Using cultural historical activity theory to uncover praxis for inclusive education

This paper explores ways in which cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) provides a useful framework for examination of reflection and action during inclusive education fieldwork. Deeper understanding of combined reflection and action – praxis – is needed for researchers and teacher educators to support teacher candidates’ implementation of inclusive practices. We present a framework that includes core components of CHAT and potential insights these elements can bring to describing, analysing, or facilitating praxis during fieldwork. In particular, we discuss affordances of identifying activity systems, examining tool appropriation, and discovering tensions in teacher fieldwork. Examples based on evidence from two studies applying a CHAT lens to inclusive education fieldwork are embedded throughout the paper to illustrate the utility of this approach.