EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 44(3), 202–208, 2009

Copyright

C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0046-1520 print / 1532-6985 online
DOI: 10.1080/00461520903029030

Learning, Theories of Learning, and Units

of Analysis in Research
Roger Säljö
Department of Education
University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Over the past decades research on learning has become more diverse and complex. The concern
expressed by Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds (2009/this issue) is that this diversity of
theoretical perspectives has resulted in a fragmentation that is destructive to the field. Although
it is important to engage in explicit discussions of how learning is construed in different
traditions, Alexander et al. do not give sufficient recognition to the significant epistemological
and theoretical differences between traditions; differences that make them incompatible in
important respects, for instance, with respect to their units of analysis. An acceptance of
incompatibilities in perspectives is not necessarily a problem. In fact, such a situation may, if
the debates are grounded in a mutual acceptance of the diverse manners in which knowing and
learning may be theorized, give us a richer frame of reference from which to analyze learning
in its various manifestations in complex societies.

Defining learning has always been difficult, it seems. All in-
troductory textbooks and all authoritative texts on the state
of research acknowledge this, often somewhat apologetically.
Most of them end up with definitions that contain expressions
such as “change in a subject’s behavior or behavior poten-
tial” (Bower & Hilgard, 1981, p. 11), as “any change in an
individual that expresses itself in a relatively stable form of
behavior” (Borger & Seaborne, 1982, p. 13), or as a “process
that results in a relatively enduring change in a person or
persons” (Alexander, Schallert, & Reynolds, 2009/this issue,
p. 186) as essential elements of what this elusive concept
points to. Generally authors are also concerned to separate
learning from other processes such as maturation, develop-
ment and accidental changes in a person’s capacities. The
message one gets from reading attempts of defining the con-
cept is that although it is not easy to define learning, and
that every definition can be challenged (what does enduring
mean?), we can approximate what we are talking about in
sufficient detail for research to go on.
I am very sympathetic to the approach taken by the authors
of this article as they grapple with this set of dilemmas. The
experience and overview they represent in the field of learn-
ing research are truly impressive, and I fully sympathize with
the value of their ambition of bringing “the notion of learn-
Correspondence should be addressed to Roger Säljö, Department of Edu-
cation, University of Gothenburg, Box 300, SE-40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
E-mail: roger.saljo@ped.gu.se
ing into the realm of explicit discourse” (Alexander et al.,
2009/this issue, p. 177). This makes it possible to engage in
stimulating reflections and debates of what unites perspec-
tives, and where the more or less irreconcilable differences
may lie. I think most readers also agree that “a fracturing
of the community [of scholars] along theoretical fault lines”
(p. 177) is improductive and that there is a need for the op-
posite: a more vibrant debate between perspectives regarding
basic assumptions, methods, and aims. A topographical view
of the matter will contribute to this by considering how the
various perspectives deal with the what, where, who, and
when of learning. I also think that the particular emphasis
the authors put on attending to the what of learning is im-
portant, as this promises to make learning research more
concrete with more attention paid to the integrity of the phe-
nomena studied. Learning of something—be it navigation
(Hutchins, 1993), language (Nelson, 1996), blacksmithing
(Keller & Keller, 1996) or categorizing practices in the un-
employment office (Mäkitalo & Säljö, 2002)—should not
be seen merely as examples of a general category of learn-
ing, but first and foremost as the learning of something, as
real-world events involving transformations of people and
activities.
An immediate observation to be made is that the defini-
tion that the authors suggest is considerably more complex
than the ones found in textbooks from the 1960s and 1970s,
when the basic conflict to be taken into account concerned the
struggle between behaviorism and cognitivism. In the present

definition, the elements in focus include issues that concern
how persons “perceive . . . and reciprocally respond to its [i.e.
the world’s] affordances physically, psychologically, and so-
cially” (Alexander et al., 2009/this issue, p. 186). These are
elements that perhaps would not have made it into a definition
some decades ago. In addition, the authors make a claim that
can be seen as going against what learning (and memory)
research used to be about, when they argue that “the simple
recall of that which was previously learned does not consti-
tute learning per se” (p. 186). This might be interpreted as
doing away with decades of research on learning and memory
following in the footsteps of Ebbinghaus (1885), where the
point of the experiments was precisely one of using exact re-
production of non-sense syllables as the criterion of learning
and remembering.
