Research for Praxis: Knowing doing

1. Research for Praxis:Knowing doing Stephen Kemmis School of Education Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia

2. Overview • Praxis and the ‘happening-ness’ of praxis • Different ways of knowing and theorising practice through research • New developments in approaches to researching practice/praxis • Researching praxis within practice traditions • Research as praxis, within practice traditions of research • Conclusions

3. 1. Praxis and the ‘happening-ness’ of praxis • Marx on praxis (cf. the Theses on Feuerbach) • sensuous human activity • socialised humanity • history-making action • An Aristotelian view • morally-informed, committed action • Arendt: the ‘sheer actuality’ of praxis • What cannot be undone again

4. 2. Different ways of knowing and theorising practice through research • Aristotle • Theoria guided by the disposition of epistēmē • Poiēsis guided by the disposition of technē • Praxis guided by the disposition of phronēsis • Habermas (knowledge-constitutive interests) • Empirical-analytical sciences > control • Interpretive-hermeneutic sciences > education • Critical-emancipatory sciences > (self-) transformation

5. 3. New developments in approaches to researching practice/praxis • Praxis research • Sandberg, Broms, Grip, Sundström Steen and Ullmark (1992) • Phronetic research • Flyvbjerg (2001) • Praxis-related research • Torpe & Askling (2003; Carlgren, Josefson & Liberg (2005); Mattsson and Kemmis (2007)

6. Praxis research (Sandberg et al., 1992) • … we see the possibility of a development from action research to praxis research, by which we mean a research process that is characterized by participation, dialogue and interaction with the people who are otherwise ‘objects of research.’ This research has an action component that is partially subordinated to an action practice, and a conceptual or reflective component that is subordinated to a scientific practice. The two components are clearly separate activities because they imply different relations to the practice in working life and because they are carried out in different parts of a research organization or over different periods of time.

7. Praxis research is characterized by a conscious and planned interaction between an action phase of research and a phase characterized by a more remote conceptualisation and reflection. In so-called action research, the latter is often lacking. Even if there is a declaration in principle of the necessity for a cumulative development of knowledge and theoretical reflection, the tendency … is to neglect these necessary parts of the research process in favour of the action aspect. This interaction distinguishes praxis research from consultation, and from development and change projects in general. We may also call this research approach interactive research (Sandberg et al. 1992, pp.34-35).

8. Phronetic research (Flyvbjerg 2001) • “the principal objective for social science with a phronetic approach is to carry out analyses and interpretations of the status of values and interests in society aimed at social commentary and social action, i.e., praxis. The point of departure for classical phronetic research can be summarized in the following … value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going? (2) Is this desirable? (3) What should be done? (4) Who gains and who loses; by which mechanisms of power?” (pp.60-1)

9. “The result of phronetic research is a pragmatically governed interpretation of the studied practices. The interpretation does not require the researcher to agree with the actors’ everyday understanding nor to discover some deep, inner meaning of the practices. Phronetic research is in this way interpretive, but it is neither everyday nor deep hermeneutics. Phronetic research is also not about, nor does it try to develop, theory or universal method. Thus, phronetic research is an analytical project, but not a theoretical or methodological one. “The task of phronetic social science is to clarify and deliberate about the problems and risks we face and to outline how things may be done differently, in full knowledge that we cannot find ultimate answers to these questions or even a single version of what the questions are” (p.140).

10. Praxis-related research (Mattsson & Kemmis, 2005)Possible complementarity between requirements of an academic report and aspects of praxis-related research

11. 4. Researching praxis within practice traditions • Research as practical philosophy • Carr (2007; see also Carr 2000, 2004, 2006a, 2006b) • Praxis - like educational praxis, for example - can only be explored and developed within practice traditions. Until we have educational praxis (people doing education), we don’t have problems or issues to research. The task of educational research as practical philosophy is to transform past and current, individual and collective, educational praxis to meet the needs of changing historical circumstances and local conditions, and in this way to contribute to the evolution of a practice tradition.

12. 5. Research as praxis, within practice traditions of research • Some forms of research praxis are internal to educational praxis and others are external to educational praxis (though they may affect educational praxis by changing the conditions under which educational praxis can be realized). • At this moment in history, we urgently need more of the research that is internal to educational praxis and educational practice traditions.

13. 6. Conclusions While some forms of educational research, and practice-traditions of educational research, aim to grasp educational practice as an object, a phenomenon, from the standpoint of the outside observer, what they grasp instead is an object constructed by external theory and methodology. Those forms of educational research do not grasp individual or collective praxis from within. Having thus misconstrued praxis as an object seen from the perspective of an external observer, those practice-traditions cannot construe the educational activities of educators as praxis, as the right conduct and the socially-responsible action of people aiming to make their world better through education. They therefore offer advice on how ‘it’ can be improved not in educational terms, but in administrative or technical terms. In the end, educational praxis can only be changed from within, by those whose work – whose individual and collective praxis – is education.