Mind, Culture, and Activity

Integrating Critical Theories with Cultural Historical Activity Theory: Toward Examining Multiply Marginalized Communities

We invite proposals for a special issue of Mind, Culture and Activity that explores the theoretical and methodological possibilities of using critical theories in conjunction with Cultural-historical Activity Theory (CHAT). By critical theories, we mean frameworks that attend to issues of power, agency, and marginalization (e.g., intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, postcolonial theory, critical disability studies, etc.). We are interested in understanding how these frameworks come together to examine the lived realities of historically multiply marginalized or underrepresented communities navigating the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, language, disability, immigration status, and class. This issue aims to highlight the affordances and constraints of constructing and utilizing conceptual frameworks grounded in critical theories and CHAT, to reveal the nature of systemic inequities and provide possible pathways toward disrupting the cultures, materialities, and structures that sustain such harms. This issue seeks to bring together scholars and practitioners who engage in CHAT by grappling with the theoretical and methodological challenges of parsing and factoring in intersectionality and other critical theories when framing concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘activity.’ We aim to include both theoretical and empirical contributions that examine complex systems, such as schools, and the cultures and structures that mediate the lived experiences of multiply-marginalized communities. 

We especially welcome work grounded in theoretical and methodological commitments that contest racism, classism, ableism, and linguicism in everyday learning ecologies, such as schooling. 

Topics may include (but are not limited to): 

• Theoretical contributions that examine how intersectional frameworks expand research on culture and activity. 

• Research that blends critical race, disability, language, immigration status, gender, and sexuality with CHAT approaches and other sociocultural theories to reveal systemic inequities. 

• Methodological contributions that explore how to conduct research with multiply-marginalized communities in ways that reveal systemic injustices in learning spaces. 

• Work that examines the affordances and constraints of using CHAT and other sociocultural frameworks to examine power dynamics in learning ecologies. 

• Responses and/or commentary on the existing body of work that engaged CHAT and other sociocultural frameworks in working with historically marginalized learners.