As one reads the nine principles and the four dimensions
that form the basis for the definition, it is obvious that this
field of research has become much more diverse and com-
plex in what we have to take into account to do justice to
our object of inquiry. Behaviors and cognitive processes no
longer suffice as basic constructs for providing a coherent
and interesting conceptualization of learning; there are many
other issues that have to be considered such as time, situ-
atedness, and reciprocity between individuals and cultural
practices. Also, in the literature it is no longer just indi-
viduals who learn and remember but also collectives such
as organizations, societies and systems of people and arte-
facts (Bouza, 2004; Hutchins, 1995; Wertsch, 2002). The
challenges of the more anthropological, interactional, social,
and sociocultural perspectives are now so obvious that the
classical psychological interpretation of learning is under
pressure. Learning has become very visible in what peo-
ple refer to as the knowledge society, and there are many
disciplines and research traditions on the go to offer their
insights.
Of the many signficant points raised in the article, I choose
to comment on a few. Because I am a strong believer in the
fruitfulness of understanding the differences and similarities
between different approaches, I comment on those issues that
I find in need of further elaboration or where I disagree. My
main argument is that although it is important to engage in
reflexive work, where the assumptions of various perspec-
tives are scrutinized and challenged, the particular platform
that the authors formulate, in spite of their claims, largely
gives priority to a realist agenda and is too consensus orien-
tated when it comes to describing differences and similarities
between perspectives. Even if one pays attention to the what,
where, who and when, and adheres to the principle of “inter-
active complexification” (Alexander et al., 2009/this issue,
p. 181), there will remain important incompatibilities be-
tween theoretical perspectives that should not be disregarded
or covered up. The richness in our knowledge about learning
(and development, perception, etc.) lies in the consideration
of the ontological and epistemological differences between
traditions.
LEARNING AND UNITS OF ANALYSIS 203
WHAT’S IN A WORD? WHAT’S LEARNING?
The first point I want to comment on is what I see as a ten-
sion in the text between the attempts to sort out how scholars
use the term/concept learning to characterize their research
and their object of inquiry, on one hand, and on the other
hand the very difficult question of what learning is in some
basic, essential, and down-to-earth sense. The first question
is a problem that can be understood in terms of theoretical
debates and epistemological conflicts between scholars of a
kind that is quite common in research. We expect scholars to
argue about what they are studying and what is the heart of
the matter. Such activities bring our understanding forward,
unless the gap becomes too wide, which is perhaps the experi-
ence that the authors had as they embarked on their intellec-
tual journey. In Wittgensteinian (1953, §7) terms, scholars
engage in different “language games” in which they argue
about what is a relevant and productive conceptualization of
learning, and what they find is that perspectives, methods,
and assumptions about what should be relevant premises and
core assumptions vary.
The second point, however, which concerns what learning
is, makes me a bit uneasy, and, in spite of the integrative and
multidimensional ambitions, there is a tension in the text that
concerns precisely this issue. Thus, there are, at places, clear
signs of essentialist ideas, where the assumption seems to
be that because there is a term learning, and because we do
research about it, there has to be something in common; there
simply has to be a way of organizing perspectives in such a
manner that we realize that we are all part of the same river
system, to use the metaphor with which the authors begin
their article. Some of the signs of this line of argumentation
can be found in expressions such as the authors’ ambitions
to “understand the true nature of human learning” (Alexan-
der et al., 2009/this issue, p. 176), their claim that a “critical
look at the very nature of learning is beneficial” (p. 177),
and their interest in “understanding the essence of human
learning” (p. 189). The uses of terms such as “true nature,”
“the essence,” and the like might be read as indicating that
we would some day, were we to conduct our inquiries metic-
ulously enough, be able to make ontological claims about
learning that would settle the matter: We are all swimming
in the same river, we are just positioned a bit differently and
we cannot see each other owing to the flooding, the rocks, or
the bending of the river as it interacts with its environment.
I was also somewhat worried by the analogy that the authors
make when they say that when defining something, it is “es-
sential not just to establish what a thing is, but also to note
what it is not” (p. 186). This things-ontology hovers in the
background of the text, when the authors seem to be long-
ing for some definition that pins down what learning really
is.
