RE: [xmca] A question about Lewin & CHAT& Engestrom

["Glassman, Michael" <glassman.13@osu.edu>]

Hi,

This is my view of the Langemeyer article.  As to the original question of whether action research is symmetrical with CHAT, particularly Engestrom's work I have a few questions.  Which action research?  The one developed by Lewin, Lippitt and their research group, or the more web like participatory action research developed by Fals Borda, Budd Hall, Francisco Vio Grossi and others?  I think this is a critical question.

The second question I think is what stance the theories take at a metatheoretical level.  My thinking right now is that the dividing line between action research and other types of research are whether it is subject-object oriented (getting the subject to act on or change the way they perceive the object) or whether it is subject-subject in nature (helping the subject to recreate their thinking systems as you recreate their thinking systems).  CHAT has always struck me as more subject-object oriented.  Local similarities can often hide much larger disparities.

Thanks for the Langemeyer article.  As you might have surmised I don't agree with a lot of what is said in the article, but I am not really that interested these days in getting into critiques of what other people write.  I put up the stuff on Lewin for the same reason I wrote the article, I think it is really important that we start trying to bring some coherence to action research because I really, really like the motivations behind both traditional action research and the Fals-Borda, Hall etc. participatory action research (after some thought William Foote Whyte not so much).

Just because you might be wondering about why generally I am not enamored with the paper,

Most of the quotes are long before he came to the United States, met Lippitt, was asked by social service organizations to develop some type of "action research" and before the CCI experiment.  There are only a few (rather pedestrian) quotes from his own action research article and nothing from those who worked with him.

The author talks about Lewin wanting to bridge the gap between human and natural sciences, but in my reading this has little to do with action research and is more about his desire for a more rigorous psychological methodology.  I don't know enough about this part of Lewin's career but it seems to be from a distance this is not really applicable to action research (but it one of the reasons for the development of action science).  If I remember correctly Chaiklin did something similar in his article, but it is from a while ago.

The author talks about three places where CHAT and action research overlap

(a) active participation in the research process of persons concerned
with the matter of investigation

This is true for action research, but if you have a chance to read my article you will see that this is not theoretical but based on an incident that occurred very early in the development of the approach that Lewin and then other action researchers grabbed on to.  I also don't think it is nearly as big an issue for Lewin as for the Southern PAR and it is important not to confuse these.

 (b) a critique of practice and a self-critique of practitioners, which
is captured in the cyclic movement

I think I really disagree with this.  It seems to be Action Research is less about critique and contradiction and more about realization.  From my reading Critical theory did not really enter into early theorizing of either AR or Southern PAR until Henri Girioux brought it in later.

 (c) the (emancipatory) engagement for practical change.

Well this is true of course, but it is true for a whole bunch of theories.

In quoting Herr & Anderson writes

“traditional action research tends to emphasize issues of efficiency
and improvement of practices” instead of being “concerned with equity, self-reliance, and oppression
problems”

I think this is absolutely wrong and sets the wrong tone for traditional action research.

Okay, these are just some of the things I find difficult, but as I said I am not really that interested in public critiques (and probably don't have the time).

As I said earlier I do think Vygotsky and Luria had some of the same intuitions as Lewin, which possibly came out in that famous field work experiment.  But that would take a whole lot more research and thinking.

Thanks for the article,

Michael
________________________________
From: mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 11:15 PM
To: Glassman, Michael
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] A question about Lewin & CHAT& Engestrom

Interesting, Michael.
So where does the pre 1934 interest in Lewin by Vygotsky and Luria, very clear
in The Nature of Human Conflicts, (written circa 1930 I guestimate) come from?

Did you read the Langemeyer article from MCA re the commonalilites and similarities around "critical"? Does she have it right in your view?
mike

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu<mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
I think not only was Lewin's pre 1935 work pretty different from his post 1935 work but he actually had two completely different lines of work when he was in the United States, even post war (I think the war had a tremendous impact on his thinking for obvious reasons).  After he came to the United States his graduate students Lippett and Likert had really big influences on his thinking but in different directions.  Likert and his cohort (there was some really big statistical person I can't remember the name of) were really involved in his attempts to move social psychology into a very science oriented approach.  Lippett, who was I think Lewin's most important student post war, had spent time in Geneva with Piaget and tended to spend a lot of time with Deweyan.  I have read a couple of articles that in the late forties there were tremendous arguments in his lab about which direction to go.  Lewin it seems just sat back and said he thought it would work itself out eventually.  But anyway it was the Lippett branch that developed action research - which I think was related to but at the same time quite different from his early European research, and the social psychology to science was also different.

The freeze - unfreeze - freeze idea that the poster talks about is closer to action research but seems to have come late in Lewin's thinking (it was a shame he died so early) and seems to me to have actually been made more famous by Argyris who considers himself a direct descendant of Lewin (even though he actually was not one of Lewin's students).  So if you simply focus on the freeze, unfreeze, freeze idea I think you are limiting yourself to a very late version of action research, or probably more Argyris and Schon's action science.

Michael
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>] on behalf of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com<mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>]
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 8:06 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: Rauno Huttunen
Subject: Re: [xmca] A question about Lewin & CHAT& Engestrom

Thanks for the reminder, Tiina. That whole issue is relevant. Also, this
article speaks directly to Michael's speculations concerning a
critical/non-critical orientation to existing socioculturalhistorical
circumstances. Anyone without access who wants a copy, write me.

