Realms of theory in relation to practice

From: Bill Barowy (wbarowy@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Aug 14 2002 - 07:38:16 PDT


I think Phil's distinction between "theory is practice" (social scientist)
and "theory as practice" (teacher) resonates -- and that the latter is not a
systematic field of action does too -- opening up the category of theory
beyond the kind of thing social scientists do. And that's an important
distinction because it helps social change advocates be aware of their own
intentions to introduce theory in the former sense - not only as a scheme of
the relations subsisting between the parts of a systematic whole, but also in
terms of thinking-and-doing more systematically in relation to such a scheme
(I'm conciously trying to avoid falling into the positivist black hole while
attempting a slingshot orbit from it).

I think Phil is also right on the money, framing the issues in the capitalist
economy -- (sorry for the cheezy pun) -- especially because teachers are
paid to do the work they do, and there are institutional and political
expectations for their jobs, which appear in the social and artifactual
environments of teachers, sometimes explicitly as policies and test scores,
but also implicitly in the modeling that mentor teachers do for apprentice
teachers. Phil's 4 categories provide an elegant quantized model for
thinking of the way workspaces influence what people (in general) do.
There's certainly more gray, the lines are blurrier than the four categories
-- but the 4 category model does provide a clean and uncomplicated way to
distinquish how much theory explication is expected in work environments. I
think Phil would agree with me this is not an environmental determinism, but
an explication of the kinds of work environments that people find themselves
in (both occupation- and identity-wise)

[Aside: As a related example (that i can relate to, having been paid to be an
engineer in the past and a physical scientist, also in the past) Phil's
latter two categories describe somewhat the differences between engineers and
scientists. There really are gray areas here, of course, with the distinction
between theoreticians and experimentalists among physical scientists within
the "theory in practice" category being a strong counterpoint. But back to
the latter two of Phil's categories, some of the brainier engineering work
institutions expect more theoretic approaches closer to "Theory in practice"
and the engineers in those places publish in journals while others are closer
to the realm of "Theory as practice". One in which I worked had a division
within the company itself, with the more systematic of folks making up a team
called the "advanced products group" that was charges with innovation in the
institution. ]

Back to education, in Phil's model, some of us in education seem to be trying
to move people from "theory as practice" to "theory in practice", with the
concordant tensions that appear because we are trying to induce change not
only in what an individual teacher does, but we are trying to induce change
also in the greater day to day work of their institution, i.e. through the
individuals teacher's relations to others there, we are trying to change the
work of those others too.

[Another side comment: The group of social change advocates who are loosely
aggregated under the category of 'design experiment" also fits nicely in
Phil's model -- under "Theory as practice". There, from what i can tell
having had a conversation or two with one person who advocates design
experiment, is a tacit positivist model with an enviromental determinism.
That is, one version of the design experiment approach does not take into
account the way children and teacher act to shape their environment, but
treats the intervention as making a change in the children's environment, and
seeing how that change effects the outcome of some cognitive measure.]

Phil, I'd like to hear more of the tension in the workplace with the
expectation of low understanding incumbent in "theory vs practice" vs the
expectation for innovation. I know of one workplace where i think that
tension is essentially resolved -- there is rampant disregard for worker
innovation. New ideas come from the top in a "queen bee, drone, and worker
bee" hierarchy. Needless to say, the hierarchy introduces other tensions
with other expectations in the culture of higher education.

