Yuri Gromyko
Professor of educational psychology and educational policy in State Moscow institute of open education
President, Moscow Academy of Culture and Educational Development
Director of Center of Regional Policy & Educational Development, Russian Academy of Education
Director, Moscow Center for Experimental and Innovative Education
Director of laboratory for project elaboration in North-west Center for strategical studies.
Research Interests: Metacognition, symbolism, curriculum theory, implementation and policy. Political psychology and communication theory. Activity theory in intertwined ideological and philosophical context of interaction between neo-marxism and postmodernism. Development of neoindustrial systems through innovation. Innovative semiotics and schemes construction.
Social-cultural diversity as a touchstone of an activity approach
Thursday, 09.00
The tension between normativity and diversity is one of the major problems of all kinds of activity systems. To understand such systems, it is essential to describe the rules and norms that regulate actions within it. Contrary to common belief, describing these norms does not necessarily limit or suppress diversification processes. In the practical realisations of activity systems, norms often do stay implicit and the space for diversity often remains unclear. Such practices often reveal pseudo-variations, instead of real diversity. The explication of these norms may introduce different normative structures, but may by the same token trigger a process of critical thinking about the practices involved.
This starting point is essential for our thinking about the innovation of activity systems. Any such innovation is always a projection of one system onto another, but the prescriptions of norms involved in the innovation should also allow for cultural variations of those norms and their realizations in practice. (The work of Davydov, who described norms for the 'organisation of thinking' which may vary according to age and subject, is a case in point.) Thus, any version of activity theory needs to take socio-cultural diversity into account. The 'same' activity, in different contexts, may be oriented to different norms concurrently. Thus, to adequately depict an activity system, it is necessary to consider its non-standard and innovative forms, and also take into account its implicit norms. Moreover, innovation of activity systems is always an outcome of intersystem interactions that give rise to critical developments in either of the systems involved, and it promotes co-evolutionary development in both. This is important for understanding the role of education systems for the improvement or restauration of troubled societies. The lecture discusses a number of practices (industrial, social, and political systems) as examples.