3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY: CULTURAL HISTORICAL ACTIVITY THEORY AND DEVELOPMENTAL WORK RESEARCH

The underlying ideas of cultural historical activity theory were initially formulated in 1920's and 1930's in Russia in the search for a solution to the problems of traditional psychology, which was seen as unable to describe the relationships between individual and society, and the historical development of psychological processes as well (Leont'ev, 1977).

In activity theory, the activity is defined with the help of the concept of object. The object of activity is twofold in that the object is both something given and something projected or anticipated (Leont'ev, 1977). According to Leont'ev, the object determines the horizon of possible goals and actions that functions as the motive force driving the activity forward. The subject constructs the object, and "singles out those properties that prove to be essential for developing social practice" (Lektorsky, 1984, p. 137).

Goals or objectives can be understood in relation to the object and motive of collective activity. To understand the relation between the individual goal and motive of collective activity, Leontīevīs (1981) example of the hunting activity of a tribal community is helpful. In hunting the mutual efforts of members of the tribe are motivated by the game as an object to get food and clothing. To catch the game the tribe has to give different tasks to its members: for example some dislodge the game, others kill it. The goal of dislodging game is actually contrary to the motive of the activity as a whole. The beater frightens animals away; he does not try to catch and kill them. To make this action seem reasonable, an individual must be able to see it in connection with the motive and meaning of the activity as a whole.

As shown in the example above, the objects and motives of activity are collective. In the planning of a curriculum unit by a teacher team, there can also be identified a broader vision consisting of the teaching of teachers and the learning of students. In their complicated activity, in which there is a division of labor, the members of teacher teams mould not only their own plans and goals but also collectively this broader vision of activity. In an activity, the object is constructed both mentally and physically. This means that the object of activity is not fixed and clearly defined but constantly evolving, and it is possible to trace the history of a particular activity, and the evolution of its object.

Activity theory and developmental work research focus on locally and temporally concrete activity systems - that is, work processes and organizations. A central premise of the theory from a developmental work research viewpoint is that organization members themselves represent a central force for genuine organizational development.

Historically, the work activity of school teachers is called teaching. In this study, however, teacher teams were founded in order to plan curriculum units collaboratively. Thus, here the studied activity of the teachers is largely planning activity of curriculum units. One could say that the work of teachers has been expanded to include planning of collective curriculum units. I am also studying the execution of the planned curriculum units. However, I am not studying the learning activity of the students since this would be a study of its own.

Teams can be understood as intermediate activity systems between the level of the entire school and the level of an individual teacher. In developmental work research, the activity system of an individual or group is studied and represented in its wider activity context and against its historical background. The analysis of the activity system as a whole is crucial, because it directs the focus and analysis to the whole organizational context. For such an analysis one needs a conceptual model of an activity system (Figure 3.1.).

Figure 3.1. Conceptual model of an activity system (Engeström, 1987).

The model reveals multiple mediations in activity (Engeström 1990, p. 79). The subject refers to the individual or group whose point of view is adopted in the analysis. In this research, the subject is the teacher team whose point of view is adopted in the analysis. The object in the activity system refers to the "raw material" or "problem area" to which the activity is directed. The object of the activity is oriented towards a particular goal and is transformed to produce outcomes with the help of mediating instruments. These artifacts are tools, signs, and various kinds of representations that occur within the organization. The object of the teacher teams of this study is twofold: the students on the one hand and the local curriculum on the other. The outcome could be the successful implementation of the curriculum. As their instruments, the team members could use, for example, collaborative planning patterns of curriculum.

The model of an activity system can help to describe the relation between individual and community in workplace activity. Any one teacher or group of teachers can be observed as subject. Community signifies all the participants of an activity system, who share the same object. Division of labor refers to the distribution of tasks, authority, and benefits among these participants. Rules refer to the explicit or implicit regulations that constrain actions, written or unwritten rules. I will return to the definition of the activity systems of the studied teams more tentatively in Chapter 6 and more precisely in Chapter 10.

An activity system contains a variety of different viewpoints or "'voices", as well as layers of historically accumulated artifacts, rules, and patterns of division of labor. Engeström (1996a) stresses that this multi-voiced nature of activity systems is both a resource for collective achievement and a source of conflict.

In cultural historical activity theory, the concept of contradiction is of crucial importance. For Il'enkov (1977), systems in the world are internally contradictory. According to him, the object can be by itself internally contradictory. To develop means to resolve those real contradictions in the world, both intellectually and practically. According to Il'enkov (1982, p. 83-84), any improvement of labor before becoming accepted first emerges as a certain deviation from previously accepted norms.

