Cultural-Historical Digital Methodologies: The Dialectics of Crisis and Research Innovation

Abstract

This book brings forward concepts to support a cultural-historical digital methodology. Specifically, this chapter draws on the dialectics of crisis to articulate a series of research innovations that are presented throughout the book. The chapter outlines the theorising of the methods, and discusses the concepts of e-motion, cultural-historical loop model and builds on the legacy of a wholeness approach to elaborate how the original concepts introduced by Mariane Hedegaard work in digital contexts. Crisis as a dialectical relation between an everyday and scientific reading are foregrounded in this chapter, and through this lens the chapter presents a scholarly contribution across the three broad principles of dialectics, historicity, and cultural-historical practice-centred science in times of crisis.

1.1 Introduction

This book aims to bring forward new methods and methodologies to support researchers working in a cultural-historical tradition. We suggest that it is not the ‘method’ per se, but rather the focus is on how to create the conditions that allow researchers to better understand dynamic and changing realities being faced in times of crisis. Vygotsky (1997) suggested:

The method must be adequate to the subject studied … Knowing the uniqueness and deliberately beginning the research from this point is the first condition for adequacy of the method and the problem; for this reason, the problem of method is the beginning and the foundation, the alpha and the omega of the whole history of the cultural development of the child. (p. 27)

To achieve the goal of this book, we show how new methods have acted in the service of new research needs brought about by a global pandemic. However, this is not the only kind of crisis to bring new concepts into our research tradition. We suggest that many kinds of crises co-exist, such as the globally felt conflicts and devastation of war and the climate emergency, where extremes in weather are creating localised flooding, drought, and economic deprivation. We also acknowledge the predicted crises of future pandemics that remain on the horizon and that will impact the work of researchers.

In this book, the scientific concept of crisis and the everyday lived experience of crisis are in dialectical relations with each other. This dynamic has been grouped in this book under five sections, showing how the work of researchers across the community, families, and the profession has to be realised in new ways. By making the relations between the scientific and everyday readings of crises visible, the researchers have been able to consciously realise new research conditions and to theorise a new dynamic interplay when solving problems associated with human needs.

As editors, we recognise that a crisis is viewed scientifically as a source of development for the researcher. However, it is also a painful time for the research participants and the everyday life circumstances of families and communities, more broadly, who are engaged in the field of early childhood. Therefore, this book also brings forward the new concept of dis-situation of development (Sect. 1.4). This concept seeks to capture the idea that whilst it is known that not all crises are developmental, in the context of this book, researchers and research participants in times of crisis experience new social situations. Therefore, their existing social situation of development must be conceptualised differently.

In this book, the collective efforts of the researchers are introduced and theorised under five themes as new concepts to inform researchers, and these are symbolic of the disrupted practices that generated new ways of researching. The chapter concludes with a digital research model that brings together the theorising of the methods in the chapters of case studies that follow across the five sections of the book and which support our dialectical model of research.

1.2 Concepts to Inform Research in Times of Crisis

In this section, we introduce each of the five concepts that have emerged from a synthesis of the content of this book.

Theme 1: Dialectics

Crisis is not a contemporary concept or an unprecedented experience in the history of the development of human personality. It is the sine qua non of being and becoming. Historically, ‘People in various parts of the globe in different moments of their life have to deal with various forms of crises (environmental crisis, public health crisis, socio-economic crisis, psychological crisis, educational crisis, etc.)’ (Dafermos, 2022, pp. 1–2). The transformative nature of the COVID-19 pandemic brought this realisation forward in our everyday lives as an everyday phenomenon in a tangible and catalytic way. In parallel, the scientific concept of crisis became central in our research trajectories as a means to reflect on, understand, and change the new reality.

This book is not about the pandemic. It is a book that discusses how researchers reflect on their ever-changing and contradictory worlds and develop concepts and methods to respond to new societal needs, meet emerging demands, and understand reality in motion. One of the anchoring principles that we work with as part of bringing out new methods and methodologies for researching early childhood is how theory must change and develop in relation to the context, conditions, and the historical moment in which researchers are working. With the critical experience of the global pandemic behind us, we intend to employ the dialectical understanding of crisis in cultural-historical theory (Dafermos, 2022) to reflect on diverse contexts of early childhood education. With a global pandemic as an illustration, this book captures a historical moment in time that brings forward the dialectical aspect of the concept of crisis and shows how theory and methodologies can inspire and change in relation to new demands and conditions in an unprecedented time. Historically, the global pandemic is one moment in a long line of many in which our theoretical reflections were challenged and developed. Historical examples, such as the development of Vygotsky’s theorisations during the times of the Russian empire collapse, the October revolution, and the emergence of the Soviet Union, as well as contemporary examples, such as the development of Mariane Hedegaard’s model (1999, 20,014) about a wholeness model to children’s development, where she acknowledge that focusing on the child’s perspective gave a too narrow conception of children’s development and therefore introduces societal conditions, and institutional practices giving demands that propelled a child’s developemnt in her/his own learning and development, are indicative of socially and culturally determined turning points in history and in theory.

