Taking things into account: learning as kinaesthetically-mediated collaboration

This paper presents research on participant learning processes in challenge course workshops using the framework known as Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). CHAT views learning as a shared, social process rather than as an individual event. Participants' experiencing and learning was mediated by the physical and social conditions of the experience and by the contributions of other participants. The concept of mediation suggests that the meaning participants make of experience is not an individual event, but instead is enacted as a creative, collaborative process using cultural and institutional tools. The recognition that people's physical, social and reflective learning processes are mediated, challenges longstanding assumptions about the radical autonomy of learners, about 'direct experience,' and about the centrality of independent, cognitive reflection in experiential learning. Empirical data showing processes of mediation are presented, and the implications for research and theory are discussed.     

Beyond access: special education in America

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to examine the parallels between many aspects of conductive education and the conceptual framework of Feuerstein's theory of mediated learning. Conductive education is not a treatment administered to remedy some pathology, as is the case with many therapies, but rather a system of education aimed at developing the whole individual. How this process is achieved may be enlightened by reference to Feuerstein's model of mediated learning experience (MLE). Two key aspects of Feuerstein's theory are examined: first, structural cognitive modifiability (SCM), which maintains that every individual's cognitive structures are capable of modifiability, despite barriers of retardation ‐ very much in line with modern neuroscience and its model of the brain as a plastic and adaptable system; and secondly, mediation (MLE), which is the process whereby a more initiated individual acts as a mediator between culture and child and thereby directs the child into preparing an adequate response. A detailed examination with exemplars is then undertaken into the mediation of many different aspects of development, including the three essential mediation processes of intentionality and reciprocity, transcendence and meaning. Finally, the implications of Feuerstein's theory for models of research and evaluation are considered, particularly the need for more qualitative and interactional approaches which maintain ecological validity.     

Learning in activity: exploring the methodological potential of action research in activity theorising of social practice

Cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT), founded on the seminal work of Vygotsky and evolving in the subsequent work of Leont’ev and Engeström, continues to emerge as a robust and increasingly widely used conceptual framework for the research and analysis of the complex social mediation of human learning and development. Yet there remains ongoing methodological ambiguity around its use in qualitative research and therefore questions regarding its effectiveness in fulfilling its intrinsic interventionist aspiration. Meta‐level research suggests that the primary methodology theorised for CHAT – Engeström’s development work research that is based on a highly localised developmental ethnography – is not in widespread application in CHAT‐based research. Instead, the majority of research employs an eclectic array of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and uses CHAT more as a heuristic device rather than engaging its more authentic interventionist motive. Given this, it is perhaps surprising there has been limited conceptualising around the prospective relationship between CHAT and action research, which remains largely under‐developed. This paper argues that action research may offer CHAT a legitimate and viable complementary interventionist methodology to investigate the increasingly complex environments of social activity, particularly given escalating expectations of more democratic and participatory modes of research engagement and social learning.     

Learning ‘Peace Talk’ in Northern Ireland: Peer Mediation and Some Conceptual Issues Concerning Experiential Social Education

Experiential learning is often seen as a central component of social education and pastoral programmes such as peer mediation; but the precise nature of experience as an educational, social and pedagogic/cultural process in schools is complex. This paper uses the notion of experiential learning to explore the impact of a peer mediation programme in a transforming integrated school in Northern Ireland. The programme was intended to mainstream the involvement of pupils in the process of creating a more integrated school ethos and was implemented by youth workers working as members of the school staff.

The paper begins with a review of the theoretical basis of experience as educational. This is followed by an interpretative review of the results of a survey of pupils' attitudes to peer mediation and semi-structured interviews with pupils and school and project staff about their perception of the impact of the programme on ideas of social learning. One issue is the extent to which developing pupils' capacity for interactive dialogue can be seen as an experiential process, like learning a foreign language – hence ‘peace talk’. Another is the process by which the perception of peer mediation training as ‘experiential’ constituted an enabling ‘pedagogic discourse’ which legitimized the programme for teachers and affirmed its beneficial impact on pupils.     

