Activity Theory

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Activity theory has been described as one of the best-kept academic secrets. Despite its origins in the early 20th century, Wolff-Michael Roth, in a search of Social Sciences Citation Index, found that the majority of literature published in the Americas and Europe on the concept has been published in the past two decades. Its use has increased dramatically since the early 1990s in many areas of social science, including anthropology, education, psychology, and human–computer interaction.

The concept at the core of activity theory is that the individual-in-context does not merely react to his or her surroundings but has the power to act to change his or her actions and therefore change the community and the surroundings. Conversely, participation in a community is commensurate with change in one's participation and therefore constitutes learning. From this perspective, learning is [Page 6]conceived as mutual change of subject and object through engagement in activity.

Consistent with this core principle, all aspects of an activity system are understood to exist in dialectic—the mutual exchange between theoretically opposite components such as subject and object. Therefore, though we identify constituent parts, none can be understood without attending to the others.

One of the key frameworks for understanding activity requires attention to subject, object, action, and operation. Subject refers to an individual or a group with a defined and shared goal. It is important to clarify that when a group or community is understood as the subject, the goal must be shared and continue to be shared. Individuals are not a community simply by being located together in time or space. Object, taken in the same sense as the noun objective, refers to the understanding, held by the subject, of the purpose of the activity. It provides the motivation and direction for the activity. For example, a group of teachers and administrators at a school may be thought to engage in the activity of schooling. The group is the subject and the motivations and goals that they share constitute the object. The object in this activity system may be different from that of another group of teachers also engaged in the activity of schooling because it is defined by the shared objectives of the particular community. On the other hand, one may consider all teachers and administrators in a society as a community (the subject) with a different set of shared objectives (the object) engaged in the activity of schooling. Understanding through activity requires careful definition of these terms and of the activity, subject, and object under consideration.

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