Researching educational praxis: spectator and participant perspectives

Abstract

This paper describes two parallel research programmes exploring educational practice/praxis. The first, including a theory of ‘practice architectures’, aims to contribute to contemporary practice theory that views practice from the perspective of a spectator. The second aims to contribute to an emerging (practical philosophy) tradition of ‘researching practice from within practice traditions’ and views practice (and praxis) from the perspective of participants. It is argued that these particular spectator and participant perspectives are complementary. They offer a dual approach to researching educational practice and praxis and allow us (educational actors, educational researchers) to see ourselves as formed by a collective praxis, within which teacher–researchers can aspire to act educationally in the sense of acting for the good for each person and for the good for humankind.

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude to my fellow coordinators of the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis’ international research programme: Wilfred Carr (University of Sheffield, UK), Eli Moksnes Furu (Tromsø University), Matts Mattsson (formerly University of Stockholm, Sweden), Petra Ponte (Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands), Karin Rönnerman (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and Petri Salo (Åbo Akademi University, Finland); and also to my colleagues in the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Pedagogy, Education and Praxis (PEP) research group: Roslin Brennan Kemmis, Barbara Conlan, Christine Edwards-Groves, Peter Grootenboer (now Griffith University), Ian Hardy (now University of Queensland), Troels Lange (now Malmö University, Sweden), Annemaree Lloyd, Tamsin Meaney (now Malmö University, Sweden) and Jane Wilkinson. PhD candidates William Adlong, Kathleen Clayton, Penny Cooke and Doris Santos also participate in the CSU PEP group. Tracey J. Smith (New South Wales Department of Education and Training) is an affiliate member.