Understanding and promoting agency are crucial to addressing urgent social problems of our time. Through agency, we can take transformative steps toward the future that ought to be. This book shows how contemporary conceptualizations from cultural-historical activity theory can inform research and practice that fosters positive change. At the core of this book's novel approach to agency and transformation are three motifs: motives, mediation, and motion. These take inspiration from the original work of Vygotsky and subsequent generations of scholarship, enabling us to understand agency in ways that recognize the social and cultural aspects of agency without losing sight of individuals' contributions to changing their own lives and the lives of others. Referring to connections between learning, pedagogy, and agency, the chapters address power, freedom, and the future in contexts including adolescence, school exclusion, children's activism, Indigenous communities, environmental activism, homelessness, childbirth, and young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book brings together leading representatives of activity-theoretically-oriented and socioculturally-oriented research around the world, to discuss creativity as a collective endeavour strongly related to learning to face the societal challenges of our world. As history shows, major accomplishments in arts and technological innovations have allowed us to see the world differently and to identify new learning perspectives for the future which were seldom limited to individual action or isolated activities. This book, while primarily focused on educational insitutions, extends its examination of creativity and learning to include other settings (such as government agencies) beyond the limits of schooling.

This book brings together leading representatives of activity-theoretically-oriented and socioculturally-oriented research around the world, to discuss creativity as a collective endeavour strongly related to learning to face the societal challenges of our world. As history shows, major accomplishments in arts and technological innovations have allowed us to see the world differently and to identify new learning perspectives for the future which were seldom limited to individual action or isolated activities. This book, while primarily focused on educational insitutions, extends its examination of creativity and learning to include other settings (such as government agencies) beyond the limits of schooling.

This book is a collection about cultural-historical activity theory as it has been developed and applied by Yrjoe Engestroem. The work of Engestroem is both rooted in the legacy of Vygotsky and Leont'ev and focuses on current research concerns that are related to learning and development in work practices. His publications cross various disciplines and develop intermediate theoretical tools to deal with empirical questions. In this volume, Engestroem's work is used as a springboard to reflect on the question of the use, appropriation, and further development of the classic heritage within activity theory. The book is structured as a discussion among senior scholars, including Y. Engestroem himself. The work of the authors pushes on classical activity theory to address pressing issues and critical contradictions in local practices and larger social systems.

This book is a collection about cultural-historical activity theory as it has been developed and applied by Yrjoe Engestroem. The work of Engestroem is both rooted in the legacy of Vygotsky and Leont'ev and focuses on current research concerns that are related to learning and development in work practices. His publications cross various disciplines and develop intermediate theoretical tools to deal with empirical questions. In this volume, Engestroem's work is used as a springboard to reflect on the question of the use, appropriation, and further development of the classic heritage within activity theory. The book is structured as a discussion among senior scholars, including Y. Engestroem himself. The work of the authors pushes on classical activity theory to address pressing issues and critical contradictions in local practices and larger social systems.