The significance of demands and motives across practices in children's learning and development: An analysis of learning in home and school

Cultural–historical theory is grounded in the idea that learning and development are consequences of a person's meaningful interactions in societal practices. This article builds further on the idea by emphasizing the part played by the demands from practices in these interactions. These demands themselves may be a function of an intertwining of different institutional practices. First an analytical framework is introduced and illustrated through analyzing an example of how school demands are present in the home setting. This is followed by an example from school to illustrate that demands and motives that a child encounters have to be seen in relation to the objective of the institutional practice. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some implications of the analytical perspective for theories of learning and development. Particular attention is given to the unity of person and activity settings and their transformative interactions in activities.