around them. For example, wikis make more sense for collaborative than individual
activity and will be equipped with preventive measures against vandalism. The
implication is that the relationship between agent and tool is not unidirectional and
the resources may not unconditionally yield to the will of the agent. The second
problem pertains to Vygotsky’s emphasis on individual internalization. We argue
for the need of a sociogenetic perspective; how we come to knowledge by taking
part in collective activities that evolve over time, and where language and material
artifacts function as collective structural resources. From this perspective, double
stimulation is also conceptualized as capturing the complexity of learning and
teaching in collectively oriented and learning environments with a plethora of
available and sophisticated resources. But this also involves a capacity to choose
among alternatives, select and make decisions that impact on the activity and the
object. This is where transformative agency emerges.
49.3.3 Transformative Agency
As in the case of double stimulation, transformative agency can best be charac-
terized as principles that emerge when piecing together fragments in the works of
Vygotsky and his contemporaries. Transformative agency emerges as a capacity in
humans when they seek to alter the circumstances they face by assessing alterna-
tives, overcoming potentially conflicting motives or making decisions with the help
of second stimuli (Sannino 2014 ). Thus, transformative agency is a volitional action
although inscriptions or even prescriptions in available resources may impact on the
course of action taken when complex choices are involved. In the context of teacher
education, wefind that principles of double stimulation and transformative agency
have explanatory power when examining situations where people face concrete
challenges by seeking to transform the situation, creating new conditions, breaking
away or expanding the object of the challenge. It is a process intimately linked to
meaning-making in a complex world. Such transformative agency, we argue, is
increasingly required from teachers who face a rapid turnover of valid disciplinary
knowledge, new insights in learning and cognition, ethical and cultural judgment,
and increasingly distributed and collaborative practices where humans as well as
non-humans are involved.
In the following, we apply the principles of design, double stimulation and
transformative agency to examine two cases that indicate dynamic and
future-oriented practices in teacher education and, thus, a particular type of
knowledge production. For the researcher, the linking of the principles emerges as
opportunities to study transformation of contexts as well as of the agents who
populate them.
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