83 MARCH 2008 CHAT-IT:Toward Conceptualizing Learning in the Context of Formal Organizations Rodney T. Ogawa, Rhiannon Crain, Molly Loomis, and Tamara Ball This article is intended to spark a discussion between two research communities—scholars who study learning and scholars who study educational organizations. A secondary purpose is to encourage researchers to look beyond schools to examine learning in other types of educational organizations. The authors outline a framework to guide research on the relationship between learning and the social contexts afforded by formal organizations. The framework combines elements of cultural historical activity theory, a sociocultural theory of learning, and institutional theory, which is a constructivist theory of organization. The authors employ preliminary findings from research and secondary historical accounts to illustrate the potential of the framework for guid- ing research that ties learning to contexts in formal organizations. Keywords: educational organization; learning theory; organization theory; science museum O ur principal purpose in writing this article is to spark a discussion between two research communities: scholars who study learning and scholars who study educational organizations. A secondary and related purpose is to encourage researchers to look beyond schools to examine learning in other types of educational organizations, such as museums, aquaria, and the like. In the introductory chapter of the National Research Council’s (2000) How People Learn, two panels of distinguished scholars conclude that “all learning takes place in settings that have particular sets of cultural and social norms and expectations and that these settings influence learning and transfer in power- ful ways” (p. 4). Despite a growing consensus around this claim, researchers struggle to conceptualize and study the relationship between learning and its social context. As two prominent researchers note, “Experience is described and analyzed as if consisting of relatively discrete and situational actions .... On the other hand, the system, or the given objective context, is described as something beyond individual influence.” (Engeström, 1993, p. 66). In this article, we propose a framework for conceptualizing learning in a particular social context: formal organizations. Why organizations? Formal organizations dominate the social landscape of modern societies (Scott, 2003). We shop in stores, exercise in clubs, entrust our money to banks. We also depend on organizations—principally schools, ranging from preschools to universities—to provide learning. Therefore, both scholars of learning and scholars of educational organizations should recognize the need to construct a conceptual and empirical bridge that links the immediate contexts where learning occurs to their organizational settings. Lemke (2001), as a researcher of learning, urges a focus on social interaction in real-world set- tings and especially on the larger social organizations in which they occur; Rowan and Miskel (1999), who study educational organizations, encourage researchers to focus on the impact of institutional processes and organizations on academic learning. Because schools of various types are the dominant form of edu- cational organization, most education research is conducted in schools. How People Learn (National Research Council, 2000) focuses on “learning research that has implications for the design of formal instructional environments, primarily preschools, kinder- garten through high schools (K–12), and colleges” (p. 5). However, the authors of that volume also recognize the importance of “con- necting the school with outside learning activities” (p. 147), which often are set in other types of organizations. Indeed, a growing number of scholars have begun to investigate learning in nonschool organizations (Bekerman, Burbules, & Keller, 2006; Leinhardt, Crowley, & Knutson, 2002; Paris, 2002). In this article, we outline a conceptual framework to guide research on the relationship between learning and the social con- texts of formal organizations. Our aspirations are modest. We do not propose a new theory; rather, we combine concepts from two theoretical traditions. Nor do we provide comprehensive or thor- oughly nuanced treatments of these theories; rather, we highlight key concepts from both, which taken together illuminate the rela- tionship between learning and the social contexts provided by organizations. We employ preliminary findings from a study con- ducted by one author of the present article and provide secondary historical accounts to illustrate the applicability of our framework by comparing the learning contexts, structures, and histories of two types of educational organizations: schools and science museums. Conceptual Congruity and Analytic Capacity This article is informed by cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and the new institutionalism in organizational theory, or institutional theory (IT). Although scholars have recognized the potential of combining sociocultural theories of learning, Educational Researcher, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 83–95 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X08316207 © 2008 AERA. http://er.aera.net Research News and Comment