Epistemology of Transformative Material Activity: John Dewey's Pragmatism and Cultural‐Historical Activity Theory

Abstract

The paper compares John Dewey's pragmatism and cultural-historical activity theory as epistemologies and theories of transformative material activity. For both of the theories, the concept of activity, the prototype of which is work, constitutes a basis for understanding the nature of knowledge and reality. This concept also implies for both theories a methodological approach of studying human behavior in which social experimentation and intervention play a central role. They also suggest that reflection and thought, mediated by language and semiotic artifacts, serve the reorientation of activity and is vital in the development of new, alternative ways of action. That is why Dewyan pragmatism and activity theory supply means of understanding organizational behavior and change in human activities better than the concepts of practice based on rule following, routines or embodied skills. Reijo Miettinen

The Concept of Situation and the Microgenesis of the Conscious Purpose in Cultural Psychology

“…However, since they are both grounded in Hegelian philosophy, it has been argued that these two theoretical frameworks are able to enact a mutually enriching dialogue [Garrison, 2001;Miettinen, 2006b]. This is consistent with Vygotsky's [1997] epistemology of science, according to which the dialectical tensions between different perspectives lead to their mutual development.…”

Multicultural Schools and New Demands on Leadership

“…Statements such as these clearly indicate that transformational leadership does not adequately exemplify his understanding of transforming leadership-leadership that explicitly attends to the moral and ethical issues related to power relationships of entire social systems that often perpetuate inequity and inequality in organizations. Transformative approaches to leadership have been quite common in health care and related (e. The notion of transformation has led, in education, to concepts such as transformative teaching, the transformative classroom (Duncan & Clayburn 1997), transformative curriculum, transformative material activity (Miettinen 2006) and so forth. Furthermore, whereas transformational leadership accepts the context and parameters within which schools work and predetermined organizational objectives are given, transformative leadership seeks also to change the context to better suit the needs of the students and community and thus takes school contexts seriously (Thrupp & Lupton 2006).…”

The Use-Value of Real-World Projects: Children and Local Experts Connecting Through School Work

“…Artifacts of student work both generate meaning through their use and develop meaning along the way -significance that is different to different people. As Miettinen (2006) says, "The objective meaning of money has nothing to do with the material constitution of notes and coins" (p. 399); it is how money is used through cultural understandings that the objects themselves have importance. In our research, for the communitybased experts who have worked with King, what was transformed through their involvement in student work was not their understanding of subject matter (as it was for students) but their notion of children's capabilities.…”

“…Our research was informed by a social practice perspective on learning, specifically cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and Deweyan pragmatism, two frameworks that have been combined elsewhere (Miettinen, 2001;Miettinen, 2006). In this section, we discuss a main principle in CHATartifact mediation -and introduce the concepts of boundary objects and boundary crossings as a way to examine both the process and the products of student work in real-world curriculum projects.…”