University-Community Links as a Sociotechnical Activity System

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors continue to approach UC Links as a sociotechnical activity system, viewing the collaborative work of community and university partners as activity that takes place in localized primary work settings and in a geographically and institutionally dispersed community of learners. Following Rogoff, this chapter adjusts analytical lenses from a focus on the local program site to view this cognitive process at both the whole organizational and macrosocial planes of observation. In the example of the UC Links network, whole organizational systems consist of broader collectivities of people who work across interconnected primary work systems, as people in those various primary settings learn from each other and coordinate their own localized efforts with others beyond their immediate range of activity. On the macrosocial plane, external constraints and opportunities impacting the primary and whole organizational systems come into focus as formative conditions defining the dynamic context in which primary activities emerge.