social standing, their perceptions of one another
• Examine how tone, word choice, turn-taking,
  initiation and conclusions differ across
  interactions

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When Should I Use AT?

• Identification of a culture problematic study
  of sustained communities with collective purpose
  usually ok
• When your emphasis is on the group, rather than
  the individual
• not good for asking Why cant Johnny read?
• good for asking Why cant PS 123 read?
• When you are interested in the interaction of
  cultures
• When you want to focus on how specific artifacts
  and traditional practices affect development
  and outcomes
• When you have means and access necessary for any
  ethnographic data collection

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When to use What?!?

• Grounded theory
• Interpretivism
• Standpoint Methodology
• Activity Theory