On the other hand, there are the opposite tendencies in the
text, for instance, when the authors claim that their intention
is not to “treat learning as a unitary process or outcome”
204 SÄLJÖ
(Alexander et al., 2009/this issue, p. 181) but rather to open
up for inquiry into its complexity in human activities (and the
three empirical examples testify to this). The latter position
would also imply that one considers the term learning itself
as quite metaphorical and in constant need of stipulative
definitions. Thus, one would always require that a scholar
makes explicit which theoretical lenses that she is using when
studying and making claims about learning. In addition, such
a perspective gives recognition to the fact that learning is
embedded in different “language games” and that there is
no single such game in which the final, most basic, or even
common meaning can be found or agreed upon.
In other words, what I am not entirely clear about in the
position taken by the authors is how they view the role of
theorizing in learning research. In some parts of the text it
seems as if they see the theoretical problems as having to
do with the observation that theories diverge and that there
really should be more of consensus and cohesion; it appears
almost as a moral imperative for researchers to get their act
together. In other parts of the text, especially when discussing
the what of learning, they seem to accept that the areas and
issues studied are far apart, and perhaps they should be al-
lowed to be so. In my interpretation, the point of a theory does
not lie in its correspondence with the world (which would be
the realist perspective) but rather in its explanatory power
in relation to a set of issues. If a scholar should find that
researching learning in the context of selling cookies in a
girl scout community (Rogoff, 1990) or of apprenticeship in
the Swiss watch industry (Perret & Perret-Clermont, 2004)
may be hard to align with learning research on the neuro-
chemistry of the brain or conditioned behaviors, he or she
is, in my opinion, obliged to choose a theoretical perspec-
tive that takes better into account the relevant circumstances,
practices and identity transformations. Especially this is the
case if the interest is in the what of learning, and if we want
to dialogue with those who have their primary concerns in
the reproduction of skills and knowledge in this field. So the
theoretical diversity may have as one of its backgrounds the
fact that learning is studied in so many contexts and that
there are many stakeholders with different needs and prior-
ities. And an important lesson to be learned for research is
that “truth must be otherwise conceived than as a correspon-
dence with a ready-made world” (Goodman, 1978, p. 94); it
is a matter of responding to legitimate concerns of different
stakeholders.
REDUCTIONISM: COMPATIBILITIES AND
INCOMPATIBILITIES IN PERSPECTIVES
Research is a reductionist enterprise. We simply cannot rep-
resent and codify the world in all its complexities in our
accounts. What I find less appealing in the article is the ten-
dency to adhere to a reductionist agenda which somehow
seems to give priority to a biological interpretation of human
beings and learning as foundational. This creeps in here and
there. For instance, it is evident in the figure, which symbol-
ically places biology as the pillar on which everything rests.
The authors also explicitly argue that “we want to acknowl-
edge that all learning has as its foundation a biological and
neurological basis” (Alexander et al., 2009/this issue, p. 182),
that our humaness is due to “the particular neurobiological
architecture humans have developed” (p. 179), and, when
describing “the who” of the four dimensions, they empha-
size that it is essential to keep as a basic premise in research
on learning constant awareness on “how humans are wired”
(p. 184). And there are other arguments along the same line.
At one level, one cannot deny such claims, because it is true
that biology plays an important role. But I fail to see why
precisely this, rather than some of the other fundamentals, is
considered equally prominent. And what is the implication of
this claim? Is it that we must all ground our understandings
and our theorizing in this fact? Should the learning of how to
write a scientific article somehow be carried out under this
intellectual umbrella?
