Practice Theory and Education ― Diffractive Readings in Professional Practice

Practice thinking has emerged as a central concern in social theory and research, evident in a burgeoning literature on practice theory, practice-based approaches to research, and site studies on particular manifestations of practice. The contributors to Practice Theory – drawn from fields such as governance and leadership, literary and art practice, school education and teaching, higher education, counselling, language and social theory, and research methodology – provide an explicit engagement with the notion of ‘practice’ in order to push theoretical boundaries and to challenge and rethink how we understand practice as an object of inquiry and what this means for researching practice in a variety of contexts.

As a collection, Practice Theory provides an engagement with the notion of ‘practice’ across four themes – Onto-episto-methodological engagements with practice; Practice and subjectivity; Practice and change within and between organisations; and, Responding to neo-rationalist configurations of practice. Within each theme, chapters explore and demonstrate how practice theories and approaches can be employed and what their affordances are. Practice theories are engaged as a possible means of seeking to understand social practice, and as a way of speaking back to the limiting configurations of practice found in neo-liberal, new managerialist and narrow representationalist discourses.

Distinctive in the breadth of theoretical work it represents, this book has been specifically structured so that chapters undertaking different theoretical work in relation to a common theme are positioned side-by-side to support diffractive readings.

Julianne Lynch is a Senior Lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at Deakin University, Australia. Her research explores the social-material emergence of curriculum innovation and educational practices, with projects focused on place-based learning with mobile technologies, hybrid digital-place-based approaches to environmental education, mobile touch-screen devices in literacy education, and innovation and teacher change in play-based literacy education.

Julie Rowlands researches in the areas of governance, higher education systems, academic quality assurance, leadership and organisational change. Prior to her current academic work, Julie was a senior manager in higher education governance for more than 15 years, most recently as Head of University Governance at Deakin.

Trevor Gale is Professor of Education and Head of School of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. From 2011-2015 he was Chair in Education Policy and Social Justice at Deakin University, Australia and from 2008-2011 he was the founding director of Australia’s National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.