Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

782 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
within the real world. Banathy (1996), elaborating on Checkland’s perspective of human activity
system, posits the example of idealized system design as a type of human activity system that is
purposeful in nature and which can be used to create a new system that could exist in the real
world. Relatedly, Checkland and Scholes state that
The emergent property of a defined human activity system is the ability, in principle, to pursue the purpose
of the whole ...within it activities and structure concerned with communication and control so that the
[human activity system] could in principle (were it to exist) adapt and survive in a changing environment.
(Checkland and Scholes, 1990).
Individuals are active participants in multiple activity systems, often in complex arrays of
roles and responsibilities. The idea of multiple roles in various activity systems is made more
problematic by the fact that activity systems constantly interact with other activity systems in
a complex dialectic of boundary work. The complex dialectic of the boundary work found in
human activity systems pervades conscious human activity, often giving rise to tensions that
drive changes in an activity system and its participants, individually and collectively. Because
activity systems constantly interact with other activity systems, and because as noted, “participants
themselves have many affiliations (identities, subject positions) with many other activity systems,
ongoing social practices constantly change as tools-in-use are appropriated across boundaries and
eventually are operationalized ...to transform activity systems” (Russell, 1997). The notion of
transforming activity systems gives support to Banathy’s (1996) ideal of social systems design
as contributing to the transformation of society through transcending old systems. Activity may
also be understood from the viewpoint of activity theory (Engeström, Miettinen, and Punamäki,
1999).
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), with its philosophical and historical roots in the
classical German philosophy (from Kant to Hegel), in the writings of Karl Marx, and in the theorizing
emerging from the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology most often associated
with the research of L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leont’ev, and A.R. Luria, presents a framework of
understanding activity in human systems. Recent work with activity theory in the fields of human
cognition, cultural psychology, and communication through the research of Michael Cole, Yrjö
Engeström, and Ritva Engeström draws attention to the similarities in social systems and educational
systems design and the sociohistorical and sociocultural foundations of activity theory.
Through the framework of CHAT, in the context of educational systems design, participants
in a human activity system are guided by object or motive-based expectations of creating an
ideal educational system. The creative activity is mediated by use of cultural artifacts that might
be any combination of rule-based, role-based, symbol-based, cognition-based, discourse-based,
process-based, and technology-based tools. A primary example is the use of ideal systems design
technology, systems language, and design conversation in the design of an ideal educational system.
Also critical to the framework, which guides the systemic change process, are sociocultural
rules that are aligned with the object or motive based expectations. Essential in this framework
is membership in a community of stakeholders seeking to design a new ideal for the educational
system—a design community. Membership in the community by the facilitator and stakeholders
is balanced through a division of labor that seeks to authentically engage all participants in the
systemic change process. Serving, as center for this framework, is a set of beliefs adopted by the
participants that serves to provide social coherence for the design community.