bb

On Tuesday 13 August 2002 04:57 pm, Phillip Capper wrote:
> I find Bill's comments very helpful. However I'd like to consider his
> observation that :
>
> if I'm a fifth grade teacher, I
> teach, I don't do theory.
>
> Maybe, but it is more precise to say that they don't do theory explication.
> They do have a tacit theory in use, and they do do theory development when
> they modify their practice in the light of experience. So I would argue
> that the difference is between "theory is practice" (the research
> scientist) and "theory AS practice" (the 5th grade teacher). In the latter
> case theory building is not a systematic field of action, and it is built
> without adequate rigour. But it is nevertheless socially situated and
> grounded in professional conversation, and therefore it is theory that is
> strongly rooted in culture rather than in a positivistic intent.
>
> This is important to us when it comes to Bill's example of the computer
> technician. Here Bill's 'theory v. practice' becomes highly relevant. In
> the workplace deskilling and automation has as one of its purposes the
> removal of as much need for theory - even implict theory - as possible in
> the division of labour. But, perversely, the drive towards the 'knowledge
> economy' and 'growth through innovation' requires exactly the opposite -
> that more and more employees are able to explicate theory so that they can
> consciously apply it to novel situations. This contradiction is, in my
> view, a fundamental issue for both the organisation of work, and for
> understanding one of the purposes of schooling.
>
> So I guess I am suggesting that there are four broad categories needed to
> describe the relationship between theory and practice, and which are
> necessary to meet the challenges Bill presents at the end of his message:
>
> Theory v. practice - where the work is designed to eliminate the need for
> any theory use in practice (the deskilled process worker on an automated
> production line)
>
> Theory as practice - where the work is of a kind that the worker must
> develop tacit theories through engagement in practice - experience based
> theory building (teachers as characterised by Bill)
>
> Theory in practice - where the work is of a kind that requires the worker
> to achieve goals through the use of explicit theory applied to novel
> problems (medical workers, industrial designers)
>
> Theory is practice - where the goal of the work itself is the development
> of robust theory (academic research scientists).
>
> That typology doesn't quite work, and they may all be present in any given
> practice, but it is where my thinking about Bill's message has taken me.
>
> Phillip Capper,
> Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
> Level 13
> 114 The Terrace
> (PO Box 2855)
> WELLINGTON
> New Zealand
>
> Ph: +64 4 499 8140
> Fx: +64 4 499 8395
> Mb: +64 021 519 741
>
> http://www.webresearch.co.nz
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Barowy [mailto:wbarowy@attbi.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 14 August 2002 4:39 a.m.
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Theory vs practice or theory is practice?
>
>
> Did someone mention that theory is a practice? Theory is what theorists
> do. There are three things that fall out of thinking of theory as a
> practice. First, it addresses the ideological/identity barrier of what
> constitutes what
> a person does in life/for a living. So, if I'm a fifth grade teacher, I
> teach, I don't do theory.
>
> Second, thinking so addresses the issue that practice of theory consumes an
> ecological resource -- time. So again, if I'm a fifth grade teacher who
> must
> address the state scores on reading and mathematics, as well as do the
> 10,000
> other things that my job demands, I don't have time for theory either.
>
> Third, like the practice of let's say, computer technician, the practice
> comes replete with a technical discourse, an ensemble of routines, a
> diffuse
> set of wartofskian artifacts, i.e. conceptual toolkits and texts, etc. So
> while cognition-in-head'ers would focus on the abstraction of theory as a
> barrier to be addressed by mediated development, I'd like to consider that
> more generally as the theory-as-practice barrier to be addressed by
> mediated
> development.
>
> It's not to say that i think the practice of doing theory should not
> become part of teaching practice, or that there are no solutions for making
> this happen. But I do think the situation of making education more
> inclusive of theory will benefit by using the theoretical tools we have,
> and consequently by looking at the tensions that exist between the extant
> system and that of the future.
>
> Anyway, this is how i've been thinking of things lately and would like to
> push against this way of thinking -- really kick it around, so if anyone
> has suggestions for who has troddent this or similar ground (Mehan comes to
> mind)
> or would simply like to argue ( in a discussive way), it would be very much
> appreciated.
>
> Sorry, I can't seem to read xmca without putting in two cents.
>
> bb

-- 
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. 
By definition, there are already enough people to do that. -G. H. Hardy 

(:^{>



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