As Dafermos argues (2015), ‘Dialectics as a way of thinking focuses on the study of each concrete object in its mutual connections with other objects, in its internal contradictions and in its process of change.’ However, in the historical moment that we, as researchers and as whole personalities, live through, the mutual connections in most cases have been loosened, interrupted, and reconnected in new ways; contradictions have taken over and changes are rapid and come in quick succession. The ideal form of research as we know it has been disrupted and challenged. For example, the mature form of an educational experiment, as originally enacted in practice and theorised as a collaboration on a theoretical problem, has had to be re-imagined (see Sect. 1.1). Within this framework, our understanding of the child’s world had been dis-situated and decontextualised. Using a dialectical lens allows us to search for new and complex connections and catch a new thread of interrelations, synthesise, and theorise them in a meaningful new way (see Sect. 1.2). Here, dialectics capture the unity between the personal and interpersonal, the intra- psychological and inter-phycological, materialism and idealism, continuity and discontinuity in times of crisis leading us to ‘islands of safety in the Heraclitean stream’ (Vygotsky, Vol. 3, p. 274). Through the model presented at the end of this introductory chapter and the five sections of this book, we map the current ‘islands of safety’ that dialectics have raised for us in terms of theory, methodology, and practice.

Theme 2: Navigating the Crisis Through New Knowledge Production

Like many cultural studies born from dialectics, models of research into children’s development, such as that of Hedegaard, are being challenged as researchers work under the new conditions of not being able to be in person at the research site. We find through our synthesis of the practices of the researchers described in the different chapters of this book that Hedgaard’s model is sensitive to historical change.

We are inspired by the model that Hedegaard developed and re-developed over time. This is indicative of how theory continues to evolve as societal conditions and research needs change. The qualitative methodology is constantly evolving, and crisis situations can easily propel a change in approach as new conditions set off or accelerate new demands and motives. This can be better understood in the context of the powerful critique of Vygotsky (1997) on traditional methods of research, which he said were static, captured only solidified development, and were not subject to historical transformation:

These techniques or methods of behavior, arising stereotypically in given situations represent virtual solidified, petrified, crystallized psychological forms that arose in remote times. (p. 39)

Traditional methods become expected by journal editors and reviewers, in presentations and in the justifications of researchers. They are survivors of latent approaches for the study of human needs and practices, which Vygotsky (1997) suggested were ‘weathered, historical scraps which have lost their [original] meaning, these psychological survivors of a remote past enter into the common tissue of [researcher] behavior in an alien body, so atypical, impersonal, having lost almost all meaning’ (p. 40). It is an important legacy of Vygotsky that concepts and theory are tools for thinking, as also recognised in Wartofsky’s work on artefacts and models (Wartofsky, 1979/1966). Wartofsky warns about a crude and naive realism when it comes to the concept of representation or to copy theory: ‘The tactic then is to enrich the concept of representation in such a way that it can accommodate a fairly sophisticated range of scientific models’ (Wartofsky, 1979/1966, p. 1). Concepts are tested and refined in their use, which in turn adds to new ways of approaching participants. In this way, research innovation evolves and changes methodology and knowledge.

Whilst there exists a critique of research methodologies based on Vygotsky, namely that the emphasis on the collective can put the research design at risk of ignoring the voice of the individuals involved, contemporary researchers and methods, such as Hedegaard’s innovative and renowned model of child development, encompass institutional practices from a cultural-historical perspective and give attention to individuals as well as the collective. Culture, development, and how we communicate are inextricably linked, just as a person’s understanding of a given activity, event, or utterance is conditional upon the situational cultural history.

