Dr Ben Evans

I seek to empirically understand how situated communities develop their conventions/rules and products. This broad intent segways into research interests in communication (language, signs, multimodality) digital technology, education, mediated action, social culturalism, social capital and systems of activity. Therein, my research builds out from the writings of Wertsch who argues that:

An interest in mediated action began when I was introduced to computer-based cognitive tools while studying digitally-mediated learning at Oxford. These tools promise to distribute cognitive load between computer and human in ways which ensure that human's peculiar goal is achieved, even if it hither-to remained out-of-reach. Roy Pea's papers on 'distributed intelligence' speak to this perspective:

These philosophical foundations situated an investigation into the role of classroom music education in community development. This Doctoral research argued that the music classroom could be redefined by its situation in time and space: a place where young people's culturally constructed musical relationships collide with formalised institutional agendas to forge new community conventions. I investigated how institutional rules, digital technology and young people's personal relationship with music can simultaneously mediate creative behavior in ways which uphold authentic community discourse. That is, creative activity which seeks to make use of and develop participants' social capital to redress any power asymmetries which might otherwise arise during classroom activity.