Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization
Item
Title
Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization
Abstract/Description
Cultural-historical activity theory has evolved through three generations of research. The emerging third generation of activity theory takes two interacting activity systems as its minimal unit of analysis, inviting us to focus research efforts on the challenges and possibilities of inter-organizational learning. Activity theory and its concept of expansive learning are examined with the help of four questions: 1. Who are the subjects of learning? 2. Why do they learn? 3. What do they learn? 4. How do they learn? Five central principles of activity theory are presented, namely activity system as unit of analysis, multi-voicedness of activity, historicity of activity, contradictions as driving force of change in activity, and expansive cycles as possible form of transformation in activity. Together the four questions and five principles form a matrix which is used to present a study of expansive learning in a hospital setting in Finland. In conclusion, implications of the framework for our understanding of the increasingly important horizontal dimension of learning are discussed.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
133-156
Resource type
Research/Scholarly Media
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Empirical
IRE Approach/Concept
Open access/full-text available
Yes
Peer reviewed
Yes
ISSN
1363-9080
Citation
Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an activity theoretical Reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080020028747
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