Three generations of cultural-historical activity theory?
Historical and theoretical challenges
Nikolai Veresov
Monash University
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What do we know about three generations of activity
theory?
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Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental
research (Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit).
Engestrom, Y. (1990). Learning, working, imagining: Twelve studies in activity theory. Helsinki: OrientaKonsultit.
Cole, M. and Engeström, Y. (1993) A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition, in: G.
Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (New York,
Cambridge University Press), 1-46.
Engeström, Y, Miettinen, R. & Punamäki, R. (Eds.). (1999). Perspectives on activity theory. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Engeström, Y. (1999) Innovative learning in work teams: analysing cycles of knowledge creation
in practice, in: Y. Engestrom et al (Eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press), 377-406.
Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (2007). Cultural-historical approaches to designing for development. In Valsiner, J.,
& Rosa, A. (Eds.). The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 484-507). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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Generations
Time
Names
Unit of analysis
Principle
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
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Generations
Time
Names
Unit of analysis
Principle
1st Generation
1920s-1930s
Vygotsky
mediated action
mediation
2nd Generation
1930s-1970s
Leontiev
triangle of activity
activity
3rd Generation
1970s - now
Engestrom
activity system
transformation
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First generation
Unit of analysis: mediated action (Engestrom,
2008)
Mediational Means (Tools)
(machines, writing, speaking, gesture, architecture, music, etc)
Subject(s)
(individual, dyad, group)
Object/Motive
--> Outcome(s)
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Second generation: unit of analysis - activity system
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Generations:
First generation – Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
Cultural-historical theory of development of higher mental functions
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Vygotsky – cultural-historical theory
A. Leontiev = activity theory
L. Bozhovich = theory of personality
M. Lisina = theory of communication
N. Morozova = development and special
education
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Generations:
First generation – Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
1930s-1970s
First generation of activity theory
Second generation of cultural- historical theory
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First generation of activity
theory (Leontiev, Elkonin,
Galperin, Zaportozhets, P.
Zinchenko)
1930s-1970s
Second generation of
cultural- historical theory
(Lisina, Bozhovich)
1970s – 2000s
Second generation of activity
theory(V. Davydov, D. Elkonin,
J. Lompsher, G. Rückriem)
Third generation of activity
theory
(Rubtsov, Zuckernan, B.
Elkonin)
CHAT (cultural-historical activity
theory) M. Cole, J. Wertsch, Y.
Engestrom
Third generation of
cultural- historical
theory (V. Zinchenko, E.
Kravtsova, M. Fleer, N.
Veresov, P. Hakkarainen
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NOW
Three co-existing theoretical approaches:
• Cultural-historical theory
• Activity theory
• Cultural-historical activity theory
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First generation: cultural-historical theory (Vygotsky)
Key ideas of cultural-historical theory?
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• Socio-cultural genesis of human consciousness (higher mental
functions)
• Dialectical character of cultural development (contradictions,
crises, drama, new quality=neoformations)
• Mediation
• Other?
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First generation: Vygotsky
Unit of analysis: mediated action (Engestrom,
2008)
Mediating Means (Tools)
(machines, writing, speaking, gesture, architecture, music, etc)
Subject(s)
(individual, dyad, group)
Object/Motive
--> Outcome(s)
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Vygotsky:
Mediated action IS NOT a unit of analysis:
This form of analysis relies on the partitioning of the complex whole into units. In
contrast to the term "element," the term "unit" designates a product of analysis that
possesses all the basic characteristics of the whole. The unit is a vital and irreducible
part of the whole... By unit we mean a product of analysis which, unlike elements,
retains all the basic properties of the whole and which cannot be further divided
without losing them (Vygotsky, 1987, p 46-47)
Mediated action as a higher form of behaviour, can always be
divided completely and without any remainder into the natural
elementary … processes that make it up, just as the work of any
machine can, in the last analysis, be reduced to a definite system of
physicochemical processes (Vygotsky, 1997, p.80).
