The Mediating Role of Context in an Urban After-School Robotics Program

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the usefulness of cultural-historical activity theory in understanding how context mediates youth activity in a successful urban after-school robotics program. Youth activity is analyzed using activity systems, uncovering the role of tools, rules, community, and division of labor in youth engagement with a set of open-ended engineering tasks. The program supported the youth in making sense of the engineering tasks using their own intuitive methods, and it also helped them to see a purpose for disciplinary practices. The author illustrates that the social context, made up of elements from in and out of school, supported youth in drawing on knowledge from across different settings. A use of activity systems is proposed for practitioners in the design of out-of-school-time educational programs.