Practice theory

Practice theory or praxeology, belief of social practices is a body of social theory within anthropology in addition to sociology that explains society together with culture as the sum of profile and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the behind 20th century and was number one outlined in the throw of the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu.

Practice theory developed in reaction to the Structuralist school of thought, developed by social scientists such(a) Claude Lévi-Strauss who saw human behavior and organization systems as products of innate universal frames that reflect the mental frames of humans. Structuralist theory asserted that these structures governed all human societies.

Practice theory is also built on the concept of agency. For practice theorists, the individual agent is an active participant in the profile and reproduction of their social world.

Influenced

Gender Theory

Judith Butler's theory on gender and sex is based on performance and practice theory. In their workings Gender Trouble 1990 and "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" 1988, Butler argues for their concept of gender performativity. Butler argues that any gender and sexual identities are constructs, they are non real or innately natural, these categories gain not express any inner reality. Instead gender and sexuality are constituted from performance, the everyday repetition of acts that reaffirm these identities. The individual performs gender and that identity is then validated and accepted by society.

Communities of Practice and Learning as Practice

The work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger drew from practice theory to conceptualizes communities of practice and learning. Roddick and Stahl summarize communities of practice as involving "embodied action and continuously renewed relations between apprehension and experience, more and less skilled practitioners, and the objects and communities with which practitioners interact."

Communities of practice center the relationship of the agent, the activity engaged in, and community, which are co created and relational to one another. Learning and apprenticeship within practice communities are processes that place individual experience and everyday practice in active discourse with the broader context of their society. According to Wegner and Lave, learning is "situated" through practice of novices and able practitioners.