Thus, the authors at some points seem to want to establish
what are essentials and basics that have to be attended in any
attempt to do research. They almost seem to be operating with
a wish to establish pretheoretical categories that every scholar
has to take into account. Another interpretation of what the
authors are arguing is that there are many foundations that
can serve as theoretical pillars. It is equally foundational that
people have a capacity for communicating and developing
cultural forms of knowledge that we find nowhere else. Peo-
ple are sign-making and meaning-making beings. People can
build societies, create cosmologies, develop intellectual and
physical technologies, and (re)produce knowledge through a
social organization of learning that is completely unique in its
complexity and power. Human societies can cumulate knowl-
edge over generations, and people can teach each other parts
of those skills; they even invented classrooms thousands of
years ago. We can engage in purposeful interaction specifi-
cally aimed at reproducing knowledge, and we organize soci-
eties so that we do not lose significant elements of our social
memory. All of these achievements are grounded in our abil-
ity to learn. Furthermore, this capacity for learning does not
lead in one direction; rather, it produces different kinds of
societies with different types of knowledge and skills. Thus,
the biological basis is there, but it does not, as the authors
point out in other places, suffice as an explanatory basis,
nor can it be seen as a primary point of reference for every
issue we wish to explore. There are many things that are
foundational about human beings, including our capacities
for communicating, sign making, and collective knowledge
building. In addition, a remarkable fact about our biology is
that it is so flexible that we can accommodate to the most di-
verse circumstances of life as is evident if we look at human
habitats historically or even today. Literacy is an interesting
case in point—an intellecutual and material technology that

is significant and important, but which accompanies only a
minority of the languages and societies we know through
history.
To be more concrete, an example of this tendency to re-
sort to establishing some kind of biological primacy for dis-
cussing human capacities is evident in the following quote,
which serves as an illustration of the “neurobiological archi-
tecture” of humans: “Consequently, the colors we see, the
tones we hear, the smells we can detect, and the nature of
our reasoning are all constrained by our evolved biology”
(Alexander et al., 2009/this issue, p. 179). In my opinion,
one can take issue with all of these claims if one is inter-
ested in learning, cognition, development, or any other hu-
man practice that involves meaning making. For instance, and
to be anectodal, I vividly remember the first time I learned to
recognize the distinction between white and off-white. This
distinction emerged for me as a living category when I went
in to a shop to buy a sweater as a present. While pointing to
a sweater and calling it white, the shop assistant indirectly,
and quite politely, corrected me by saying that this was the
color of current fashion, which was off-white. For him, the
distinction between these colors was very important. Indeed,
the entire success of the promotional activities of the com-
pany that year built on the novelty of the color off-white.
Thus, humans can discriminate a vast number of colors, but
some are categorized and become significant in human prac-
tices. The other feature of this little event is that I learned to
recognize that distinction, and I can now tell the difference
between white and off-white.
In a more serious key, perception is in some distant man-
ner constrained by evolutionary processes and by our hard-
wiring, but in human practices distinctions and categoriza-
tions emerge that cannot be traced back to that origin. In
the study of perceptual and cognitive activities, this view of
meaning-making practices has been developed in a series of
fascinating studies by Goodwin (1994, 1997). What Good-
win has shown is how seeing is shaped by cultural practices.
Thus, archeologists learn to look at objects in particular man-
ners in order to ascertain, for instance, whether something
is artificial (thus human-made and of interest to the arche-
ologist) or natural (i.e., something that is just there). In a
similar vein, Goodwin illustrated how a novice on board a
research vessel is learning how to stop a chemical process
when the measurement instrument, a piece of fiber, turns jet-
black. Thus, what the novice has to acquire is a categorical
distinction between black and jet-black (much as I acciden-
tally learned about white on my little shopping trip). This
distinction is grounded in a professional practice, because
a measurement technique has been developed that relies on
precisely this distinction: Jet-black is different from black.
In other words, the seeing is accountable to the specific pro-
fessional practices of a community and their situated activity
system; seeing is informed by a highly specialized knowl-
edge system, and to see in this manner, one has to learn what
there is to see.
LEARNING AND UNITS OF ANALYSIS 205
In a similar vein, the authors establish as a fundament that
individual differences must be taken into account and again
their claim seems to be that such factors have to be consid-
ered as fundamental. “Just as some of us are taller and faster
than others, some of us have greater visual acuity, or memory
capacity,” there will be “significant differences among indi-
viduals with regard to any cognitive or noncognitive factor”
(Alexander et al., 2009/this issue, p. 179). The conclusion
of this argument is that these “physiological [italics added]
differences set upper or lower boundaries within which learn-
ing may be constrained in the human system” (pp. 179–180).
