Relational agency, double stimulation and the object of activity: an intervention study in a primary school

With the help of an empirical example from a formative intervention in an elementary school, this presentation employs the theoretical construct of relational agency in connection with the two activity-theoretical concepts of double stimulation and the object of activity. The analysis points at relationality as a key component sustaining the creation of mediating artifacts and the redefinition of the object of activity. Double stimulation was not limited to the use of any single mediating artifact; rather, it consisted of a rapidly emerging texture of practical demonstrations of possibility. These demonstrations of possibility were above all facilitated by a dense flow of relational actions of support, encouragement, help and advice between all participants in the intervention. With this fluid relational infrastructure, double stimulation became a spatially distributed and temporally continuous process. The relational agency mobilized with the help of the intervention led all parties to discover and experiment with novel aspects of the object of their activity and opened up new perspectives on the potentials of the learning and teaching of an entire class.