Analysing Creative Design Process: A Set of Tools to Understand Activity in its Socio-cultural and Historic Context

Previous theoretical frameworks used to research and explain creative design processes tend to privilege individual expression and not address the context in which the process occurs. This is problematic due to the ways in which creative activities are embedded in and shaped by socio-cultural and historic contexts. In this article we focus on the ways in which cultural historic activity theory (CHAT) and its analytical activity systems can be used to reveal creative processes in context. We draw on the tools and concepts of CHAT and data from a study of visual communication design (VCD) students and lecturers situated within a transnational higher education (TNHE) context at a university in China. An analytical framework was constructed to research practices used in creative design process learning. The dynamic nature of CHAT offers design process research methods a set of analytical tools to capture the powerful parts played by artifacts and interactions within specific sociocultural and historic learning contexts.     

Constants and Contexts in Pupil Experience of Learning and Schooling: Comparing learners in England,France and Denmark

The article reports on some key findings of a major research project which examines the relationship between national educational values as these are mediated by the school context, teacher beliefs and classroom processes, and eventually translated into pupil perspectives on learning and schooling. These findings are drawn from questionnaires to 1,800 secondary school pupils in England, France and Denmark, and from individual and group interviews with a smaller sample of pupils in each country. Through an examination of pupil perspectives on the purposes of schooling and on themselves as learners, the article explores the significance of the cultural context in which learning occurs. It considers the extent to which there are significant differences related to the national context, or whether pupils' experience of schooling is becoming more similar as they try to construct their identities as learners and as adolescents and to negotiate pathways which lead to success on the dimensions of academic achievement, peer status and social conformity. 'Constants' and 'contexts' of pupil experience in the three countries are identified, together with some of the factors which influence the development of a learner identity.     

Learning 'Peace Talk' in Northern Ireland: Peer Mediation and Some Conceptual Issues Concerning Experiential Social Education

Experiential learning is often seen as a central component of social education and pastoral programmes such as peer mediation; but the precise nature of experience as an educational, social and pedagogic/cultural process in schools is complex. This paper uses the notion of experiential learning to explore the impact of a peer mediation programme in a transforming integrated school in Northern Ireland. The programme was intended to mainstream the involvement of pupils in the process of creating a more integrated school ethos and was implemented by youth workers working as members of the school staff.
The paper begins with a review of the theoretical basis of experience as educational. This is followed by an interpretative review of the results of a survey of pupils' attitudes to peer mediation and semi-structured interviews with pupils and school and project staff about their perception of the impact of the programme on ideas of social learning. One issue is the extent to which developing pupils' capacity for interactive dialogue can be seen as an experiential process, like learning a foreign language – hence 'peace talk'. Another is the process by which the perception of peer mediation training as 'experiential' constituted an enabling 'pedagogic discourse' which legitimized the programme for teachers and affirmed its beneficial impact on pupils.     

Positioning the individual teacher in school-based learning for inclusion

This paper reports on a critical ethnographic case study investigating teacher learning in a primary school in South Africa. A qualitative research methodology within a cultural–historical activity theoretical (CHAT) framework was employed. The learning trajectories of two teachers are presented spawning questions on how the empirical relationship between individual (teacher) and social (school as system) could be represented within CHAT. It is possible to argue theoretically for an agentive positioning for the two teachers allowing for the possibility that elements of this project will be sustained.     

Recasting transfer as a socio-personal process of adaptable learning

Transfer is usually cast as an educational, rather than learning, problem. Yet, seeking to adapt what individuals know from one circumstance to another is a process more helpfully associated with learning, than a hybrid one called transfer. Adaptability comprises individuals construing what they experience, then aligning and reconciling with what they know, and enacting responses. This learning process is mediated by societal and cultural contributions shaping tasks, their goals and solutions and also by individuals’ capacities and interest, as shaped by their ontogenies (i.e. socially derived life histories). Labelling this process ‘transfer’ arises from concerns about educational institutions’ key rationale: that what is learnt through them should be applicable elsewhere. However, expectations of educational provisions generating wholesale adaptable learning (i.e. transferable knowledge) are unrealistic because this learning is mediated by culturally, societally and situationally derived facts and personal factors. To moderate expectations and inform practice, transfer of knowledge needs to be understood as human thinking and acting mediated both internally (intra-psychologically) as well as inter-psychologically (from social and brute suggestions beyond the individual). Consequently, a socio-personal conception of adaptability is advanced here to illuminate this process. Through intra- as well inter-psychological mediation, it comprises individuals construing what is experienced, reconciliation with what they know and constructing new knowledge or adaptability.     