Again, there is no point in denying that there are individual
differences in cognitive factors, even if many in this case
would be somewhat cautious in grounding these exclusively
in physiology in this manner. It is obvious that there are occa-
sions and institutional practices where such differences play
an explanatory role, but one can also see how sometimes indi-
vidual differences do not play such a central role or how they
may work out differently across activities. The authors give
an example of how people experienced in one area (baseball)
but low in general ability may outperform those with high
general ability in memory tasks within that particular activ-
ity. Also, in many activities, such as when learning outside
the school system, the activities may be organized in such a
manner that the role of individual differences are not decisive.
For instance, I would assume that in cookie selling among
Girl Scouts, which is an example from Rogoff (1990) that
the authors use, individual differences play a different role
than when it comes to learning mathematics or performance
when running 100 m. Thus, we can imagine settings where
individual differences are critical, but we can also imagine
settings where the learning situation can be organized in such
a manner that these differences do not appear as fundamental.
I am also somewhat sceptical against the general argu-
ment that specific physiological factors set limits to peo-
ple’s learning, even though one should not deny that there
are things that not all of us can do. But, as we study the
history of education, we learn that we have been surprised
on many occasions. During the 20th century and in some
cases well up until after the Second World War, textbooks for
Swedish psychologists contained classifications of people
with communicative handicaps, for instance, into categories
such as idiots, half-idiots and quarter-idiots, imbeciles, and
so on. These were all categories the scientific status of which
was grounded in psychiatric tests and evaluations (Hjörne &
Säljö, 2008). As a next step, it was said that people thus clas-
sified could not profit from education, nor could they achieve
specific cognitive skills. Many of them were simply locked
up in psychiatric institutions, and in this sense the categories
were highly consequential. At present, the situation is very
different, and some of these groups can achieve many life
skills, even learn to read at a basic level, and they are able
to live relatively independent lives. This result, to a large ex-
tent, is produced by the fact that it was realized by insightful
people that one cannot argue deterministically on the basis
206 SÄLJÖ
of physiology; rather, one has to adapt the pedagogy and the
training to the specific needs of different groups.
A productive interdisciplinary and multidimensional ap-
proach to learning, thus, should be based on the explicit
recognition that there are many intellectual platforms that
can be legitimately defended as foundational. The social,
the organizational, and the communicative ones are no less
so than the biological. Individual differences are sometimes
important, but on other occasions less so. Learning, seeing,
reasoning, and remembering can be legitimately explored
from different perspectives that are not reducible to each
other. So, in the spirit of the article, rather than in the words
of the quotes in the earlier paragraph, we should all stretch
out from where are to make an honest intellectual attempt to
reach in other directions under the assumption that what is
foundational is a matter of what perspectives we adopt and
what questions about learning we are addressing. Meaning
making is as foundational as are biological constraints.
LEARNING THEORIES AND THE UNIT
OF ANALYSIS
In my terminology, many of the dimensions that the authors
discuss concern the relationship between theories and the
units of analysis they imply and require. What I mean by
unit of analysis is thus the choice of a conceptualization of
a phenomenon that corresponds to a theoretical perspective
or framework. And every phenomenon lends itself to many
conceptualizations. For instance, if one studies the traffic flow
in urban areas, one attends to vehicles as parts of that system;
how many they are, how much space they occupy, how fast
they travel during peak traffic hours, and so on. There is no
need for that particular inquiry to analyze the functionality
of the electronic ignition system or the details of the tires.
The interesting unit is the vehicle as a functional element of
a traffic system.
The concept of learning has many potential units of anal-
ysis, all the way from the molecular level of neurochem-
istry, via other fields of neuroscience over to various areas of
psychology, education, organization studies, and many other
social sciences. These levels of inquiry, and their respec-
tive units of analysis, stand in very complex relationships
to each, and to bridge between them is often a complex af-
fair. And, by the way, there is one approach to understanding
learning that is almost absent in the author’s account, ex-
cept for a brief mention, and that is the experiential and
phenomenological one. Learning is quite a common term in
everyday language, and people use it frequently to commu-
nicate their experiences. A university student might be heard
saying that “the course was good and I learned a lot,” and
this then is a report that in interesting manners communi-
cates an experience. Perhaps this is something that I miss
in the nine principles advocated. Learning plays a very im-
portant role in human discourse as a “members’ concept,” as
ethnomethodologists would put it. This more phenomenolog-
ical dimension of learning, in my opinion, is very important,
and for instance, the epistemic beliefs that people hold about
learning in educational settings should be allowed to play
a part of a multidimensional approach, because learning is
lived. And an interesting question is how such insights can
be made compatible with the more traditional perspectives
which look at learning from the researcher’s perspective.
