A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
What is Educational Praxis?
Authors: Kathleen Mahon, Hannu L. T. Heikkinen, Rauno Huttunen, Tess Boyle, Ela Sjølie
Editors: Kathleen Mahon, Christine Edwards-Groves, Susanne Francisco, Mervi Kaukko, Stephen Kemmis, Kirsten Petrie
Publication year: 2020
Book title : Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times
First page : 15
Last page: 38
ISBN: 978-981-15-6925-8
eISBN: 978-981-15-6926-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_2
Web address : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_2
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 & Smith, 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.