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About two decades ago, Donald Stokes published "Pasteur's Quadrant" (Stokes, 1997). Stokes proposed that the motivations of different research projects can be understood as a two-dimensional system, with higher or lower concern for improving technology and practice on one dimension and higher or lower concern for improving fundamental understanding on the other dimension. Stokes provided concrete examples in the four quadrants of this two-dimensional system. He called the quadrant defined by low aspirations for improving technology and practice but high aspirations for improving fundamental understanding "Bohr's quadrant," typified by Niels Bohr's development of the standard model of atoms in physics. He called the quadrant defined by high aspirations for improving technology and practice and low aspirations for improving fundamental understanding "Edison's quadrant," typified by the research and development, led by Thomas Edison, that resulted in the invention of the electric lightbulb and the grid systems that distribute electrical energy in cities and societies. Stokes called the quadrant of high aspirations for both improving technology and practice and improving fundamental understanding "Pasteur's quadrant," typified by the research and development, led by Louis Pasteur, that resulted in development of the theory of disease transmission and fermentation based on hypotheses about microorganisms and revolutionized medical practice and policies in public health. In this commentary, James Greeno examines how the articles in this issue on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and design-based research (DBR) relate to Stokes' (1997) characterization of research and development. Greeno concludes that the research and development represented in these articles meets the criterion of being in Pasteur's quadrant; that is, these studies qualify as use-inspired basic research.

The development of scientific concepts and methods that supported analyses of individual cognition and learning occurred during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with outstanding contributions by Newell and Simon (1972), van Dijk and Kintsch (1983), and others, providing an impressive and rapid scientific advance. At the same time, another research program was developing in departments of anthropology, sociology, and linguistics (e.g., Garfinkel, 1967; Mehan, 1979), focused on patterns of interaction, especially in discourse. The term "situated" came into prevalent use with publications by Suchman (1987/2007; "Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication") and by Lave and Wenger (1991; "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation"). Here, author James Greeno asserts that he observes a consensus in the field that concepts and methods of both the individual-cognitive and the situative perspectives are needed in developing satisfactory explanatory accounts of human learning and cognition. Although there is agreement that some combination of resources from the individual-cognitive perspective and from the situative perspective is needed, the field has not settled on a single way in which the resources from these programs relate to each other. Greeno agrees with a philosophy argued by Sandra Mitchell that it is a mistake to assume one best theory exists in a domain, and differing theories provide alternative and productive conceptualizations. Thus the contributions to this special issue of "Educational Psychologist" advance the field's explanatory capabilities by extending the range of concepts and methods to include processes and causal factors at the level of activity systems, organizations, and cultures. Each of the contributions to this issue can be understood as providing integrative connections across these levels.