Résumés
Many educational researchers seek to actively promote positive change in schools. A Change Laboratory is a distinctive way of doing so. A Change Laboratory is a formative intervention in which researchers foster participants’ agency in a process of collaboratively re-designing activity. This paper analyses 66 Change Laboratories involving schools from a historical and developmental perspective. It identifies changes in spatial spread, theoretical references, methodological features, foci of intervention and wider issues addressed. These changes constitute developments, based on evidence that Change Laboratories have moved through a zone of proximal development to qualitatively new forms, that contradictions have driven this process, and that ascent from the abstract to the concrete can be observed. Change Laboratories have developed from an archetype to a set of diverse concrete forms. A proposal is made for a universal essence of Change Laboratories, and possible frontiers for future development are outlined.
De nombreux chercheurs en éducation cherchent à promouvoir activement des changements positifs dans les écoles. Un laboratoire du changement est une manière particulière d’y parvenir. Un laboratoire du changement est une intervention formative dans laquelle les chercheurs encouragent l’action des participants dans un processus de refonte collaborative de l’activité. Cet article analyse 66 Change Laboratories impliquant des écoles dans une perspective historique et développementale. Il identifie les changements dans la répartition spatiale, les références théoriques, les caractéristiques méthodologiques, les foyers d’intervention et les questions plus larges abordées. Ces changements constituent des développements basés sur la preuve que les laboratoires du changement ont traversé une zone de développement proximal vers des formes qualitativement nouvelles, que des contradictions ont conduit ce processus, et que l’on peut observer une ascension de l’abstrait vers le concret. Les Change Laboratories dans les écoles sont passés d’un archétype à un ensemble de formes concrètes diverses. Une proposition est faite pour une essence universelle des laboratoires du changement, et les frontières possibles pour un développement futur sont tracées.
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Plan
Introduction
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
Change Laboratories
Review Process
RQ1. What Changes can Be Discerned in Change Laboratories in Schools Over Time?
Foundation and Initial Uptake: Archetype Formed and Reproduced
Expansion and Adaptation: Archetype Stretched, Improvised Upon
Opening and Diversification: Territory of Diverse Concrete Forms
RQ2: In What Ways Can These Changes Be Regarded as Developments in Change Laboratories as a Form of Activity?
Change Laboratories Have Moved Through a ZPD Towards a Created New Form of Activity
Contradictions Have Been Drivers of Development of Change Laboratory Activity in Schools
The Activity of Change Laboratories in Schools has Ascended From the Abstract to the Concrete
Conclusion
Future Developments in School-Based Change Laboratories
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Introduction
Many educational researchers are dissatisfied with passive approaches that study schooling as an object, viewed from the outside, and left intact. Such researchers typically resist top-down, linear approaches to school change that constitute teachers and school leaders as passive implementers of ideas developed by policymakers or researchers. They are often invested in an agenda of school transformation as part of social transformation (Engeström, 2020).
Approaches to such research include action research (Bradbury et al., 2019), design-based research (Easterday et al., 2014), and Change Laboratories (Engeström et al., 2023b; Virkkunen & Newnham, 2013). Change Laboratories are distinctive through their basis in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Sannino, Engeström & Lemos, 2016). They emphasise bottom-up change, where the researcher’s quest for control is swapped for a...
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Référence papier
Nick Hopwood, « A Developmental History of Change Laboratories in Schools », Éducation et didactique, 19-3 | 2025, 95-114.
Référence électronique
Nick Hopwood, « A Developmental History of Change Laboratories in Schools », Éducation et didactique [En ligne], 19-3 | 2025, mis en ligne le 03 janvier 2027, consulté le 14 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/educationdidactique/14767 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/153gp
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