Songge Ma

Associate Professor at the School of Education, Shanghai Normal University, China

The impact of willingness to chang on Change Laboratory design: An exploration via three cases

Between 2021 and 2024, the research team conducted two change laboratories in two regions with significant cultural and historical differences. The first was held at a children’s traditional Chinese studies tutoring institution in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, and the second at a private university in Shanghai. In July 2025, the team began discussions with a village in Jiading District, Shanghai, to launch a third change laboratory, aiming to promote the overall transformation and development of the village. Through the implementation of the three change laboratories and the discussions for the third one, we found that in Chinese culture, transformative agency is a key issue influencing the overall design of the change laboratory. 

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The concept of transformative agency comprises at least two components: the willingness to change and the methods of change. Theoretically, a change laboratory can not only enhance participants’ willingness to change but also help them master methods of change. In international literature, scholars focus more on discussing methods of change and the successful or less successful outcomes of change brought about by these methods. However, the three change laboratories organized by our team have shown that participants’ willingness to change also exerts a significant impact on the progress of the experiment, as well as on the methods of change (i.e., the design of the change laboratory). This impact is mainly reflected in the following four aspects:

First, the relationship between the willingness to change and the flexibility of participants. Participants with a strong will to change, small scale, and high flexibility may terminate the laboratory when it progresses to the modeling stage and independently carry out subsequent changes in a form with a shorter cycle and quicker results. Participants with a certain level of willingness to change but who are somewhat “unwieldy” (due to large scale or rigid structure) have relatively weak motivation to promote the outcomes independently outside the laboratory during the experiment’s intervals and require continuous intervention and promotion from researchers. Therefore, when selecting experimental participants (or institutions etc.), full consideration should be given to their willingness, scale, and flexibility to align them with the change objectives, processes, and workload expected by the research team.

Second, the correspondence between the willingness to change and the identity of experimental participants. The crises to be addressed or problems to be solved by an change laboratory should correspond to the authority and status of the participants. Entrusting the crises or problems of an entire organization to participants with lower authority and status may lead to suboptimal experimental results due to their weak willingness to change and limited organizational authority. When crises or problems involve a specific organization or a field of social governance, the top leader of that organization or of the relevant competent authority in that field should be involved.

Third, the integration of the willingness to change and the inherent change methods of the participants. Some participants with a strong willingness to change already possess “indigenous” (locally developed) change methods. The introduction of a change laboratory may either enhance or reduce their willingness to change. For such experimental subjects, it may be necessary to flexibly revise the original concepts and processes of the change laboratory to integrate them with the participants’ culture and existing change methods.

Fourth, the integration of the willingness to change and the short-term interests of the participants. Influenced by the “performance-oriented” mindset, some participants’ willingness to change is fully tied to their short-term interests. The design of a change laboratory may need to appropriately consider providing timely short-term benefits to participants; for example, integrating the change laboratory into a larger training program, or producing promotional videos for the institutions or regions where the participants are located within the framework of the change laboratory.

Songge Ma, PhD, is an associate professor at the School of Education, Shanghai Normal University. She has been engaged in the research of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) for over a decade, and has applied this theory to the study of the learning mechanisms among doctors, farmers, and teachers. In recent years, she has carried out localized pilot projects of Change Laboratory in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), village construction and institutions of higher education.

Ge Wei

Director of the Research Center for Children and Teacher Education and Associate Professor at the College of Elementary Education, Capital Normal University, China

Forming a new concept of mentorship amidst contradictions: A Change Laboratory in initial teacher education

Mentorship plays pivotal roles in initial teacher education setting significant challenges of heterogeneous communication. This keynote shows how concept formation based on participatory analyses of systemic contradictions in mentorship can contribute to transform initial teacher education. Using the Change Laboratory formative interventionist method, university staff, school staff and student teachers collectively analysed the contradictions of mentorship and co-developed a new concept of ‘tripartite professionalising community mentorship’, which led to tangible changes in the teacher education programme. The study contributes to theoretical and practical advances toward sustainable mentorship activities and equitable futures in teacher education.

Ge Wei, PhD, Director of Research Center for Children and Teacher Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing. Ge is also a scientific council member of Centre for Activity Theory at University West, Sweden. He draws on cultural-historical activity theory in studies of learning, teaching, and human development in a range of contexts, including schools, families, and societies. His recent monograph is entitled as “Reimaging Pre-service Teaches’ Practical Knowledge: Designing Learning for Future” (Routledge, 2023).

Naoyuki Yamada

Associate Professor of Education at Kansai University, Japan

New developments of activity theory in Japan: Implementing formative interventions

This keynote speech focuses on education and aims to review the trajectory of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) research in Japan, highlighting its recent development toward the implementation of formative interventions.

