Abstract
One way that higher education institutions attempt to promulgate and standardise practices around practice-based learning is through the use of artifacts: forms, workbooks, documented practices, narratives and the like. This chapter examines the functioning of practice-based learning artifacts. In particular, the chapter is concerned with understanding how artifacts, whose official purpose is to educate about and standardise practice-based learning, are used in positive ways to promote best practice while at the same time they may work against development and implementation of best practice. We employ Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital to theorise the reasons for variations in the effectiveness of artifacts in standardizing practice-based learning activities. We bring Michel de Certeau’s concepts of strategy and tactic to bear on understanding ways in which academics use artifacts to inform their implementation of practice-based learning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
One study was of disciplinary differences in research norms and practices in 12 fields and the other focussed on graduate education (Becher 1994, p. 151)
References
Becher, T. (1994). The significance of disciplinary differences. In Studies in Higher Education, 19(2), 151–61.
Biglan, A. (1973). The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57(3), 195–203.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Lamaison, P. (1986). From rules to strategies: An interview with Pierre Bourdieu. Cultural Anthropology, 1(1), 110–120.
Carlile, P. (2004). Transferring, translating, and transforming: An integrative framework for managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science, 15(5), 555–568.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
de Certeau, M. (1988). The writing of history. New York: Columbia University Press.
Emirbayer, M., & Johnson, V. (2008). Bourdieu and organizational analysis. Theory and Society, 37, 1–44.
Kolb, D. A (1971). Individual learning styles and the learning process (Working Paper #535-71). Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Marx, K. (1959). (Friedrick Engels, ed.), Capital, vol. 3. New York: International Publishers.
Reay, Diane. (2004). It’s all becoming a habitus: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 431–444.
Star, S., & Greisemer, J. (1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of vertebrate zoology 1907–39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.
Svabo, C. (2009). Materiality in a practice-base approach. The Learning Organisation, 16(5), 360–370.
Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Williams, J., Walkington, J. (2015). The Role of Epistemology in Practice-Based Learning: The Case of Artifacts. In: Kennedy, M., Billett, S., Gherardi, S., Grealish, L. (eds) Practice-based Learning in Higher Education. Professional and Practice-based Learning, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9502-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9502-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9501-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9502-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)