Although the next International ISCAR Congress is in 2027, members do not have to wait three years to meet in person!

There are a number of initiatives coming up for which more details will be shared in due course.

February in China

The International Conference on Nudging Educational Transformation with Cultural-Historical Activity Theory: Future-oriented Transdisciplinary Dialogues will take place on February 20-22, 2025 in Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. The event brings together scholars from China, Finland and Japan to exchange ideas and foster collaboration on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory research while contributing to the development and innovative reform in education. 

February-March in Japan

The research group of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science’s Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) is organizing the following events in Osaka, Japan:

• International Seminars on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory on February 27-28, 2025 and
• the International Conference on Fourth-Generation Cultural-Historical Activity Theory on March 1, 2025.

The purpose of these events is to provide an opportunity to hear from world-leading scholars in cultural-historical activity theory about developments of the fourth generation of cultural-historical activity theory to respond to the challenges of current planetary crises, and to discuss and exchange ideas on the frontiers of research. 

In the CHAT Seminar, participants will have the opportunity to present their research and receive comments and feedback. In addition, in the 4G CHAT Conference, we will hold a symposium, “Challenges to the fourth-generation activity-theoretical research in Japan,” in which activity-theoretical researchers in Japan will collaboratively consider the contemporary developmental challenges of activity-theoretical research combined with working to create concrete social practices within this specific cultural-historical context.

Both the CHAT Seminar and 4G CHAT Conference are open for registration. Both the events are free of charge. The maximum number of participants for the CHAT Seminar is limited to 20 on a first-come, first-serve basis. The 4G CHAT Conference is limited to 50 participants on a first-come, first-served basis. If you would like to participate, please register via the respective websites of the events.

June in Sweden

The Nordic Baltic ISCAR Conference will be hosted by University West, Trollhättan, Sweden, 17-19 June 2025 on the theme: “Working and learning with CHAT-driven research”.

The event aims at interrogating and re-envisioning the shared roots of working and learning, to make them relevant in the face of current global challenges and for transforming human activities to sustain lives and the planet. Work is here understood in a broad sense, including the work of learners, teachers, patients and caregivers as well as unpaid and voluntary forms of work. The conference sub-themes include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Foundational issues and challenges in cultural-historical theory
• Learning and working in educational settings
• Cultural-historical studies of work-integrated learning
• Technological mediation and change in organizational and educational settings
• Digitalization and technology for societal and industrial change
• School development and educational change
• Fourth generation cultural-historical activity theory and enacted utopias
• Studies in transformative agency
• Formative interventions and expansive learning

The conference program will includes a meeting of the National Coordinators of the Region as well as a General Assembly of ISCAR present and future members. The First Call for Papers has just been published.

More to come

Furthermore, the UNESCO International Chair «Cultural-Historical Psychology of Childhood» at MSUPE is preparing to host another international summer university for doctoral students and young scientists.  Also, there are the conferences under preparation taking place in Barcellona, Spain, upon initative of the Southern Europe Regional Section, and in Berlin, Germany, upon initative of ISCAR Central Europe Regional Section.