Since the 1990s, CHAT has been introduced into Japanese educational research as a theoretical framework for the reconstruction of the relationship between education (teaching–learning) and development. It has made significant theoretical and empirical contributions to diverse domains, including learning theory, developmental studies, lesson study, and teacher education. In particular, the works of Prof. Katsuhiro Yamazumi — as well as the institutional development of the Japanese Association for Research on Activity Theory (JARAT) and its journal Activity Theory Research (Vols. 1–10, 2016–2025) — represent a central corpus for understanding the evolution of activity theory research in Japan.

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Drawing on these materials, this keynote presents a comprehensive literature review that analyzes (1) the theoretical lineage of Japanese activity theory research, (2) its practical reach in fields such as education, welfare, and community development, and (3) the methodological transformations involving formative intervention, expansive learning, and the Change Laboratory. Through this analysis, the presentation elucidates both the distinctive features and current challenges of Japanese CHAT research.

However, the methodological development of interventions that generate expansive learning, while theoretically rich, has remained limited in terms of practical implementation. In recent years, since 2019, a series of Change Laboratory projects launched across Japan have attracted attention as attempts to bridge this theoretical–practical gap.

Finally, the keynote introduces two formative intervention cases conducted by the author: (1) an online collaborative transformation project among three early childhood institutions from different regions and organizations, and (2) a lesson redesign project in a Grade 2 classroom at a university-affiliated elementary school. These cases explore the possibilities of implementing formative interventions in educational practice and illuminate the dual trajectory of theoretical advancement and methodological implementation as key dimensions of the new development of activity theory research in Japan.

Naoyuki Yamada, PhD, is Associate Professor of Education at Kansai University, Japan. Drawing on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and its interventionist methodology, he explores expansive learning and formative interventions that foster educational innovation. His research originated in a study of writing and human development, where he examined the paradox that acts of expression aimed at liberation are inevitably shaped by the ideological nature of language itself.
Building on this theoretical foundation, he has investigated how teacher guidance and learner autonomy intersect in educational practice. More recently, his work has focused on the Change Laboratory methodology as a means to create collaborative spaces for transformative agency. He has conducted full-scale Change Laboratory interventions with early childhood educators and elementary school teachers, illuminating how expansive learning can emerge within real educational communities.

Katsuhiro Yamazumi

Professor of Education at Kansai University, Japan

Building coalitions for learning: A fourth-generation Change Laboratory intervention in Tamba City’s schools

The Fourth-generation Change Laboratory is a formative and dialectical instrumentality that cultivates transformative agency across interdependent activity systems. It addresses runaway objects—complex societal challenges that transcend organizational boundaries, such as climate change, inequality, and depopulation—by fostering collective expansive learning beyond institutional boundaries. Through cycles of double stimulation and ascending from the abstract to the concrete, participants collaboratively reconstruct their practices and motives, generating new coalitions of heterogeneous activity systems oriented toward the common good. Over time, this instrumentality evolves into public-sphere infrastructures that sustain expansive learning and collective transformation.

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In this theoretical and practical context, a formative intervention research project applying the framework of fourth-generation activity theory to entrepreneurship education and community-based inquiry learning in Tamba City’s junior high schools is scheduled to begin in 2026. The project aims to create a community-based coalition for learning in which students and teachers collaboratively identify and address local challenges, such as depopulation, sustainable industries utilizing regional resources, and community revitalization, together with local NPOs, enterprises, and business owners.

The Tamba City Board of Education plans to support this initiative institutionally through teacher training programs on inquiry-based learning, the designation of experimental model schools, and a comprehensive partnership agreement with Kansai University. Researchers and students from Kansai University are expected to participate through joint research, design and implementation of lessons, and direct support for junior high school students’ inquiry-based projects, thereby linking educational practice with community transformation.

As a preliminary miniature version of this broader intervention, a Change Laboratory on community developmentwas conducted in August 2025 in Tamba City, involving three junior high school students, two high school students, and six university students from Kansai University. This pilot program served as an experimental site for exploring new forms of collaboration across schools, higher education, and local communities.

This keynote speech will analyze the outcomes of this Change Laboratory as an illustrative case, exploring how expansive learning among schools, universities, local communities, and educational administration can generate public-sphere Change Laboratories and foster transformative agency—demonstrating the practical potential of the fourth-generation Change Laboratory as a societal instrumentality for sustainable regional development.

Katsuhiro Yamazumi, PhD, is Professor of Education at Kansai University, Japan. Drawing on the framework of cultural-historical activity theory and its interventionist methodology, he studies historically new forms of educational activities as formative interventions in expanding learning so that learners and practitioners can collectively transform their activities and expand their agency. Recently, he has been conducting Change Laboratory intervention research in formal education. Such Change Laboratories in schools, guided by fourth-generation activity theory, encourage participants to move into an alternative developmental orientation of learning and instruction in schools, fostering de-encapsulation and the formation of community-based coalitions for learning. His recent book, Activity Theory and Collaborative Intervention in Education: Expanding Learning in Japanese Schools and Communities, was published by Routledge in 2021. He received the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) “That’s Interesting!” Award 2013.