Abstract
This chapter explores the question “What is educational praxis?” based on a review of theoretical and empirical research undertaken by the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis (PEP) international research network over the past decade. A book series produced by the network in 2008 explored this very question in relation to a range of educational sites and national contexts. Six key themes emerging from this work were outlined in the first of the books in the series, Enabling Praxis: Challenges for Education. In short, the themes concerned agents and agency; particularity; connectedness; history; morality and justice; and praxis as doing (Kemmis and Smith in Enabling praxis: challenges for education. Sense, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2008b). Using these six themes as a point of departure, we present a view of educational praxis as a kind of educational practice that is informed, reflective, self-consciously moral and political, and oriented towards making positive educational and societal change; it is context-dependent and can therefore take many forms. We also explore the forming, self-forming, and transforming nature of educational praxis and explain its relevance at a time when instrumental, managerialist, and neoliberal rationalities continue to dominate global and local education narratives.
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Notes
- 1.
The PEP international research network includes researchers from Australia, the Caribbean, Colombia, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. It was established in order to bring scholars together from different national contexts to “engage in dialogues and research that seek to uncover, challenge, extend, understand and study the conditions which enable and constrain the conduct and development of education” (Edwards-Groves & Kemmis, 2015, p. 2). See Chap. 1 this volume for more information about the network.
- 2.
This question is the first of five guiding research questions for the PEP network. See Chap. 1, this volume, for the other four questions.
- 3.
In the PEP research literature, the interpretation of praxis as “history-making action”, based on Marx’s ideas, relates to acting to intentionally change history, rather than letting history happen. This interpretation has been systematically called a “post-Marxian” perspective. We (chapter authors) prefer to call this perspective a “Marxian” interpretation of praxis and do so throughout this chapter for the following reason: the “post” in “post-Marxian” can be critiqued on the basis that the idea of praxis as a form of action which changes societies (history-making action) evolved in post-Hegelian philosophy pre-dating Marx. The underlying premise of Hegel’s philosophy is the idea that world history gradually develops towards spiritual and moral perfection, which he called the realisation of the absolute spirit. This perspective started to evolve in Middle Europe in the beginning of the nineteenth century. One of the key advocates of this idea was a Polish philosopher and social activist, August Cieszkowski, who used the term praxis to mean “action oriented towards changing society”. Cieszkowski’s work influenced the young Karl Marx. According to Stepelevich (1974), despite the fact that Marx never quoted Cieszkowski directly, there are good reasons to believe that Cieszkowski had an indirect influence on him. Thus, Marxism has actually been called the philosophy of praxis by the followers of Marx. This interpretation of praxis, emphasising action oriented towards changing society was later adopted by a group of post-Marxian philosophers in Germany in early twentieth century, some of them later known as the Frankfurt School. To conclude, we can call the interpretation of praxis as history-making action both “pre-Marxian” and “post-Marxian” perspectives.
- 4.
We have simplified terms (or groups of terms) used for some themes for the purposes of this discussion. We encourage readers to consult the original text. See also footnote 12 for an example—adaptation of theme 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
This theme, in the original articulation of the Enabling Praxis themes, was presented in a cluster of topics with “concreteness” and “materiality” (see Kemmis & Smith, 2008b, p. 7).
- 9.
This could be said of educational practice more broadly and would almost go without saying if educational situations were not often treated as if contextual factors were irrelevant.
- 10.
Relevant in terms of justice for future generations.
- 11.
The concept of “red thread” is used in the Nordic context (e.g. “röd tråd” in Swedish) to denote a theme that runs through something, joining the various elements to create a coherent whole/produce a particular effect.
- 12.
In Kemmis and Smith’s articulation of the Enabling Praxis themes (2008b, p. 7), this theme was included in the list of six themes more as a collection of topics: “1. agency, subjectivity, being, becoming, identity (and difference and otherness), and reflexivity”. We have shortened the list to “agents and agency” to capture the main points made in the original discussion.
- 13.
For example, traditions of thought and practice in the field of education.
- 14.
The idea of self-formation being an aspect of praxis is not new. See, for comparison, Dunne (2005).
- 15.
We suggest that they cannot be separate processes because actors are part of the social reality in which they act, not separate from it.
- 16.
See Small (1978) for a description, referring to Marx’s notion of revolutionary praxis, of the dialectic relationship between the self-forming processes of the individual in praxis and changes to the social world that happen in praxis.
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Mahon, K., Heikkinen, H.L., Huttunen, R., Boyle, T., Sjølie, E. (2020). What is Educational Praxis?. In: Mahon, K., Edwards-Groves, C., Francisco, S., Kaukko, M., Kemmis, S., Petrie, K. (eds) Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_2
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