Practice Theory Perspectives on Pedagogy and Education

Abstract

Although there is a long history of understanding and theorising work, education, and other facets of social life through practice perspectives, recently there has been renewed interest. More specifically, in theorising pedagogy and education that Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, and von Savigny (2001) called for a practice turn to contexualise educational practices in grounded and highly transformative ways. This turn has not only launched new developments in practice theory itself, but has been adopted across a range of educational sectors and contexts as an approach to not only understand the practices that constitute their conduct but as an approach to liberate neoliberal tendencies that pervade the work and practices of those sovereign beings within their bounds. For the contemporary educator and researcher what is interesting is that this call to practice has taken place against a background of debate attempting to instrumentalise practices within regimes of accountability and mea- surement. Furthermore, ‘practice’ (as an enduring concept) has been addressed through a range of academic traditions including philosophy and sociology, and these traditions are reflected in the chapters of this book. This book was developed alongside an invited symposium where the authors and other interested academics and practitioners from across the globe gathered to discuss practice theory perspectives on pedagogy and education. The premise was that the symposium was to be driven by ideas; ideas that generated rich, genuine dialogues among those present. The symposium was held in June 2015 when the authors, and a few invited discussants, met for two days in Brisbane, Australia. The authors prepared an initial full draft of their chapter prior to the symposium, and these were distributed to the delegates about one month prior to the event. The participants read the draft chapters prior to the symposium and came prepared to discuss the ideas within the draft chapter. At the chapter presentation sessions at the symposium, the authors gave a short presentation (20 minutes) and then there was an extended period for discussion (40 minutes). This structure was designed to provide extended time for dialogue and discussion about the ideas presented in each chapter, and to offer the authors informed and thoughtful feedback. In the light of this feedback, and further feedback from the editors, the authors then revised their chapters. The chapters then underwent an anonymous peer-review process. vii