By applying cultural-historical activity theory and expansive learning
theory to educational research, this volume illuminates new forms of
educational activities as collaborative interventions in schools and
communities where learners and practitioners generate expansive learning
so that they can collectively transform their activities and expand
their agency for themselves. It covers four cases of
activity-theoretical formative intervention studies conducted in Japan,
which are related to: fostering children's expansive learning in
classroom lessons; teachers as collaborative change agents in
redesigning schools; expanding the school activity from below; and
emerging knotworking agency in community-based disaster prevention
learning. This book employs activity theory as a general theoretical
framework of human learning and development to connect focal data from
empirical and interventional studies on real human learning in specific
educational settings in Japan. In this way, the book illustrates how the
general theoretical framework could be used to understand a specific
socio-cultural milieu, that is, the Japanese context. It also shows the
universal relevance of the Japanese context of educational activity on
broader international research, analyzing concrete empirical data from
specific settings in Japan. In conclusion this book creates new
understanding and develops a cohesive framework of the agentic and
hybrid nature of educational activities as collaborative interventions
in the expansion of learning.