Hedegaard theorised child development at a time when the field of developmental psychology was driven by ambitions of creating universal models and indicators of cognitive and behavioural development. By challenging the hegemony of laboratory-based experiments with observations conducted in the children’s daily settings, she became a new and radical voice in developmental psychology. Building on Vygotsky’s dialectical ontology stemming from the Marxist perspective that explains development as happening in a meshing of an ideal and material form, she developed a theory that contextualised the child’s development in interpersonal, institutional, and socio-cultural settings.

Significantly, these new theorisations and ways of bringing forward societal, institutional, and personal perspectives as realised through the dominating demands and motives were developed in contemporary times. Hedegaard’s model was originally developed in 1999. It was first published in relation to the problem of immigrants having to relate to different values in different institutions, such as those of family and school (Hedegaard, 1999).

Hedegaard’s work can evidently be traced to a Vygotskian, cultural-historical approach to learning and development (Edwards et al., 2019). However, she also engages in dialogues with contemporary scholars who study children and childhoods in social life conditions. She contextualises varies conditions for understanding children, childhood, and the impact of everyday lives, such as studies of children’s developmental trajectories and transitions in relation to families and professionals (Hedegaard et al., 2012). She develops her designs and modelling in dialogue with contemporary theorisations. As an alternative to the dominant school readiness approach across the globe, she points to the new tendencies found in the Nordic countries, where especially the governments in Denmark and Norway have recently formulated frameworks that conceptualise person formation in a wholeness approach and where children’s explorative activities are highlighted (Hedegaard & Ødegaard, 2020).

The cultural-historical premise in Hedegaard’s original 2008 model, used to analyse children’s development, assumes relatively stable activity settings. When crises occur, we are reminded of the disruption that emerges or clashes within activity settings and between them, which calls for bringing crises into theorisation.

In line with cultural-historical traditions, following Vygotsky’s legacy and the recognition that concepts are tools that enable us to work, Hedegaard’s ideas have not only been literally applied in diverse settings around the world but they have also been nuanced and developed by other researchers as they create new designs for new and local problems and analyse their empirical data.

In Hedegaard’s model from 2012, it is evident that Vygotsky’s work grounds the modelling of her ‘wholeness approach’, but not solely. She is also in dialogue with and inspired by Elkonin, Bruner, and Rogoff’s work, to name a few (Hedegaard, 2012) (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Hedegaard’s model of Wholeness Approach to children’s development (2012)

The dialectic relation between social demands (society) and the child’s motives (person) constitutes an important dynamic in the model. This line of cultural-historical tradition of psychology sees the child’s development as trajectories through institutional practices. The model supports analyses of children’s development with the premise that every point can be localised in relation to the child’s social situation. As articulated in a recent tribute to Hedegaard’s legacy:

This approach encourages us to try to understand the child as she or he engages with the demands and opportunities for action in activities that occur within institutional practices, which are themselves embedded in local and national histories and societal expectations (Edwards et al., 2019, p. 2).

The model visualises three overlapping streams of cultural traditions: home, school, and daycare (including varieties of early childhood settings, such as preschool and kindergarten).

This analytical approach, stemming from Hedegaard’s models, enables the researcher to problematise time as change and continuity, as developmental trajectories, and as transitions. The concept of ‘activity setting’ is central in the model and helpful for designing methodologies for early childhood educational settings and beyond, as ‘activity settings’ can be any everyday scene or event that will unfold in time and be situated in a local place. Activity settings are recurring events located in practices. These practices are based on traditions in a society’s different institutions.

Later, Hedegaard included human biology in her model to further theorise the nature of child development from a cultural-historical perspective (e.g. Hedegaard & Ødegaard, 2020). In our understanding, human biology entails wider cultural-historical interdisciplinary knowledge areas such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, ecology, nutrition, population genetics, and the interplay of these. In adding human biology as a concept in the theorisations, Hedegaard opens up the way for understanding children, childhood, and institutional practices as more than cultures alone, and this is interesting from the perspective of crises. As we know, crises can encompass epidemics, a lack of nutrition, genetic variations in individuals as well as in populations, unexpected ecological disasters, and other unforeseen events.

This example of Hedegaard’s transformation of her own model is suggestive that theories are not static self-contained systems of thought but are always in motion and always being transformed in relation to the local and societal conditions and to the research questions targeted. We suggest that the international context of the global pandemic and its associated crises for researchers and research participants also acted as a catalyst for the transformation of her model, as will be shown later in this chapter.

Therefore, we posit that the anchoring principle of the emergent models, methods, and methodologies will continue to change, as reflected in the evolution of the model of child development in contemporary times by cultural-historical theorists such as Hedegaard and those who have contributed to this book.

