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Cultural Studies of Science Education

, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 105–125 | Cite as

On the societal nature of praxis and organic research

  • Wolff-Michael Roth
Forum
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Abstract

In its focus on social practices, the feature article presents an interesting theoretical framework for rethinking not only where and how knowing and learning in science education exhibit themselves but also we might change our own research practice. The framework is not new to me, as I have advocated it explicitly for more than 15 years. But over time it became apparent to me that some particularities of participation in practice may be grounded more strongly in an orientation towards the societal nature of any human praxis. In this forum contribution, I present a theoretical approach built on societal-historical activity theory that also takes activism as a major category for theorizing participation. This approach not only covers the extent of the social practice framework but also allows us to make thematic the production of inequity and restrictions to access science and engineering that are characteristic of many societies.

Keywords

Cultural-historical activity theory Society Consciousness Subjectification Personality Revolutionary praxis 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The research among pilots was made possible in part by a Grant from the Griffith University Industry Collaborative Scheme and from funds provided by the participating airline.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of EducationUniversity of VictoriaVictoriaCanada

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