Learning thus clearly qualifies as a family concept in
Wittgenstein’s terminology, and it is used in meaningful ways
in many contexts, practices, and their respective language
games. For research on learning, a strategically important
move seems to be to give recognition to this fact, and to care-
fully examine learning in the context of human practices,
and to attend to the what, where, who and when of learn-
ing will be important. In this manner we might understand
how practices evolve and what happens to people in terms
of their capacities, intellectual repertoires and identities as
part of such processes. Then we may expand by inquiring
into what counts as learning in different practices (including
education), and how sensitive our theoretical perspectives are
when it comes to showing us what is happening and why. But
even if we set out with the four w’s, we will still not find our
perspectives compatible.
My problem is not that we have many perspectives and
units of analysis, although I must confess that I, almost on a
daily basis, see that this makes life much more difficult for
doctoral students in comparison to when I was in that position
in the 1970s. Where I was trained, we had Grand Theorists
such as Piaget, Skinner, some of the Gestalt psychologists,
and the rising stars of cognitivism, but this was manageable
in comparison to the present-day situation with a rich, and
rather confusing, array of more or less clearly articulated
perspectives on offer. A more serious problem is the lack of
dialogue, which the authors point to, but also, and perhaps
equally important, the claims to knowledge that lie in the
theoretical perspectives. Perhaps the most disturbing example
of this in the 125 years of empirical research on learning is
behaviorism, where the metaphorical nature of the concept
of learning played such as problematic role: One studied rats
and pigeons and made claims about people. Thus, the claims
to knowledge were not warranted on the basis of research
that had very little to do with most of the many varied forms
of learning that humans engage in.
The solution to the problems that the authors point to, in
my opinion, lies not in overemphasizing the complementar-
ity of perspectives. It is equally important to recognize that
ontologies and epistemologies differ between traditions, and
such differences imply that traditions become incompatible.
Thus, some faults should be allowed to exist; how wide they
are, we have to explore. In the history of psychology, there are
many examples of such incompatibilities between traditions
and with respect to how concepts are used and understood.
For instance, with respect to such a foundational, and in
some respect simple, idea as the notion of a stimulus, Dewey

(1896), well more than 100 years ago in his famous article
about the concept of the reflex arc, pointed to the problems
of how it was construed:
If one is reading a book, if one is hunting, if one is watch-
ing in a dark place on a lonely night, if one is performing
a chemical experiment, in each case, the noise has a very
different psychical value; it is a different experience. In any
case, what proceeds the “stimulus” is a whole act, a sensori-
motor coördination. What is more to the point, the “stimu-
lus” emerges out of this coördination; it is born from it as its
matrix. (p. 361)
Thus, what Dewey so elegantly argued is that even in the
manner we construe something as allegedly simple as a stim-
ulus, sharp theoretical and conceptual differences emerge.
The unit of analysis in the classical psychological concep-
tion is an external causal relationship a stimulus has to a
response or a reaction, whereas in Dewey’s case what is de-
scribed as a stimulus has totally different “psychic values”
depending on the act that precedes it. In consequence, Dewey
argues for a circular understanding the relationship between
stimulus and response: The “response determines the stimu-
lus just as truly as sensory stimulus determines movement”
(p. 363). Thus, the idea of stimuli, when conceived within a
perspective that has a different conception of human action,
relies on a very different assumption than when it is seen as
a mechanical cause of behavior.
In a similar vein, on the basis of their examples the au-
thors seem to argue for a complementarity of perspectives
where representatives of different traditions frame the events
in different manners. Thus they argue that
the whats that garner much attention from behavior theorists
would fit well within the acquired habits and conditionings
level of our depiction, whereas the interests of sociocultural
theorists may more often nest themselves at the level of sci-
entific concepts and practices. (Alexander et al., 2009/this
issue, p. 182)
This is another example where I fear both sides of this par-
ticular fault may feel a bit uneasy. For instance, locating the
prime interests of a sociocultural perspective in scientific
concepts and practices (as in the case of learning to write
scientifically) constrains the claims to knowledge of that tra-
dition in a manner that is not justified. It might be that much
of what is published attends to such issues, but the tradition
includes a strong interest in behaviors and embodied action.