Theme 3: Hologram

The concept of the hologram comes into the picture in Sect. 1.4 as growing from the dialectics of crisis experiences and the process of innovating out of these through conceiving new activity settings for institutional practices. The hologram, then, is a response to the demand for continuation of academic practices from the isolation of individuals’ homes. As the essence of the hologram is an ‘apparent dematerialisation’ (Johnston, 2017, p. 494), we use this concept to capture the transfer of institutional activity settings to a cyber space extending beyond the campuses and homes. The hologram is also a way in which academic institutions respond to the expectations of particular historical moments.

The hologram of the university comprises digital rooms, break-out rooms, and platforms entered by researchers, lecturers, and students instead of offices, classrooms, and meeting rooms. Such a ‘dematerialisation’ depends strongly on the technological materiality being activated both on the university servers and at the individuals’ homes. Apart from the technological aspect of ‘freezing light interference’ (Johnston, 2017, p. 495), the hologram is also related to a joint intersubjectivity, a common imaginary space, where it is possible to participate and collaborate in both synchronous and asynchronous ways. This ‘three-dimensional imagery’ (Johnston, 2017, p. 493) captures the dialectics of the hologram itself, which is the dialectics between the material and ideal space. Extracted from the physical surroundings of a campus, it gives a sense of an ideal state, while its deep material/technological anchoring flashes out through the digital devices being used to enter the hologram (dematerialised university). Constituted in the dialectics between the ideal and material, it resembles the object put by Leontyev (2009) as existing ‘in twofold: first, in its independent existence as subordinating to itself and transforming the activity of the subject; second, as an image of the object, as a product of its property of psychological reflection that is realized as an activity of the subject and cannot exist otherwise’ (p. 86).

Through the lens of the hologram concept, it is possible to grasp how the re-searching for new practices of emergent research and academic teaching unfolds within the dialectical interplay of the material and ideal, as expounded upon in Sect. 1.4. The collaborations in the educational experiment cannot be undertaken in person. Through the digital platforms, a hologram of the relations between researchers and research participants is captured and understood as family–university and childcare–university sites. Collaborations are now virtually enabled.

Theme 4: Crisis: Plurotemporal and In-flux Material Conditions/Activity Settings/Space

Educational and developmental psychology is often criticised for its reliance on universal (spaceless) and ahistorical (timeless) conceptualisations of human development. In stable periods, space and time are generally considered in the background. Time (in terms of age and stage) and space (in terms of cultural and material conditions) are merely referenced to explain development in such a theorisation. This position contrasts with Vygotsky’s ‘genetic historical approach’, where he argues for studying development historically, which ‘means to study it in motion. Precisely this is the basic requirement of the dialectical method’; thus, ‘historical study of behavior is not supplementary or auxiliary to theoretical study but is a basis of the latter’ (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 43). One of the central features of a crisis is that it amplifies the moment (time), and in a crisis of the nature of a global pandemic it also restricts our access to spaces (workplace, school, early learning centres, preschools, playgroups, etc.) and forces new ways of using space. In these challenging moments, as Perret-Clermont and Lambolez remark:

It seems that we are prisoners of time and completely powerless when faced with it; we cannot speed it up, slow it down or stop it, much less go backward in it; it imposes its own pace on us, and we cannot change it. (Perret-Clermont & Lambolez, 2005)

A crisis is a critical moment in chronological time distinct from the past, present, and future. It is a time of acceleration, urgency, uncertainty, new demands, and new potentialities and transformation. This temporal distinctiveness also makes a crisis a time of modification and transformation. In the temporal sense, a crisis is ‘a state of greater or lesser permanence, as in longer or shorter transitions towards something better or worse or towards something altogether different’ (Koselleck & Richter, 2006, p. 358). A crisis is a moment marked by uncertainty about the future, a suspension of existing daily routines and habits. Moreover, it is also a moment of heightened emotional response, with the pressure of taking urgent actions even without fully understanding their consequences. It is impossible to plot all these developments in a single stream of time.

