1st Edition
From Practice to Praxis: A reflexive turn The selected works of Susan Groundwater-Smith
From Practice to Praxis is an exploration of the development of ethical practice as it applies to the meaning of quality within the tradition of practitioner inquiry and participatory research. Chronicling some of her most important works, this is a compelling overview of Susan Groundwater-Smith’s contribution to the evolution of the nexus between thinking and theory as it stands between the academy and the field. It traces the steps between instrumental reasoning towards a more liberatory and challenging stance.
The book selects from a number of publications, each representing the genesis of the nascent ideas that have informed Susan’s practice as a scholar and researcher. Taking a praxis stance draws attention not only to procedural concerns, how things are done; but also substantive issues that are associated with different forms of dialogue and trustworthiness, why things are done.
In addition to the assemblage of articles and chapters, the book is prefaced by a long essay that reveals those features of the writer’s self-understanding as it is illuminated throughout the selection. The work is situated within a professional life-history, as well as relating to extant writings on theory and practice within a complex cultural and ever-changing professional educational environment.
From Practice to Praxis will appeal to initial teacher education students in both primary and secondary settings, as well as post-graduate students with an interest in action research/participant research with both practitioners in the field and young people.
Introduction 1. Moving to praxis: Reading the readings 2. The interrogation of case records as a basis for constructing curriculum perspectives 3. Credential bearing enquiry-based courses: paradox or new challenge 4. Putting teacher professional judgment to work 5. Painting the Landscape with Tea: Revisiting Becoming Critical 6. My Professional Self: Two books, a person and my bedside table 7. Professional Knowledge Formation in the Australian Educational Market Place: Changing the Perspective 8. Questions of quality in practitioner research: Universities in the 21st Century, a safe place for unsafe idea 9. Student voice: essential testimony for intelligent schools 10. Ethics in Practitioner Research: an issue of Quality 11. Cooperative Change Management through Practitioner Inquiry 12. Learning outside the classroom: a partnership with a difference 13. Living ethical practice in qualitative research 14. Concerning Equity: The Voice of Young People 15. Weaving a web of professional practice: The Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools 16. Mentoring teacher inquiry: Lessons in lesson study 17. Why Global Policies Fail Disengaged Young People at the Local Level
Biography
Susan Groundwater-Smith is Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. She has over fifty years of teaching and academic experience in both mainstream and special education.