Senior Adults' Perceptions of Successful Aging

This qualitative study examined the perceptions of 18 senior adults about successful aging and the role of learning in the process of adapting to age-related changes. Findings indicated that successful aging involves engaging with others; coping with changes; and maintaining physical, mental, and financial health. Within these themes, learning emerged as an important factor in the successful aging process. Specifically, participants described learning in terms of a variety of purposes—such as a social experience, a coping strategy, and a way to have fun. Implications for the design and delivery of programs for senior adults are discussed.     

Learning as sociocultural practice: Chinese immigrant professionals negotiating differences and identities in the Canadian labour market

The last few decades have witnessed both an expansion and a transformation of immigration flows, which pose significant challenges with respect to how people work with differences across culture and space. Against this background, this paper explores how some Chinese immigrant engineers respond to differences in the Canadian labour market. It not only examines some of the learning practices engaged by the immigrants as they negotiate professional niches and professional identities, but also demonstrates how their learning process is socially mediated. In particular, it shows that licensure processes and immigrant settlement services are instrumental in entering immigrants into the cultural and social order in the Canadian labour market. It pinpoints a lack of recognitive justice in the ways in which immigrants' learning processes are institutionally reshaped. Informed by the sociocultural approach, this paper treats learning as a social participatory process, through which individual identities are constituted and reconstituted.     

Retirement and learning: A longitudinal qualitative approach

This paper discusses retirement as a learning process, where learning, be it formal or informal, enables retirees to adjust to the transition from work to retirement. Such discussion is important given the fact that the world population is aging and that more people are retiring in the next few decades. Moreover, people are experiencing an increased length of retirement due to longer lifespan. Promoting the retirement experience as a productive learning process will bring huge social benefits to impact all involved, including the individual retirees themselves. Much early retirement research considered retirement as a monolithic event, which affects all retirees in similar ways, thereby justifying a cross-sectional approach to take a snapshot of the adjustment process. Such approach falls short of capturing the dynamic process that is characteristic of the retirement transition; and masks individual differences as retirees conceptualize, experience, and negotiate their own ways through the process of adaptation as it unfolds during the transition from work to retirement. This paper argues that in order to obtain in-depth understanding of the individual experiences in the retirement transition and to gain insight into the role of learning in the process, we need to use a qualitative, longitudinal approach to track and reflect the different patterns of change for retirees at different points in time. By examining the process of change and the retirement experiences of retirees using a longitudinal qualitative approach, we should be able to illustrate, how an individual learn to experience and adapt to retirement, so as to support the claim that the retirement process is unique and that learning is an integral part of that process.     

Perceptions of communication and education about sexuality among Muslim immigrant girls in the US

This research explored how Muslim immigrant girls' communication and education about sexuality was mediated through their mothers and school‐based sexuality education (SBSE) classes. Thirty mothers and their 38 daughters living in Illinois participated in focus group discussions and individual semi‐structured interviews that gauged girls' and mothers' perceptions regarding communication about sexuality and SBSE. Thematic analysis showed that little communication regarding sexuality happened between mothers and daughters, and that which did occur was confined primarily to the risks premarital sexual relationships posed to the social order. Furthermore, participants reported that although SBSE classes were informative, they perceived that these classes marginalized Muslim girls' experiences and decisions to abstain from premarital sex by primarily emphasizing prevention from sexually transmitted infections and diseases. Given these perceptions, some participants opted not to attend SBSE classes. This research contributes to enriching the knowledge base of sexuality educators and communities regarding the diverse challenges immigrant youths face in learning about their sexuality. Alternative ways to reach Muslim immigrant youths are discussed.     

‘Seeing the trees not just the wood’: steps and not just journeys in teacher action research

Either action research by teachers uses the approach as a methodology to examine pedagogical change in a single intervention or it is used as means of understanding a journey of change. In contrast, this paper examines the significant impact of using action research in a second cycle of learning in the same context and with the same participants. Employing a number of data-gathering tools (reflective journals, unit diaries, post-cycle reflective analyses, student interviews and observations) this paper examines the residual and emergent effects of cooperative learning on the participants in a second, sequential unit of track and field athletics taught a year after the first intervention. It suggests that learning was both academic and social, and that participants felt the unit built on their prior learning about track and field because it was progressive, motivational and student-centred. The paper concludes by suggesting that, in seeking to understand a teacher’s pedagogical and curricular change process, we need to intersperse research that focuses on the journey toward change with research that explores the individual processes of change.     