Crises also highlight that the relationship between time and space is not unidimensional or linear but plurotemporal. As Perret-Clermont and Lambolez (2005) suggest, following the work of Bruno Latour: ‘Time-space is perceived as enriched by the agency of human beings subtly weaving together interactions from many places, times and types of material’ (p. 9). While challenging the idea of timelessness in Piaget’s theory, Latour (2005) argues that ‘we should not speak of time, space and actant but rather of temporalization, spatialization and actantialization’ (p. 178). He continues with a comment that ‘since these words are horrible to understand’, a more elegantly way of expression this is ‘of timing, spacing, acting’ (p. 178). These ideas resonate with Chaiklin’s (2011) claim that cultural-historical science is directed to the study of human practices (see further below). This is in alignment with the Vygotsky’s own position as he suggested:

The most complex contradictions of psychological methodology are transferred to the grounds of practice and only there can they be solved … “Method” means “way,” we view it as a means of knowledge acquisition. But in all its points the way is determined by the goal to which it leads. That is why practice reforms the whole methodology of science. (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 306)

There is a discrete departure from the stable period; the crisis brings time and space to the forefront when regarding human development as a legitimate object of inquiry while thinking about practice interventions in educational experiments (as discussed in Sects. 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3). We begin to live in an in-flux/transitional time that is amplified in its experience, emotionally laden with new demands, and seems to move at a different pace marked by changes in routine and ways of living. Therefore, the new research methods presented in this book

… [lay the] foundations for a dialectical view of history as an ongoing fluid and dynamic process that is always here in the present, existing in the unending and ever-expanding dynamic layering of social practices in which the past and the present interpenetrate one another. (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2006, p. 82).

Theme 5: The Drama of Motion and (e)motions: e-motion (Emotions and Digital)

In many of the chapters that present new research methods, emotions are not always foregrounded. Yet, each of the researchers and practitioners has, in one way or another, experienced disturbances at a societal level that have to a lesser or greater extent had an impact on the institutional practices and personal motives of the researchers and research participants. Paying respect to the challenges faced and experienced in times of crisis means giving attention to emotions. We make visible new motives and demands when going digital during a crisis. Emotions constitute a variety of quality, intensity, frequency, course, and expression (Holodynski, 2013). The inner state of emotions is not necessarily consciously realised as a feeling state.

The function of cultural-historical dynamics in emotions and their role in development has been addressed in cultural-historical methodologies as a co-construction of emotions in social relationships (Fleer & Hammer, 2013; Holodynski, 2013). Emotions in this perspective are most often understood in the context of social others. How emotions are fundamentally biologically situated in the body, however, is not ignored in cultural-historical roots, and it is pointed out as the primary driver of human biology in Hedegaard’s latest works (e.g. Hedegaard & Ødegaard, 2020). This is in line with Vygotsky’s discussion of the ‘dynamogenic effect on emotional excitation’ as a basic factor in development. In Teaching about emotions: Historical-psychological studies (Vygotsky, 1933/1999), he states that:

… emotions control us from the very beginning of life on earth and increasing intensity of emotions becomes the commanding stimulus for strong movement. Each bodily change that occurs in the internal organs-cessation of digestive processes (which is accompanied by a release of a supply of energy that may be used by other organs), outflow of blood from internal organs whose activity is decreased to organs that participate directly in muscle tension (lungs, heart, central nervous system); strengthening of heart contractions; rapid elimination of muscle fatigue; mobilization of large reserves of sugar that contains energy-each of these internal changes results in a direct benefit, fortifying the organism during great expenditure of energy elicited by fright, pain, or anger. (p. 77)

Such bodily changes stemming from emotional states do not belong to the primary drives of the infant only. It is an inborn human capacity that may serve as an organic preparation for coming tensions and conflicts that potentially arise when confronted with uncertainty and worries, as well as with excitement and engagement, coming to the forefront, for example in digital agility, as pointed out in Part V. One should, however, take into consideration that ‘emotions differ and are set apart endlessly, but you will not find any logical generalisations in them’ (Vygotsky, 1933/1999, p. 75).

Even if emotions are not elaborated as emotions per se, in the practices referred to in this book, a range of emotions are at work when the research refers to ‘uncertainty’, ‘tensions’, ‘distress’, ‘safety’, ‘shame’, ‘engagement, ‘resilience’, and ‘agility’.

Noting the under-communicated emotions means recognising states often hidden from the surface of the methodology, including those with either negative or positive connotations. Even if emotions can be self-regulated, first after a cognitive recognition of what they mean in relation to the social context, it might be difficult and even impossible to control every aspect of biological motion set off by emotions. Emotions will disturb and even alter conditions in the social context and, therefore, notably in the research methodology. Being a field of predominantly women, ignoring emotions can mean ignoring cultural taken-for-granted gender discourses and practices in society. Valuing emotions is, therefore, a key issue in early childhood educational research.

