Abstract
This essay considers the contribution that practice theory makes to understand learning . It argues that practice theory does not foster a new conception of learning but instead holds insights into learning traditionally conceptualized as the acquisition of knowledge . Part one considers Lave and Wenger’s idea that learning is coming to participate in practices . I argue that coming to participate in a practice amounts to acquiring the knowledges of different sorts needed to participate in it. As a result, learning qua coming to participate in practices is a version of the traditional conception that highlights practical knowledge and ties contents and processes of knowledge to the organization of social life as practices. Part two explores implications of the ontological centrality of practices for learning and illustrates how practice theory ties the contents and processes of knowledge to practices. After an interlude on the nature of knowledge, the conclusion argues that training à la Wittgenstein underlies the acquisition of knowledge, thus participation in practices , and is itself a form of learning.
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Notes
- 1.
The idea that know-how is abilities has been regularly challenged ever since Ryle distinguished know-that from know-how. An influential recent large-scale assault is that of Stanley and Williamson (2001; see Stanley 2011), who claim that knowing how to X is a type of knowing-that, namely and roughly, knowing that a particular way to X is a way for the knower herself to X. Although addressing their analysis would lead my discussion away from its main focus, I should indicate that I affirm a counterargument that many philosophers have offered, viz., that, although Stanley and Williamson have grammatically identified a perfectly sensible (though in my opinion formulaically unusual) type of know-how, this type differs from another, pervasive type that equates know-how with ability and the like (see, e.g., Nöe 2005, Winch 2009).
- 2.
All these (alleged) features of acquisition have been put to me by Paul Hager, either in personal communication or in his written work (e.g., 2010).
- 3.
The authors occasionally suggest that the acquisition and evolution of identities is the central feature of learning. Lave and Packer, for instance, write that “[k]nowledgeability, the narrow focus of epistemologically based theories of learning, is subsumed within the production and reproduction of identities…” (2008, p. 44, footnote 4). In my opinion, claims such as this conflate who one is (identity) with what one is (one’s properties or features).
- 4.
This hoary debate has evolved with the emergence of a systems perspective that, challenging the idea that specific behaviors can be assigned this much to genes and that much to environment, argues that behavior is the holistic output of an initially largely genetically determined living system that develops throughout its lifetime according to system principles under the continuing input of DNA codes and, especially, environmental events. It is possible to advocate this systems perspective and still uphold the association of learned behavior and environment, labeling as “learned” all behaviors that the system produces once the initial large genetic contribution is supplanted by massive environmental input.
- 5.
The practice theories that Lave and Wenger affirm (those of Bourdieu and Giddens) treat practices as a, or the, central component of the social. As a result—paraphrasing Wenger (1998, p. 15)—the thesis that learning is integral to practices makes a practice-based theory of learning close to a “learning-based theory of the social order.” I believe that practice theories generally can endorse this idea.
- 6.
Wittgenstein strongly suggests (1958, §78) the existence of three kinds of knowledge when he writes: “Compare knowing and saying: how many metres high Mont Blanc is—how the word “game” is used—how a clarinet sounds. Someone who is surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it is perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third.
- 7.
I would like the thank the participants at the Brisbane conference, an audience at the University of Technology Sydney, and Stephen Kemmis for vigorous questions and suggestions, which led to significant changes in this essay.
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Schatzki, T. (2017). Practices and Learning. In: Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., Choy, S. (eds) Practice Theory Perspectives on Pedagogy and Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3130-4_2
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