Applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) Perspectives Toward Equity in Higher Education Organizations and Systems

Abstract

In this chapter, I demonstrate how Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) perspectives can extend inquiry and practice to transform higher education in equity-oriented directions. My aims are to (1) show CHAT’s affordances to enhance research and practice about equity-oriented organizational and systems change and (2) provide tools for researchers to apply CHAT to study (in)equity in higher education organizations and systems. After a brief orientation to CHAT, I examine how studies of two interventions identified organizational dynamics and possibilities for equity-oriented transformation to advance migrant students’ postsecondary opportunities and to build the capacity of postsecondary personnel to promote equitable student outcomes. Subsequently, I employ CHAT to analyze primary ethnographic data about undergraduate geoscience fieldwork that also involved an intervention to promote equity and inclusion in this setting. My ethnographic analysis shows how, compared with more common higher education conceptual perspectives, the application of CHAT offers a finer-grained analysis of cultural practices, how they are generated, and how they are sustained or transformed over time. Therefore, a CHAT analysis of these organizational practices provides more specific ways to understand and transform systemic dynamics of exclusion and power. I conclude with implications about CHAT’s potential to enhance expansive learning, equity-oriented inquiry, and transformation of higher education organizations and systems.