Being in power has historically been associated with men, while powerlessness has been associated with women. Research during the global pandemic revealed an increase in female vulnerability. Male violence towards women increased in this period, at the same time as the complexity of women’s conditions increased (Pfitzner et al., 2020). Knowing that in the field of early childhood practitioners and researchers are predominantly female, valuing emotions is, therefore, a key determinant in understanding the field. Digitalisation in our context, in times of crisis, means that the emotional triggers of motives and demands are not neutral but must be considered both culturally and historically.

Consequently, we bring forward how economics is also an e-motion. This can refer to economic motion, electronic digital economics, and emotions. The crisis creates new conditions of labour, and how this plays out is differently experienced. Figure 1.2 is illustrative of one way to conceptualise the relations between emotions and economics in the context of electronic digital research.

Fig. 1.2

E-motion – dialectical motion between economics, electronics, and emotions

1.3 Research Practices in Times of Crisis

In this section of the chapter, we look at how research practices have shaped the development of the concepts previously discussed and how the new concepts have enabled different ways of practising research. Chaiklin (2011) famously said that ‘All sciences have an object toward which they are directed’ (p. 227; original emphasis), and in our case, it was how to do research during times of crisis, and how to take into account new societal conditions. In addition to the societal conditions, we realised that nature, as biological and material conditions, must be considered when researching children’s development and conditions for professionals, families, researchers and their collaborative partners. Nature is unpredictable and will suddenly alter the more stable conditions we are used to considering in research and practice. Chaiklin (2011) said, ‘Human practices are manifest in institutionally structured traditions of action, which are organised in relation to the production of collectively needed products’ (p. 227). However, as will be shown throughout the forthcoming chapters, the actions and products of the institutional academy of the university were no longer possible (Part IV) when PhD students and academics could not enter the country to gather data (Sect. 3.1, Chap. 3), participate in the living laboratory of a childcare centre or kindergarten (Sects. 1.2 and 1.5), or introduce interventions in family homes (Sec. 1.3). The problem was that researchers could not enter into the institutional practices that were foundational for their research, and the study designs and associated methods were no longer relevant for answering the research questions posed by the researchers. When a pandemic, earthquake, flood, tsunami, slide, fire or volcano hits, human practices previously manifested in institutional traditions might not be given sufficient analytic power to understand human practices.

Chaiklin (2011) shows how, in the dialectical tradition, scientific work includes ‘analytical perspectives about the goals and purposes for research, conceptions about the object of analytical focus (i.e. ontological dimensions), and conceptions about the kinds of scientific analyses that one seeks to make (i.e. epistemological dimensions)’. Whilst the goals and purpose of the research would appear to have remained during the period of the pandemic, the challenges associated with the analytical focus had to bring in the scientific concept of crisis but in relation to the everyday lived realities that the new demands of a pandemic made on the researchers (the role of the researcher) and the participants. Similarly, the epistemological dimensions of the research were also in flux because researchers could not use existing and well understood methods, such as an educational experiment, to generate data to answer the original research question (Sect. 1.1) or employ historically developed cultural-historical concepts for scientific analyses to realise the goals of the research (Sect. 1.2).

New methods to meet the object of the research were developed through the process of the new practices. A reliance on the available digital tools was needed to enable access, data collection, new forms of digital analysis, and pedagogical innovations. The digital conditions that emerged, such as a ‘research fairy’ Zooming from Australia into a childcare centre in China (Chap. 3) or posting a diorama to a kindergarten with a digital device that could Zoom in the researcher to interview children (Chap. 5), had not previously been imagined or crystallised (Vygotsky, 2004) into the institutional research practices of the academy. The new digital conditions allowed more explorative and cross-country collaboration (see also as this book documents). Two key digitally enabled research practices are shown throughout the chapters of this book, namely:

• 1. The digital educational experiment

• 2. The role of the researcher in digitally enabled research

Digital Educational Experiment

Vygotsky (1997) argued that ‘Usually the decisive moment of the experiment—the instruction—is left outside of the field of vision of the researcher. It is not subjected to analysis and is reduced to a secondary auxiliary process’ (p. 36). In line with this principle, we determined that it was through the everyday crisis of the global pandemic that researchers and research participants began to digitally document their shared theoretical problem (Hedegaard, 2008) by recording their sessions on Zoom. That is, they included in the research the ‘instruction’ associated with the research need. Different to the in-person practices of an educational experiment, where cameras, notes, or audio recorders are used and highly visible (and sometimes intrusive), the researchers and research participants simply pressed the record button on the Zoom app to document interactions.

