A Return to Practice: Practice-Based Studies of Education

This chapter is intended to provoke reflection on the theoretical significance of a return to practice within the field of education. Here, a return to practice implies a reconsideration of the complexity of education in order to stand at a distance from the reductionism of the prevailing version of lifelong learning dominated by the culture of performativity and by a technical-rational interpretation of educational 'practices' (Magalhaes and Stoer, Glob Soc Educ 1:41-66, 2003; Edwards et al, Int J Lifelong Educ 21(1):525-536, 2002). Theories of practice(s) in social theory and organisation studies offer an interesting background for such reconsideration (Schatzki et al, The practice turn in contemporary theory. Routledge, London, 2001; Reckwitz, Eur J Soc Theory, 5(2):243-263, 2002; Gherardi, Manage Learn, 40(2):115-128, 2009; Miettinen et al, Organ Stud 30(12):1309-1327, 2010) and solicit renewed investigations into the multifarious aspects of education. This chapter presents an analytical framework with three possible trajectories of reflection and research to highlight the fruitfulness of such a return to practice: the body and sensible knowledge for an aesthetic understanding of learning and knowing, the sociomaterialities of education, and the analysis of local orders of education and training. The chapter finally discusses what is required in this 'going back' to practice and how to engage with practice-based studies of education without embracing a conservative view.