Pedagogy

Researching pedagogy: an Activity Theory approach Joanne Hardman

Abstract

Activity Theory (AT), arising from the work of the Soviet psychologist, Vygotsky and his colleagues, has presented scholars who are interested in child development with a fecund theoretical basis with which to understand how socio-cultural factors impact on developmental trajectories. The strength of this approach to studying teacher/student interactions in classrooms is found in its ability to situate general developmental principles in time and place. A current version of this theory developed by Engeström (1987) elaborates Vygotsky’s work, providing a useful heuristic for analysing activity as a collective endeavour. However, while providing a useful framework for studying human activity, Engeström’s activity systems work has yet to be fully operationalised in a classroom setting. Conceptualising pedagogy as an activity system, this paper elaborates an analytical framework for studying pedagogical practices in classrooms along the AT dimensions: viz. tools, rules, object, division of labour, community and subject. The paper does this by providing an historical investigation of the roots of Engeström’s work from Vygotsky’s formulation of activity as triadic, through Leontiev’s elaboration of this, arguing ultimately for developing Engeström’s activity system’s approach into a framework capable of investigating pedagogy in context. A novel analytical framework is developed that tracks pedagogy across the various AT dimensions. Empirically the paper provides an example of the use of this novel analytical framework to track pedagogical practice in a grade six mathematics lesson.

Introduction

Pedagogical activity is complex and multifaceted and definitions of what constitutes pedagogy are by no means static (Watkins and Mortimore, 1999; Webb and Cox, 2004). Derived from French and Latin variations of the original Greek, pedagogy literally means the act of an attendant leading a child to...