I have a strong impression that people are talking about Lewin as if his
work before, say, 1935 and after he escaped Germany and moved to the US were
all action research and all of a piece. So no one commented on this part of
the
note I forwarded:

For example, what I see Engeström is calling "Expansive learning" looks to
my eye to be quite close to Lewin's freeze-unfreeze-freeze model, and to
this standard change management model, in which we are looking (I think) at
a fairly typical model of an object in the world of software products, in
which external forces (which I would call activity systems) are interacting
with an object that is evolving through the interaction of such systems:


Also, although I cannot site the reference, I seem to recall seeing a paper
where
Yrjo replicates and extends (or does he just discuss, not sure) the line of
experimentation that Zeigarnik and Dembo were involved in when they were in
Lewin's lab in the 1930's.

mike
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:54 AM, Tiina Kontinen
<tiina.kontinen@helsinki.fi<mailto:tiina.kontinen@helsinki.fi>>wrote:

>
>
> There is an interesting article addressing action research-activity theory
> relation (not describing any particular empirical case, though):
>
>
> Langemeyer, I. (2011) Science and Social Practice: Action Research and
> Activity Theory as Socio-Critical Approaches. Mind, Culture, and Activity,
> 18: 148–160.
>
> -Tiina
>
>
> Lainaus Rauno Huttunen <rakahu@utu.fi<mailto:rakahu@utu.fi>>:
>
>
>  Hello,
>>
>> Nowadays the most famous representative of action research is Stephen
>> Kemmis and he has keen interest on system theory.
>>
>> For Finnish members of the list: Stephen Kemmis is coming to next
>> "Kasvatustieteen päivät" in Jyväskylä.
>>
>> Rauno
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.>**ucsd.edu<http://ucsd.edu><xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>]
>> On Behalf Of Lubomir Savov Popov
>> Sent: 22. toukokuuta 2013 5:44
>> To: lchcmike@gmail.com<mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: RE: [xmca] A question about Lewin & CHAT& Engestrom
>>
>> I personally have looked in all these areas regarding the theoretical and
>> methodological needs of design programming and building users research. The
>> situation there might be quite different from the fields of human
>> development and education.
>>
>> Action Research from an activity theory position should be conceived as
>> project-specific research. Research that is intended to bring information
>> for project/design decision-making. As a social scientist, Lewin makes a
>> great conceptual leap to envisage science as a component of engineering (of
>> social situations). However, from the other end of the continuum, from
>> design and engineering practice, it is very easy to see the need for
>> project-specific research. We can see examples of project-specific research
>> in R&D (Research and Development).
>>
>> I personally use activity theory as a methodological instrument in
>> project-specific research. Activity Theory has assimilated systems thinking
>> and ecological/contextual thinking as well.
>>
>> One example of Lewinian thinking operationalized to action-relevant
>> concepts is the behavior setting (Roger Barker). I would also like to
>> mention here Bronfenbrenner for his more courageous introduction of systems
>> thinking. The behavior setting concept is well known in environment and
>> behavior research. However, with my preference to "activity" over
>> "behavior," I am tempted to offer a similar concept -- "activity setting."
>>  I strongly believe that the theoretical apparatus of "activity" has a
>> number of methodological advantages over "behavior."
>>
>> With kind regards,
>>
>> Lubomir
>>
>> Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.
>> School of Family and Consumer Sciences
>> American Culture Studies affiliated faculty
>> 309 Johnston Hall,
>> Bowling Green, Ohio 43403-0059
>> Lspopov@bgsu.edu<mailto:Lspopov@bgsu.edu>
>> 419.372.7935
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.>**ucsd.edu<http://ucsd.edu><xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>]
>> On Behalf Of mike cole
>> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 9:46 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
>> Subject: [xmca] A question about Lewin & CHAT& Engestrom
>>
>> A former colleague sent this comment/question to me and I thought I would
>> pass it along.
>>
>> I responded that there was a lot of interaction between Lewin, Vygotsky,
>> Luria and ......., but I could not speak for later users of CHAT.
>>
>> Sort of fyi.
>> mike
>> -----------
>>
>> One thought has emerged from my current reading to come up with theories
>> to inform methodology: I am curious as to why CHAT researchers had never
>> seemed to look into Kurt Lewin's Action Research and Field Theory as tools
>> to think about. For example, what I see Engeström is calling "Expansive
>> learning" looks to my eye to be quite close to Lewin's
>> freeze-unfreeze-freeze model, and to this standard change management model,
>> in which we are looking (I think) at a fairly typical model of an object in
>> the world of software products, in which external forces (which I would
>> call activity systems) are interacting with an object that is evolving
>> through the interaction of such systems:
>>
>>
>> Software installation, tuning, management and upgrade is very much like
>> this. The object mutates in response to its environment, interacting with
>> multiple interactive communities, as customers use the tool and discover
>> new things they wish it would do, or developers think of interesting things
>> that can be done with the tool, in response to an environment of new tools
>> and other developer's objects. The shared object changes in response to
>> those goals (or is dumped--not that this would ever happen with
>> *my*company's objects) for an object that looks like it can better reward
>> the effort to shape it into goals that may not be fully grasped, but that
>> become real in the interaction of users, developers, communities, and goals.
>>
>> I suppose Lewin's focus on the individual in society, rather than on
>> action in society, is a theoretical barrier. But they both work for me
>>
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