Formative Interventions for Expansive Learning and Transformative Agency

This article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory and reflects on key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including 2 Change Laboratories, are analyzed with the help of conceptual lenses derived from basic epistemological principles for intervention research in activity theory. In all 3 interventions, learners expansively transformed the object of their activity. The Change Laboratory cases, however, show that this learning process included productive deviations from the researchers’ instructional intentions, leading to significant outcomes, both practical and theoretical, that were not anticipated by the interventionists. Together these cases illustrate that an activity-theoretical formative intervention approach differs from design-based research in the following ways: (a) formative interventions are based on design done by the learners; (b) the collective design effort is seen as part of an expansive learning process including participatory analyses and implementation phases; (c) rather than aiming at transferable and scalable solutions, formative interventions aim at generative solutions developing over lengthy periods of time both in the researched activities and in the research community.     

CAREER PATTERNS OF FINNISH ACADEMICS AND INTELLECTUALS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE 1965 STUDENT GENERATION

This article is concerned with the career patterns of Finnish intellectuals and professionals. It aims to illuminate the trajectories of individuals who studied in universities in the 1960's and later found various types of positions in Finnish society. It illustrates certain aspects of this career differentiation and the role of the university in this process. The group being studied represents the professional and managerial core of society. Many of the individuals concerned hold visible positions in the public life of the nation. They do not, however, form any unitary class. The educated population is divided into various sections and levels which display quite different models of career trajectories and different forms of social influence. This diversity makes both the study of the impact of university education and the system of careers an extremely complex research theme.     

The emergence of learners’ transformative agency in a Change Laboratory intervention

Changes and transformations in organisations are traditionally initiated by the management. This approach does not, however, encourage the agency of all the members in an organisation to engage in cooperative development of the activity. This paper presents an analysis of the development of participants’ transformative agency in a Change Laboratory (CL) intervention. In a CL, the participants analyse conflicts and disturbances in their local activity and search for ways to transform current work practices. In the analysis, we identified six types of expressions of transformative agency which evolved over the course of the laboratory sessions and across the topical contents of those sessions. Furthermore, we examined to what extent the expressions of agency produced by the participants reflected individual and collective agency. Our key argument based on the research findings is that transformative agency goes beyond the individual and the situational here-and-now actions. It is produced and maintained in collective change efforts and evolves over time.     

Expansive learning on the move: insights from ongoing research / El aprendizaje expansivo en movimiento: aportaciones de la investigación en curso

The article argues that the crucial task of expansive learning is to generate alternatives to capitalism in human activities, organizations and communities. To meet this challenge, the article discusses two areas of current development in the theory of expansive learning. The first area is transformative agency and double stimulation; the second area is concept formation in the wild, germ cells and ascending from the abstract to the concrete. These two areas are complementary. Expansive learning is both formation of transformative agency and formation of new theoretical concepts. Transformative agency is a central quality and outcome of expansive learning. Theoretical concepts are perspectival and future-oriented; they become concrete when learners take volitional actions to change their circumstances. To have societal impact, efforts at implementing expansive learning in education should be expanded in space and time. This means getting schools involved in struggles of communities and social movements.     

Defensive and Expansive Cycles of Learning: A Study of Home Care Encounters

This study examines learning in home care visits aimed at systematic facilitation of clients’ physical mobility. Building on the theory of expansive learning, we ask what kinds of learning cycles may be identified in home care encounters charged with implementing the new Mobility Agreement practice, what kinds of interplay may be detected between the parallel learning cycles of the home care client and the home care worker, and what the characteristics of defensive learning are. The data consist of 30 videotaped home care visits. The learning cycles of the encounters were found to be either predominantly defensive or expansive, which led to the identification of 4 basic types of combined learning cycles. Encounters in which the client’s and the worker’s cycles were aligned tended to contain fewer learning actions than encounters in which the cycles moved to opposite directions. The latter types of encounters were characterized by subtle orientational mismatches that left matters open and invoked further elaboration by the client and the worker. Defensive cycles were more reflective than expected and seemed to involve aspects of agency that are not commonly acknowledged.