For instance, Leontiev’s famous example of how one learns
to drive a car exemplifies this. What is for a beginner a set of
discrete conscious actions requiring much attention (steering
the car, keeping your eyes on the road so you know where you
are, looking out for other cars, shifting gears, increasing and
decreasing the pressure on the accelerator, etc.) eventually
are automatized and transformed into “operations” (or be-
haviors, but not behaviors in the sense of behaviorism). After
LEARNING AND UNITS OF ANALYSIS 207
some practice, the driver does not need to pay conscious
attention to all these separate activities that go into driving
a car; actions have been turned into automatized behaviors
as they do in many settings when we familiarize ourselves
with an activity. Another example of a similar development
would be a person who learns to use an instrument, let us say
an abacus. While learning, the actions necessary are slow,
are stepwise, and require much attention. Eventually, they
become automatized, and skilled users reach an incredible
speed and reliability in their calculations when they collabo-
rate with this particular tool. In fact, some become so skilled
that they can calculate quite effectively with an imagined—
mental—abacus (Hatano, 1982; Hatano, Miyake, & Binks,
1977; Stigler, 1984).
A major interest of a sociocultural perspective is thus the
study of how human skills—be they bodily, cognitive, per-
ceptual or a mix of these dimensions—are appropriated by
individuals. The ability to perform various activities is seen
as resulting from an increasing ability to structure the world
by means of language. What the child can do with support and
under control of a more competent peer, he or she can even-
tually do independently and without such external support.
Thus, language learning is not the acquisition of vocabulary,
syntax, and other features, it also represents a growing capac-
ity to structure one’s own behaviors and intellectual practices
in purposeful manners in situated practices.
A similar note on incompatibilities could be made for
the case of cognitive processes. Cognitivist and sociocul-
tural theories share an interest in thinking, but they conceive
of cognitive processes and their genesis very differently. In
the traditional cognitivist perspective, cognitive processes
were understood as an issue of how information is pro-
cessed. Processing was conceived within a computational
model, as Bruner (1990) so passionately argued in his book
Acts of Meaning. Acts of meaning or meaning-making prac-
tices, on the other hand, require a different unit of analy-
sis where the dynamics of the semiotics of human uses of
signs are attended to, and here the notion of mediated ac-
tion plays a fundamental role as a unit of analysis (Vygot-
sky, 1981; Wertsch, 2007). In other words, what emerges in
such practices is not determined by the input in terms of
information that is processed in a cognitive system; semi-
otic mediation implies that “a sign functions as a means
of social or intrapersonal discourse” (Wells, 2007, p. 245)
and that it is a resource for meaning making in thinking
and in interaction with others. This notion of a process
is clearly different from the conception within a cognitive
tradition.
SO, “WHAT IS LEARNING ANYWAY?”
The discussion which the authors have started is important
and should always be present. It testifies to the fact that we
208 SÄLJÖ
have to take into account the complexity of learning and
inquire into how such processes are conceptualized in vari-
ous traditions and fields of research. In my opinion, learning
is meaningfully studied within many traditions and with dif-
ferent units of analysis. These traditions stand in complex
relationships to each other, and bridging between them is of-
ten hard work. Sometimes it is impossible. The “interactive
complexification,” thus, is not a smooth process but implies
that units of analysis will change as we move up and down
in the figure provided by the authors. In line with the argu-
mentation presented by (Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996),
I would argue that the situated/pragmatist/sociocultural per-
spectives are compatible (although not identical) in terms of
their units of analysis through their largely shared notions
of social action and through their focus on thinking as em-
bedded in social and material practices. Cognitivism has a
different unit of analysis and explanatory framework. As it is
probably easier to agree on, behaviorism tells a very different
story. So, in the spirit of our business—learning research—
we should learn about the traditions that are available; inquire
into their basic assumptions, ontologies, and epistemologies;
and increase our sensitivity to what extent and in what sense
they are compatible. And we should help each other realize
what the differences in assumptions and units of analysis are,
as they may be hard to see from inside any one of them. But
there should also be competition between perspectives, be-
cause there are so many contexts and practices where learning
is a fruitful point of departure for analysing what individuals
and collectives engage in. Rivalry and coexistence should
lead us forward.
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