The digitally enabled educational experiment is shown in Sects. 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 in a range of centre and family contexts. What is common to the research practices is how the Zoom facility and digital recordings acted as an auxiliary device in the educational experiment to enable efficient connectivity between researchers and research participants. Vygotsky (1997) says that both tools and signs are mediated, and in the context of a digital educational experiment, the mediated activity takes place virtually between researchers and research participants in their quest to achieve a common goal associated with the theoretical problem that is the core dimension of their collaboration. No travelling to sites or to the university by participants is needed. A convenient short meeting can take place in the car, lunchroom, or family home. It is not the device but how the device acts as the tool for mediated activity. As Vygotsky (1997) suggests, ‘we usually speak of tools when we have in mind the mediating function of some object or means of some activity’ (p. 60).

Mediation in a digital environment brings with it a particular genre but also new possibilities not yet imagined, such as being inside a diorama or Zooming in as a research fairy to interview children. In a digital educational experiment, the digital tool acting as an auxiliary device (an enabler of the research fairy or being projected from inside a diorama on a device) enables the intervention under study to be implemented through virtual means whilst at the same time capturing the collaborations as they are being constructed and transformed over time. The duality is made visible as both a tool and as the sign, but the core is always the mediating activity:

The use of auxiliary devices, the transition to mediated activity radically reconstructs the whole mental operations just as the use of a tool modifies the natural activity of the organs, and it broadens immeasurably the site of activity of mental functions (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 63).

Using a digital platform (Zoom), as a supplementary device not only enabled us to continue to research in new ways, but the mediated activity, as the quote from Vygotsky suggests, also radically reconstructed ‘the mental operations’ of the research participants.

What is also different in the context of a digital educational experiment is that the researcher can be both physically located in their home, university, or other worksite but also be internationally connected. The geography of the researcher is no longer crucially relevant.

In summary, the device and the apps are the vehicle, but how they are presented to children or used by researchers and teachers in their collaboration for introducing an intervention are shown across the chapters to be under construction, to transform practices, and in need of being theorised. The researchers did not know if the auxiliary device would support the mediating activity they had imagined as core for their digital educational experiments. The new concepts that arise from the new practices of a digital educational experiment add to the available research methods for studying children’s development and teacher practices within the institutional settings of early childhood.

The Role of the Researcher in Digitally Enabled Research

The role that a researcher takes in cultural-historical research has already been theorised by Hedegaard (2008). She identifies the duality of the position held by the researcher—as both a partner in the activity setting that is under investigation but also as someone who is trying to understand what is going on in everyday practice. But what does this mean when the activity setting is virtually located and the researcher is not physically in the everyday practice?

In a digital context, the researcher still focuses on the motives and intentions of the research participants. However, new concepts are needed in the practices of following and interpreting motives and demands in a virtual activity setting. In the section above, the concepts of digital agency, boundaries of digital spaces (hologram), distal contexts, collective digital relationality, transient demands, and potentiality as transitory were introduced to theorise the new methods of digital time and digital space. How these relate to the practices of the researcher for a digital context is now elaborated in relation to Hedegaard’s (2008) original theorisation of researching child development.

First, Hedegaard argues that the researcher needs to orally or in written form give an introduction when first making contact with children and educators in the particular educational setting. This orientation is important for establishing a relationship. However, in digitally enabled research, particularly during a global pandemic when these settings were closed to visitors, this created new demands on researchers based on how to orient the participants to the research and to build a relationship between the researcher and the research participants. The crisis called for digital agility (Part V).

Hedegaard also warns about the risk of the researcher taking over the activities when in the context of the research site, such as the family home or kindergarten. The researcher is not expected to step in as the teacher. However, at the same time, the researcher does not simply remain aloof and not respond to the situation if a child hurts themself or is in danger. There is a fine balance between the researcher’s position and the position of a human being in the context of the research site. However, as noted in Part III, the researchers take a much more active role by being both the researcher and the person implementing the pedagogical intervention when Zooming directly into family homes and creating new developmental conditions for children and families. The digital context demands that the researchers be more active than suggested by Hedegaard (2008). However, at the same time, the new conditions are co-experienced by the children and their parents with the researcher—sometimes synchronously and other times asynchronously. The following chapters show how this binary did not capture the new practices, however, and how new concepts were needed to name the new research conditions, notably, distal contexts, collective digital relationality, transient demands, and potentiality as transitory.