Organizing for Teacher Agency in Curricular Co-Design

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) approaches to intervention aim for transformative agency, that is, collective actions that expand and bring about new possibilities for activity. In this article, we draw on CHAT as a resource for organizing design research that promotes teachers’ agency in designing new science curriculum materials. We describe how CHAT informed our efforts to structure a collaborative design space in which teachers and other participants sought to develop new curriculum materials intended to help realize a new vision for science education. Specifically, we describe the tools and routines we deployed to support the design process, and we analyze the ways in which teachers took up elements of our design process as well as how they adapted, resisted, and suggested alternative tools and strategies to help develop new curriculum materials. In so doing, we illustrate ways in which CHAT can serve as a guide both for organizing collaborative design processes and for analyzing their efficacy.     

Social Justice,Democratic Education and the Silencing of Words that Wound

In recent years, research within the sociocultural perspective on moral learning has contributed important knowledge about how individuals develop their moral ability by participating in sociocultural activities. To a lesser extent, sociocultural research has focused on the role of individual continuity in these processes. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the progress of the sociocultural perspective by suggesting an approach that allows for an in situ analysis of how individuals' prior experiences take part in the processes of moral meaning‐making, which also takes sociocultural activity into consideration. The philosophical and methodological basis for this approach consists of a combination of Dewey's transactional perspective on meaning‐making and Wittgenstein's first‐person perspective on language use. The article contains an empirical example that illustrates this approach. This analysis shows how prior experiences are re‐actualised in an event and thus participate in the process of moral meaning‐making, as well as contributing to the substance of the meanings made.     

Learning through teaching: Peer-mediated instruction in minimally invasive education

The current paper provides insight into the learning strategies adopted by children working at Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) Learning Stations. Previous research has clearly indicated the attainment of basic computer literacy by groups of young children in the age groups of 7–14 years. This learning takes place due to the emergence and development of group social processes, an aspect crucial for achieving basic computing skills. The paper describes the process of socially shared understanding and learning as being crucial to individual learning. It is to be noted that this approach of socially shared learning does not challenge the analysis of the individual level of processing; it maintains that individual learning is vital in any learning context, but insufficient to build the psychology of learning. MIE research is of the view that young children learn through interaction with others, particularly peers as it provides an important context for social and cognitive learning. For it is in this way that children make sense of their own experience and environment. Hence, schools are not the only privileged sites of learning.     

Sociocultural approaches to learning and development: A Vygotskian framework

Sociocultural approaches emphasize the interdependence of social and individual processes in the coconstruction of knowledge. This article uses three central tenets of a Vygotskian framework to examine the relation between learning and development: (a) social sources of individual development, (b) semiotic (signs and symbols, including language) mediation in human development, and (c) genetic (developmental) analysis. The role played by culture and language in human development is an essential aspect of the Vygotskian framework and provides an overarching theme for this article. The methodological foundation of this framework is examined, particularly as it contrasts with other perspectives on the process of internalization of social interaction in the construction of knowledge. The article concludes by surveying sociocultural research on and applications to classroom learning and teaching, particularly that which examines the role of collaboration.     

The Experience of Collaborative Assessment in e-Learning

This paper examines the various ways in which students talk about their experience and perceptions of collaborative review and assessment as it occurs in e-learning environments. Collaborative review and assessment involves the student, their peers and tutor in thoughtful and critical examination of each student's course work. The process involves two stages: review and discussion of the student's work with a view to bringing different critical yet supportive perspectives to the work. This is followed by the use of two sets of criteria to make judgements on the student's work: one set provided by the student, the other by the tutor. The purpose of collaborative assessment is to foster a learning approach to assessment and to develop a shared power relationship with students. From analysis of face-to-face interviews, examination of e-learning discussions and student-completed questionnaires, a set of analytic categories was built describing the learners' experiences of collaborative e-assessment. These categories are: (1) the appropriateness of collaborative assessment; (2) collaborative assessment as a learning event; and (3) the focus for assessment. The paper focuses on analysing and discussing these categories of experience. The research shows that a positive social climate is necessary in developing and sustaining collaborative assessment and that this form of assessment helps students to reduce dependence on lecturers as the only or major source of judgement about the quality of learning. Students develop skill and know-how about self- and peer assessment and see themselves as competent in making judgements about their own and each other's work, which are surely good lifelong learning skills.