Educating Future Teachers Innovative Perspectives in Professional Experience

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from the partnership program we describe in this chapter is analysed using activity
theory (Engeström, 1987 , 2001 ) and, more specifically, literature around boundary
practices between activity systems (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011 ; Kimble, Grenier,
& Goglio-Primard, 2010 ; Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003 ; Waitoller & Kozleski,
2013 ).
The analysis of the professional learning partnership model is framed by
Engeström’s third-generation activity system. Cultural Historical Activity Theory
(CHAT) (Engeström, 1987 ) is used to explore the activity system in which learning
is socially situated and mediated by artefacts. Engeström proposes that CHAT has
evolved through three generations of theoretical development. The first generation
is based on Vygotsky’s ( 1978 ) idea of the mediating role of artefacts (objects and
people) in learning and focusses on individuals. Second-generation activity theory,
further developed by Alexei Leont’ev ( 1978 ), emphasised the contextualisation of
learning and situated individual and group activity within a collective activity sys-
tem. It expands the subject-mediation-object triad with three added elements: rules,
community and division of labour (Engeström, 1987 ) (Fig. 5.1). This generation
marked the shift from an individual focus (on learning, meaning making or practice)
to a collective activity system. It is typically represented using the triangle featured
in Fig. 5.1.
The components of second-generation activity systems included the subject, the
individual or the group of people involved in the activity, endeavouring to achieve
an outcome through acting on an object using mediating artefacts/tools to achieve
that outcome (see Fig. 5.1). Action is regulated in the social element of the system
which includes the community within and for which the activity occurs, rules or
norms regulating the subject’s participation in an activity and division of labour
(Engeström, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999 ).
In his proposal for a third generation of the theory, Engeström ( 2001 ) advocates
a conceptual tool ‘to understand dialogue, multiple perspectives, and networks of
interacting activity systems’ (p. 135). The third generation of activity theory uses a
joint activity system, which includes at least two interacting activity systems
(Fig. 5.2). The third-generation model highlights the role of contradictions that
occur within and between activity systems. These contradictions can be countered
through the mediation of boundary objects that facilitate boundary crossing.

Instruments

Subject Object Outcome

Rules Community Division of Labor

Fig. 5.1 The structure of a
human activity system
(Engeström, 1987 , p. 78)

T. Loughland and H.T.M. Nguyen