Abstract
In this chapter, a view of praxis and practice is outlined that allows us to re-imagine the work of teaching, learning and leading. It does so, first, by reconnecting with a lifeworld perspective on practice as a human and social activity with indissoluble moral, political and historical dimensions. Practice always forms and transforms the one who practices, along with those who are also involved in and affected by the practice. On a second meaning of praxis, praxis is always ‘history making action’ that transforms the world in which the practice is carried out. The chapter introduces our theory of practice and practice architectures, showing how the sayings, doings and relatings that constitute practices are made possible by (respectively) cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements found in or brought to the sites where practices are carried out. Taken together, these arrangements—the preconditions for practices—are the practice architectures that enable and constrain practices. Finally, the chapter shows how the theory of practice architectures offers a way of theorising education. By doing so, it reconnects practice with individual and collective praxis as a way of expressing the double purpose of education: to help people live well in a world worth living in.
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.
In a different order, but with the same force, Marcus Aurelius (121–180AD, Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor (161–180AD), said that [the human soul, freed of everything foreign to it,] “does what is just, wills the events which happen, and tells the truth” (Meditations, XII, 3,3; in Pierre Hadot , 2001. p 237). Ordered as in the text above, they would be (a) “tells the truth”, (b) “wills the events which happen”, and (c) “does what is just”.
References
Aristotle. (1924). Rhetoric (trans: Rhys Roberts, W.). London: Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice (trans: Nice, R.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason: on the theory of action. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Clay, M. (1993). Reading recovery™: a guidebook for teachers in training. London: Heinemann.
Dunne, J. (1993). Back to the rough ground: ‘Phronēsis’ and ‘technē’ in modern philosophy and Aristotle. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method. London: Sheed and Ward.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1983). Reason in the age of science (trans: Lawrence, F.G.). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Gauthier, D. P. (1963). Practical reasoning. London: Oxford University Press.
Gherardi, S. (2000). Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in organizations. Organization, 7(2), 211–223.
Gherardi, S. (2008). Situated knowledge and situated action: what do practice-based studies promise? In D. Barry & H. Hansen (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of new approaches in organization and management (pp. 516–525). Los Angeles: Sage.
Gherardi, S. (2009). Introduction: the critical power of ‘the practice lens’. Management learning, 40(2), 115–128.
Green, B. (2009). Introduction. In B. Green (Ed.), Understanding and researching professional practice (pp. 1–18). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Grundy, S. (1987). Curriculum: product or praxis. Lewes: Falmer.
Habermas, J. (1972). Knowledge and human interests (trans: Shapiro, J.J.). London: Heinemann.
Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a way of life. London: Blackwell.
Hadot, P. (2001). The inner citadel: the meditations of Marcus Aurelius (trans: Chase, M.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kemmis, S. (2009). Understanding professional practice: a synoptic framework. In B. Green (Ed.), Understanding and researching professional practice (pp 19–38). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Kemmis, S., & Heikkinen, H.L.T. (2012). Future perspectives: peer group mentoring and international practices for teacher development. In H. L. T. Heikkinen, H. Jokinen & P. Tynjälä (Eds.). Peer-group mentoring (PGM): Peer group mentoring for teachers’ professional development (pp. 144–170). London: Routledge.
Kemmis, S., & Smith, T.J. (2008a). Praxis and praxis development. In S. Kemmis and T. J Smith (Eds.). Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 3–13). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Kemmis, S., & Smith, T. J. (2008b). Praxis and praxis development. In S.Kemmis and T.J Smith (Eds.). Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 3–13). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
MacIntyre, A. (1981). After virtue: a study in moral theory. London: Duckworth.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845/1970). The German ideology (intro and ed: Arthur, C.J.). New York: International Publishers.
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 243–263.
Reid, W. A. (1978). Thinking about the curriculum: The nature and treatment of curriculum problems. London: Routledge.
Sandberg, J., & Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Returning to practice anew: a life-world perspective. Organization Studies, 30(12), 1349–1368.
Schatzki, T. R. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schatzki, T. R. (2001). Introduction: Practice theory. In T.R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The practice turn in contemporary social theory (pp. 10–21). London: Routledge.
Schatzki, T. R. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Schatzki, T. R. (2003). A new societiest social ontology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33(2), 174–202.
Schatzki, T. R. (2005). The sites of organizations. Organization Studies, 26(3), 465–484.
Schatzki, T. R. (2006). On organizations as they happen. Organization Studies, 27(12), 1863–1873.
Schatzki, T. R. (2010). The timespace of human activity: On performance, society, and history as indeterminate teleological events. Lanham: Lexington.
Schatzki, T. R. (2012). A primer on practices. In J. Higgs, R. Barnett, S. Billett, M. Hutchings & F. Trede (Eds.), Practice based education (pp. 13–26). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Schwab, J. J. (1969). The practical: a language for curriculum, School Review, 78, 1–23.
Shotter, J. (1996). Living in a wittgensteinian world: beyond theory to a poetics of practices. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 26(3), 293–311.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations (2nd ed.) (trans: Anscombe, G.E.M.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (1975). On certainty. Anscombe, G. E. M. & von Wright, G.H. (Eds.), (trans: Paul, D. & Anscombe, G. E. M.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., Bristol, L. (2014). Praxis, Practice and Practice Architectures. In: Changing Practices, Changing Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-47-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-47-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-4560-46-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-4560-47-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)