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Vygotsky:
“The concept "development of higher mental functions" and the subject of our research
encompass two groups of phenomena that seem, at first glance, to be completely
unrelated, but in fact represent two basic branches, two streams of the development of
higher forms of behavior inseparably connected, but never merging into one. These are,
first, the processes of mastering external materials of cultural development and thinking:
language, writing, arithmetic, drawing; second, the processes of development of special
higher mental functions not delimited and not determined with any degree of precision
and in traditional psychology termed voluntary attention, logical memory, formation of
concepts, etc. Both of these taken together also form that which we conditionally call the
process of development of higher forms of the child's behaviour” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 14).
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“...every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the
stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first
between people as an intermental category, then within the child as a
intramental category...Genetically, social relations, real relations of
people, stand behind all the higher mental functions and their
relations…every higher mental function was external because it was
social before it became an internal strictly mental function; it was
formerly a social relation between two people (Vygotsky 1997, p. 106)
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Second generation: unit of analysis - activity system
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CHAT is a movement for improvement and modification (or even modernisation) of some
of the basic concepts and principles of Vygotsky’s approach, according to today’s
requirements (Cole, 1996; 1996a), or recently, as a kind of conceptual reformulation and
combination of Vygotsky (principle of mediation) and A. Leont’ev (principle of activity)
(Cole, 2007).
…activity and mediation as two aspects of a single whole in human life world”
(Cole & Engeström, 2007, p. 485).
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CHAT: tools and signs = mediating artefacts
Vygotsky: mediating activity of human being
• use of tools
• use of signs
Our diagram presents both types of devices as diverging lines of mediating
activity… These activities are so different that even the nature of the devices used
cannot be one and the same in both cases (Vygotsky, 1997, p.62).
Even more vague is the idea of those who understand such expressions in a literal sense.
Phenomena that have their own psychological aspect, but in essence do not belong wholly to
psychology, such as technology, are completely illegitimately psychologized. The basis for this
identification is ignoring the essence of both forms of activity and the differences in their historical
role and nature. Tools as devices of work, devices for mastering the processes of nature, and
language as a device for social contact and communication, dissolve in the general concept of
artifacts or artificial devices (p.61).
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“The basic principle of the functioning of higher functions (personality) is social,
entailing interaction of functions, in place of interaction between people. They can be
most fully developed in the form of drama” (Vygotsky 1929/1989, p.59; Original
emphasis).
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Leontiev – principle of activity?
No, the principle of the unity of conscious and activity:
• The activity of man makes up the substance of his consciousness” (Leont’ev,
1978, p.95).
• Psychological structure of consciousness corresponds to the structure of activity
but is not identical to it
• the human activity and individual consciousness have common structure
(Leont’ev, 1978, p. 62).
• the process of internalization is not external action transferred into a pre-existing
internal “plan of consciousness”; it is the process in which this internal plan is
formed” (Leont’ev, 1978, p.60).
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Engeström (1999) suggests that activity theory may be summarized with the help of five
principles. They stand as a manifesto of the current state of activity theory:
‘The first principle is that a collective, artifact-mediated and object-oriented activity system,
seen in its network relations to other activity systems, is taken as the prime unit of analysis.
Contradicts Vygotsky’s concepts of
• tool/sign and their psychological
nature
• mediating activity of a human being
Contradicts Vygotsky’s concept of unit of analysis
Contradicts Leontiev’s principle of the unity of
consciousness and activity
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Key ideas and challenges:
• Re-thinking Vygotsky’s legacy: theory and research methodology
• What is development (dialectics of transformations and
reorganisation)
• Mediated activity OR mediating activity?
• Subject of activity OR an individual in a process of becoming?
• Activity: Concept? Principle? Unit of analysis?
• Social formation of mind: what is “social”?
• Social practices: how to approach? Social practices, activity,
social situation of development, subjectivity.
• Perezhivanie as a theoretical concept.
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