Activity Theory, Teacher Education, and Diversity

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

There is one line of psychology that follows the philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: activity theory or, more accurately, cultural-historical activity theory. The theory was founded by Lev S. Vygotsky and subsequently developed by his coworkers and students, including Alexander R. Luria and Alexei N. Leont'ev. In the West, Klaus Holzkamp further developed the theory, focusing on the subject's perspective, whereas Yrjö Engeström developed a second version more concerned with an external, structural perspective.

Fundamental to this social-psychological approach is the idea that the minimal unit of understanding societal phenomena is not the individual person theorized in traditional psychology but the collectively motivated activity. Here the notion is understood in terms of the German/Russian words Tätigkeit/deyatel'nost’ (activity), which denote systems for reproducing and transforming society and life, rather than in terms of the words Aktivität/aktivnost’ (activity), which denote being busy without the collective motives that underlie the other pair of concepts. Examples of activities are the making of tools, the growing of grain for food, or the handing-down of collective knowledge (schooling). Any activity is the result of cultural-historical processes, including the division of labor that generates new activities.

Activities are concretely realized by goal-directed actions. The relationship between activities and actions is mutually constitutive: Actions concretely realize activities, but activities motivate the goals for action. That is, the sense of any action derives from its place in the collectively motivated activity that it contributes to realizing; the same action will have a different sense in another activity. For example, when a student raises the middle finger in direction of a teacher, this action tends to be taken as a serious insult within the activity of schooling and tends to lead to a suspension; within the larger life activity of the students and its culture, the same action may be celebrated and may actually increase his or her social capital.

Consciousness and Learning to Teach

Activities exist at two irreducible levels. The material level pertains to the practical world that we inhabit, and the ideal level reflects the events in the material world in consciousness. The fundamental idea in this theory is that we learn (i.e., consciousness develops) by participating in activity, because, as Vygotsky points out, any higher order psychological function has been a social relation first. Thus, teaching—especially in difficult contexts—is not something we learn by reading books or by taking courses but by participating in teaching and the social relations with others that come with teaching. Transforming the extremely diverse world of schooling is not something that comes from the outside but needs to derive from the collective endeavor of those on the inside of the activity, who, in transforming their world not only increase their control but also change their consciousness. The motto therefore is, as the title of one book-length report states, Teaching to Learn. In an urban teacher education program that implements cultural-historical activity theory, the “new teachers” do not first take courses and then go into the schools, but they begin to teach from day one in their program. Moreover, in some of the courses they teach each day, they co-teach with one or more others, generally including a regular certified teacher, but in some instances a team might consist of new teachers (i.e., teachers in training) only. Co-teaching means that all members of the team take (accept) full responsibility rather than splitting up responsibilities.

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