Learning by Expanding
An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research

The second edition of this seminal text illustrates the development and implementation of Yrjö Engeström's expansive learning activity theory.

Yrjö Engeström (Author)

9781107074422, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 December 2014

338 pages, 28 b/w illus. 12 tables
23.1 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.54 kg

Learning by Expanding challenges traditional theories that consider learning to be a process of acquisition and reorganization of cognitive structures within the closed boundaries of specific tasks or problems. Yrjö Engeström argues that this type of learning increasingly fails to meet the challenges of complex social change and fails to create novel artifacts and ways of life. In response, he presents an innovative theory of expansive learning activity, offering a foundation for understanding and designing learning as a transformation of human activities and organizations. The second edition of this seminal text features a substantive new introduction that illustrates the development and implementation of Engeström's theory since its inception.

1. Introduction
2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning
3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research
4. The instruments of expansion
5. Toward an expansive methodology
6. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Educational: Sciences, general science [YQS], Organizational theory & behaviour [KJU], Educational psychology [JNC], Education [JN], Learning [JMRL], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Psychology [JM]