On being ‘stirred in’to practices: observations of “learning how to go on”

This chapter provides a ‘societist’ (Schatzki in Philos Soc Sci 33(2):174–202, 2003) account of ‘learning’ using the theory of ‘practice architectures’ (Kemmis and Grootenboer in Situating praxis in practice: Practice architectures and the cultural, social and material conditions for practice. Enabling praxis: Challenges for education. Sense, Rotterdam, pp. 37–62, 2008; Kemmis et al. in Changing education, changing practices. Springer Education, Singapore, 2014). Drawing on observations of classrooms, schools and a school district, the authors argue, first, that people ‘learn’ practices , not only ‘knowledge ’, ‘concepts’ or ‘values’, for example. They suggest that learning a practice entails entering—joining in—the projects and the kinds of sayings , doings and relatings characteristic of different practices. The metaphor that learning involves being ‘stirred in’ to practices conveys the motion and dynamism of becoming a practitioner of a practice of one kind of another, like learning or teaching. Being stirred into practices suggests an account of ‘learning’ that elucidates the process, activity and sociality of learning as a practice.