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RESEARCH PRODUCT

What is Educational Praxis?

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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 and Smith in Enabling praxis: challenges for education. Sense, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 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.