A CULTURAL HISTORICAL APPROACH TO SERVICE LEARNING

CHRISTOPHER G PUPIK DEANCPU@GSE.UPENN.EDU

Service as activity

Why sociocultural theories?

Suggestions of the need to examine practice through sociocultural lenses: Levine & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2010 McIntosh & Youniss, 2010 Torney-Purta, Amadeo, & Andolina, 2010

Why? We have: examined knowledge, skills, dispositions We need to examine the ways that knowledge, skills,

dispositions are being put to use in civic engagement (practice)

Goals: Provide some background on these theories Illustrate how they can add to SL & CE research

Sociocultural Theories

Building off Vygotsky:

Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT or activity theory) (Cole & Engeström, 1993; Engeström, 1987)

Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991)

Vygotsky

Mediating artifacts/tools

Are social

Are historical

Are cultural

Are material/ideal

Are transformed over time

CHAT

Engestrom, 2001

Legitimate Peripheral Participation

Novices Masters Butchers (Lave & Wenger, 1991) Teachers (Tsui & Law, 2007) Service Learning Students?

Summary:

Subjects interact with the world through the use of meditational artifacts (tools)

These tools are: Socially, culturally, and historically developed (and

continuously developing) Within systems Consisting of communities With particular rules & divisions of labor New tools can be appropriated (or old tools modified)

when systems interact

So how is this helpful?

A structure for focusing on practice: Identify and examine the transformation of tools of

civic engagement (where knowledge, skills, dispositions interact)

Examine the rules and communities that structure tool use

Consider historical development of the tool Look for: LPP, boundary crossing, and boundary

objectsA change in the unit of analysis:

From individual development to development of systems

2 layer analysis: Individual phenomenological perspectives Outsider 30,000 ft view

Using sociocultural theory to explain phenomena

Phenomena: Students in a 10th grade SL class (tutoring 1st graders)

exhibited a change in how they talked about the teachers they worked with: Initial tool: critical stories of classroom practice:

yelling, disorganization Subsequent tool: more positive orientation to classroom

practice Teachers care, have tough job, know individual student needs

But maintained an orientation that teachers are the problem in public education Lazy In it for the money (unions)

WHY?

Knowledge, Skills, Mindsets

Knowledge: Teaching is hard These teachers care

Skills: Tutoring in a classroom Talking about classroom practice

Mindsets: The teachers care Teachers are the problem

Sociocultural

Initial tool: Teachers are the key to educational successHistory: developed in own experience, stories of others

about public schoolsCommunity: privileged, high value on ed, teachers held in

great esteemRules: value teachers in our school, maintain prestige of

own edBoundary crossing/LPP: engaged in classroom practice,

not in larger issuesClosing tool: Teachers are key… this school is an

exception (does not contradict the model) Object of discourse did not connect

References

Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (1993). A cultural historical approach to distributed cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed

cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1–46). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit Oy. Retrieved from

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm Engeström, Y. (1993). Developmental studies of work as a testbench of activity theory: The case of primary care medical

practice. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectices on activity and context (pp. 64–103). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward and activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133–156.

Engeström, Y., & Miettinen, R. (1999). Introduction. Perspectives on Activity Theory (pp. 1–18). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity, Youth, and Crisis (1st ed.). New York: Norton. Fenwick, T., Edwards, R., & Sawchuk, P. (2011). Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Socio-Material.

London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415570923/ Levine, P., & Higgins-D’Alessandro. (2010). Youth civic engagement: Normative issues. In L. R. Sherrod, J. Torney-Purta, & C. A.

Flanagan (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth (E-Book.). Wiley. McIntosh, H., & Youniss, J. (2010). Toward a political theory of political socialization of youth. In L. R. Sherrod, J. Torney-Purta,

& C. Flanagan (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth. New Jersey: Wiley. Rhoads, R. A. (1997). Community Service and Higher Learning: Explorations of the Caring Self. Albany: State University of

New York Press. Torney-Purta, J., Amadeo, J.-A., & Andolina, M. (2010). A conceptual framework and multimethod approach for research on

political socialization and civic engagement. Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth (E-book.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Tsui, A. B. M., & Law, D. Y. K. (2007). Learning as Boundary-Crossing in School-University Partnership. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 23.

Youniss, J., & Yates, M. (1997). Community Service and Social Responsibility in Youth. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.