The digital environments that are showcased across the chapter are not naturalistic research sites, such as the family home, university, school, or kindergarten, as is characteristic of traditional research practice. The digital environments are difficult to research because they are emerging and transitory new kinds of settings, and therefore have to be conceptualised in practice differently. In particular, the concepts of boundaries of digital spaces and practices (Part III), the university as a hologram and dis-situation of development (Part IV), and resilient digital agility (Part V) are introduced to capture and theorise the new dimensions of the practices. Boundaries are also brought forward into digitally enabled research because researchers can work internationally with ease.

1.4 Methodological Dimensions of Digital Research Methods

In order to capture and theorise the new digital research practices, we introduce our model. Inspired by Hedegaard’s model of development, our model brings forward a dialectical relation between the everyday and scientific readings of the crisis that generated digital research solutions.

The global pandemic created new societal and international rules that placed new demands on researchers as they digitally traversed the multiple institutions of the university and the research sites specific to early childhood. The new demands oriented and motivated the researchers to develop new research methods that were realised as recurrent digital practices within the digital activity settings.

The model shown in Fig. 1.3; Cultural-historical Loop Model, enables thinking and analysis of human action and development conditions. The model responds to the situation of the crisis and the conditions created in the historical times we live through. Within the model, concepts, settings, and practices dialectically come together to capture and unpack the complexity of the child’s development in the framework of the crisis. Dynamic and porous borders are symbolised in the model by the mobius image. The metaphor of the Möbius strip is named for the German pioneer in topology, the mathematician and theoretical astronomer August Ferdinand Möbius. A Möbius strip is a property of a flipped one-sided surface: after two loops, you can come back to the beginning in one movement. It constitutes a shape that can be defined as ‘a continuous choice of local orientation’ or a space that is orientable with multiple start and stop points. You can choose ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ or ‘up’ and ‘down’ directions (Alagappan, 2021). This visual metaphor is used to image ecological circulation that reminds us to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Figure 1.3 is not just a visual metaphor for circular action; it also visualises the dynamic nature of cultural-historical processes—how conditions for human action are interdependent with material, economic, and social conditions. Figure 1.3 visualises interdependent aspects of a sustainable loop. This choice allows us to illustrate in a symbolic way fluidity and mutuality to showcase the changing nature and dialectic interrelations between the dimensions illustrated in the model.

Fig. 1.3

Cultural-historical Loop Model

For example, during the pandemic, institutional settings and home settings were merged (e.g. home schooling, home office) or institutions appeared to be in transition (e.g. delivering university courses online). The disturbed and in many cases ambiguous boundaries allowed for quick and/or partial shifts (e.g. being in your room but at the same time being in the classroom). Representing these hybrid settings with the infinity image rather than the bubble image, we wish to represent the connections and contradictions between these settings, the motion between the transitions from one setting to another, and the dialect character of being part of diverse settings.

Following the same rationale, the child is not seen isolated in an autonomous context but dialectically connected to adults, peers, and artefacts. In the same way, global and local perspectives are unpacked to capture the societal aspect at the micro and macro levels and in context. In line with Hedegaard’s model, the activity setting is central in the above model. The activity setting here corresponds to the digital system activity setting. Demands, motives, and cultural values are also represented in the model in the same way as they are represented in Hedegaard’s model, but this triptych is extended by economic and biological conditions to acknowledge the critical role of economy as a value and biology as a reality in times of crisis. Crisis, as a concept and as an everyday phenomenon, is also placed at the top and at the bottom of the model to showcase that the child’s development is not just related or influenced by the crisis but rather is generated amidst the crisis and formed by it.

1.5 Conclusion

Although Vygotsky (1997) was interested in studying the cultural development of children, we find his general genetic principle of all functions appearing on the stage twice compelling for understanding the new digital research methods presented in the case studies of this book. Our model (Fig. 1.3) seeks to bring what is common across the chapters into a dynamic system of societal/glocal, institutional and personal within multiple imaginings of the digital activity setting. The duality of the person and the digital in practice becomes a synthesis (see above) paving the way for new ways of practice. This means that ‘genetically, social relations, real relations of people, stand behind all the higher functions and their relations’ (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106) and we add to this the digital enabling methods that rapidly emerged through the crisis.

This book makes a scholarly contribution across the three broad principles of:

• 1. Dialectics

• 2. Historicity

• 3. Cultural-historical practice-centred science in times of crisis