An international, interdisciplinary overview of research on activity theory, first published in 1999. Activity theory bridges the gulf between the individual subject and the societal structure by taking the object-oriented, artifact-mediated collective activity as its unit of analysis. Part I. Theoretical Issues: 1. Activity theory and individual and social transformation Yrjo Engestr&#246 m 2. The content and unsolved problems of activity theory Vassily V. Davydov 3. Knowledge as shared procedures Stephen Toulmin 4. Activity theory in a new era Vladimir A. Letkorsky 5. Society versus context in individual development: does theory make a difference? Charles W. Tolman 6. Cultural psychology: some general principles and a concrete example Michael Cole 7. Laws logics and human activity Antti Eskola 8. Collapse creation and continuity in Europe - how do people change? Yrjo-Paavo Hayrynen 9. Activity theory and the concept of integrative levels Eythel Tobach 10. The relevance to psychology of Antonio Gramsci's ideas on activity and common sense Francesco Paolo Colucci Part II. Language and its Acquisition: 11. The expanded dialogic sphere: writing activity and authoring of self in Japanese classrooms Yuji Moro 12. Improvement of school children's reading and writing ability through the formation of linguistic awareness Kyoshi Amano 13. Psychomotor and socio-emotional processes in literacy acquisition: results from an ongoing case study involving a nonvocal cerebral palsic young man Matthias Bujarski Martin Hildebrand-Nilshon and Jane Kordt Part III. Play Learning and Instruction: 14. Play and motivation Pentti Hakkarainen 15. Drama games with six year old children: possibilities and limitations Stig Brostrom 16. Activity formation as an alternative strategy of instruction Joachim Lompscher 17. Activity theory and historic teaching Mariane Hedegaard 18. Didactic models and the problem of intertextuality and polyphony Jacques Carpay and Bert Van Oers 19. Metaphor and learning activity Bernd Fichtner 20. Transcending traditional school learning: teachers' work and networks of learning Reijo Miettinen Part IV. Technology and Work: 21. The theory of activity changed by information technology Oleg K. Tikhomirov 22. Activity theory transformation of work and information systems design Kari Kuutti 23. Innovative learning in work teams: analyzing cycles of knowledge creation in practice Yrj&#246 Engestr&#246 m Part V. Therapy and Addiction: 24. Object relations theory and activity theory: a proposed link by way of the procedural sequence model Anthony Ryle 25. The concept of sign in the work of Vygotsky, Winnicott and Bakhtin: further integration of object relations theory and activity theory Mikael Leiman 26. From addiction to self-governance Anja Koski-Jannes.