Engeström (1987) states that a conceptual model of the activity system is particularly useful when one wants to make sense of systemic factors behind seemingly individual and accidental disturbances occurring in the daily practice of workplaces. Inner contradictions can be identified as tensions between two or more components of the system. When analyzing and trying to understand these inner contradictions, it is necessary to interpret them against a historical analysis of the evolution of the activity system. As a new element enters into the activity system from outside, a contradiction appears between the elements. For example, in teachers' work, the contradiction may appear when a new object, for example the planning of thematic unit , emerges in a teacher's daily practice. Teachers need to expand their collaboration but there are as yet no proper collective instruments to change planning and teaching patterns. Conflicts emerge between the thematic unit as an object and the traditional individual instruments of teaching.

In team literature (see e.g., Katzenbach & Smith, 1993), there has been a lack of analyzing the development of teams in terms of teams' concrete inner contradictions. However, the significance of contradictions as sources of evolution has recently been noted in some organizational literature (Putnam, 1994; Quinn & Cameron, 1988; Donnellon, 1996). Putnam (1994) has demonstrated the creativity of conflict in her study of collective bargaining between teachers and managers, including conflict aroused from differing positions and from engaging in interaction outside the normal bounds of teachers' and managers' activity.

The concept of paradox is closely related to the notion of contradiction. The analysis of paradoxes captures interesting dynamics of changes and development of work. However, the notion of object; and thus the specific content of collaboration and problem solving, remains outside of analysis. In activity theory, the outlining of contradictions of an activity system is based on a historical analysis of object-oriented activity. In this study, teachers' work is examined as having historically changing objects. Paradoxes, disturbances, or dilemmas in the teacher teams' discourse are understood here as external manifestations of certain contradiction.

The notion of the developmental cycle (Engeström, 1987, p. 189) helps to localize the phase in the development of the work of the team. The cycle is a spiral that leads to a qualitative change of the activity system. The first phase of a developmental cycle is the "need state". Characteristic of this phase is vague discontentment that is often directed towards people or groups of people instead of towards the structural features of the activity system. The second phase is called "double bind" (see Bateson, 1972). It means a phase when a sharpening contradiction has formed between certain factors of the activity system. The discontentment of the members of a workplace is directed to more clearly defined goals. The contradiction is experienced as intolerable. Solution of double bind requires analysis, gaining conceptual mastery of the contradiction. The third phase, "outlining new object and motive and forming a new model of activity", is where members of a workplace sketch and plan a new solution to present contradictions. As an example of this phase the formation of teams may be mentioned. The formation of teams includes developing new strategic instruments and forms of collaboration and division of labor. The fourth phase, "the application and generalization of a new model of activity", means that this new model is applied in everyday work. This often occurs the testing of strategic partial solutions. Finally, the fifth phase, "the consolidation and assessment of a new line of activity", means transition to a state, where new practices are followed systematically. With the help of the developmental cycle model, I will return in Chapter 10, to the present contradiction of the studied teams, and to the contradictions which the teams were created to resolve.

Change and learning in work and organization requires construction of a new object and new motives. From the viewpoint of activity theory, collaborative learning in the team setting can be analyzed as object formation. Engeström (1987) has introduced the notion of expansive learning as expansion of object, which means that a team learns something that does not yet exists, the starting point of learning. According to Engeström (1987), expansive learning means above all the expansion of the object and motive of activity. This means that questions such as what is the aim of an activity, what is produced and why, are formulated and reformulated, leading often to the formation of new collaborative relations of workplace members (Engeström et al., 1995).

However, not all collaborative learning within an organization is expansive, since collaborative learning processes contain contradictory and multivoiced elements (Engeström, 1987). For instance, there can exist a qualitatively narrowing cycle leading to a reduction of activity as well. Careful analysis and comparison of collaborative learning processes of both teams is an empirical and theoretical task of the present study. Engeström (1987) stresses that learning is a long-term process of internalization and externalization, appropriation of available cultural resources and design of a novel form of practice. In each chapter, in which findings are presented, I will return to the issue of how the teachers constructed their objects as learning in a more precise way. Chapter 8 especially is focused on the question of how the teachers constructed their objects in a planning activity.

The cycle of expansive learning may also be called a "zone of proximal development" of activity (Engeström, 1987). When analyzing the learning process of a child , Vygotsky (1978, p. 86) defined the concept of zone of proximal as its being "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

On the level of a whole collective activity system the zone of proximal development means the distance between a prevailing line of activity which is experienced as dissatisfying and a historically possible new line of activity bringing resolution to the contradictions (Engeström, 1987). I will return to the zone of proximal development of the studied teams in Chapter 10.