Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Cultural-historical activity theory, often abbreviated CHAT, is a theoretical framework for conceptualizing and analyzing the relationship between cognition, meaning what people think and feel, and activity, meaning what people do. The framework was founded by Lev Vygotsky and Aleksei Leontiev, both part of the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology, with the Soviet philosopher S. L. Rubinshtein independently developing his own related variant of activity theory. Political restrictions under Stalin suppressed the cultural-historical school, known as the Vygotsky school, through the mid-1930s, which kept the core concept of activity confined mainly to psychology for decades. Vygotsky's central insight was that human consciousness is essentially subjective, shaped by the history of each individual's social and cultural experience, and since the 1990s the theory has drawn growing interest from academics worldwide, including in education.