Many of the LECI research group members actively took part in American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, which was held in Chicago during April 13-16, 2023. The theme for 2023 Annual meeting was “Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth.”
As part of the Cultural-Historical Research Special Interest group (SIG 30) Pre-Conference Mentoring Session was organized and chaired by Antti Rajala and Monica Lemos. LECI group members took part in the Roundtable Session entitled: Studies on Expansive Learning: Examining Multimodal and Discussion-Based Data. In this session, Jaakko Hilppö presented about: “Video Documentaries as Tertiary Artifacts: A Tool for Tracing the Transformations of Children's Sleeping Practices?”. In the same session Sakari Hyrkkö, Anu Kajamaa and their collaborator Patricia Martínez-Álvarez from Teachers College, Columbia University, US, gave a presentation on “Multimodality and Expansive Learning During a School Change Laboratory: Externalizing and Implementing Distributed Leadership”. The discussant in this session was Professor Roger Säljö from University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Professors Anu Kajamaa and Patricia Martínez-Álvarez organized a symposium at the AERA Annual meeting with presentations from France, Finland, and the US, addressing “Cultural Historical Perspectives on Identity: A Tool for Dismantling Inequality and Promoting Just Educational Possibilities”. This symposium was also part of the SIG 30, and it included presentations from Teachers College, Columbia University; Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers; HEP Canton de Vaud, Aix Marseille Université. The topic of Anu Kajamaa and Patricia Martínez-Álvarez’s presentation in this symposium was: “Teacher Candidates' Identity Construction as Collective Movement Along Zones of Sense”. The discussant of the symposium was Professor Anne Edwards, University of Oxford.
Jaakko Hilppö chaired a Roundtable Session named “Exploring Methodological Opportunities of Cultural-Historical Research”, which included presenters from Brazil, Canada, Finland, and the US. In this session, Antti Rajala presented together with Michael Cole, from University of California, San Diego and Moises Esteban Guitart, from University of Girona on “Utopian Methodology: Researching Educational Interventions to Promote Equity Over Multiple Timescales”. The discussant was Joseph L. Polman, University of Colorado, Boulder. Antti Rajala also chaired a Roundtable Session entitled: “Studying Learning and Collaboration in Professional Contexts”. This session included presenters from Sweden, the US, Norway and the discussant was Alfredo Jornet Gil, from University of Girona.
We also heard a highly interesting symposium on “Formative Interventions for Justice, Futurity, and
Sustainability”, chaired by Aydin Bal, University of Wisconsin, Madison. In this symposium, Professors Yrjö Engeström and Annalisa Sannino presented about “Uses of History in Change Laboratory Interventions: A Methodological Framework, and a lively discussion on the Change Laboratory method took place.