Working with Learner Contributions: A Key Dimension of Professional Practice

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore a diversity ofways in which “practice” has been understood in various relevant literatures. Given the ubiquity of the term, however, I cannot hope to do justice to all views of practice. Much of what I have to say focuses on “profes- sional practice”, although a great deal is also relevant to the wider and more general concept of a “social practice” – an even more elusive concept in the literature, and still more difficult to unravel. My narrower purview may be permissible for a book on developing professional practice. I say little here about the concept of a “pro- fession”, though it seems so crucial in defining “professional practice”. I am happy to leave that discussion in the background here. I use examples drawn principally from education (reflecting the origins of this paper in a conference of mathematics educators; Kemmis, 2005b), but also, in less depth, from some other professional settings. On the other hand, I am conscious that much of what I have to say about professional practice may have application to many situations and occupations not usually described as “professions”. And I am not always sure that the usual kinds of criteria used to define professions (like their use of distinctive bodies of knowl- edge, or self-accreditation or self-regulation) are particularly helpful when it comes to understanding professional practice qua practice.