EXPANSIVE LEARNING AT WORK

Toward an activity-theoretical reconceptualization

Abstract

The paper presents the account of an intervention study, carried out in the field of the multiorganizational infant medical service in the region of Helsinki- Finland. Such intervention was based on activity theory, which constitutes the basis of the learning by expansion process, that this paper aims at illustrating. Before presenting the theory of learning by expansion, the evolution and the five main principles of activity theory are described. The answers provided by the learning by expansion theory to the problems faced by the infant medical services are built from a matrix that interrelates these five principles and the four fundamental questions that any learning theory should be able to answer.