Outline of a Theory of Practice.
About: This article is published in Contemporary Sociology.The article was published on 1980-03-01. It has received 14683 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Practice theory.
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TL;DR: This article set forth a theoretical rationale for a critical rhetoric and presented eight "principles" to orient the critic toward the act of criticism, which can be seen as a transformative practice rather than as a method.
Abstract: This essay sets forth a theoretical rationale for a critical rhetoric and presents eight “principles”; which, taken together, orient the critic toward the act of criticism The theoretical rationale encompasses two forms of critique, styled as a critique of domination and as a critique of freedom Both have in common an analysis of the discourse of power as it serves in the first case to maintain the privilege of the elite and, in the second, to maintain social relations across a broad spectrum of human activities The principles articulate an orientation that sees critique as a transformative practice rather than as a method, recognizes the materiality of discourse, reconceptualizes rhetoric as doxastic as contrasted to epistemic, and as nominalistic as contrasted to universalistic, captures rhetoric as “influential"as contrasted to “causal,”; recognizes the importance of absence as well as presence, perceives the potential for polysemic as opposed to monosemic interpretation, and as an activity that is
705 citations
TL;DR: A review of the cultural anthropology of time is like reading Borges's "Book of Sand": as one opens this book, pages keep growing from it-it has no beginning or end as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Writing a review of the cultural anthropology of time is something like reading Borges's (19a) infinite "Book of Sand": as one opens this book, pages keep growing from it-it has no beginning or end. Borges's book could be taken as the spa ce of time: A page once seen is never seen again, and the book's harried possessors keep trying to escape its "monstrous" self-production by surrepti tiously selling or losing it. The diffuse, endlessly multiplying studies of sociocultural time reflect time's pervasiveness as an inescapable dimension of all aspects of social experience and practice. This apparently "infinite complexity" (1:200) seems
705 citations
TL;DR: Paulsen et al. as discussed by the authors examined the ways that college costs affect the college-choice and persistence decisions of students in four different income groups and found that the effects of financial factors on students' choices differ across social classes.
Abstract: During the past two decades there have been fundamental changes in the ways states and the federal government finance higher education (McPherson & Schapiro, 1998; Mumper, 1996; Paulsen, 1998; Paulsen & Smart, 2001; St. John, 1994). The federal government has shifted from using grants as the primary means of promoting postsecondary opportunity to using loans for this purpose. Decreases in state support for public colleges and universities have led to increases in tuition charges, which have shifted a larger portion of the burden of paying for college from the general public to students and their families (Breneman & Finney, 1997; Mumper, 1996; Paulsen, 1991, 2000). Thus, the last two decades of the twentieth century can appropriately be characterized as a period of high tuition, high aid, but with an emphasis on loans rather than grants. How have these changes in the costs of college influenced the opportunities of students in different income groups to attain a higher education? To address this question we examined the ways that college costs affect the college-choice and persistence decisions of students in four different income groups. The idea that research on college students should focus on social class represents a departure from mainstream research on college students, which focuses primarily on students of traditional college-going age and background (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991) and is centered in traditional values. This study extends an alternative approach to the study of college students based on the student-choice construct that has evolved over the past decade (Paulsen & St. John, 1997; St. John, 1994; St. John, Paulsen, & Starkey, 1996). The new approach presented in this study explicitly addresses the diverse patterns of student choice in its examination of the ways in which the effects of financial factors on students' choices differ across social classes. To provide background for this study, the following sections present the student-choice perspective that guides the study, describe the salient features of the financial nexus between college choice and persistence decisions, and explain why a focus on social class is an important step in efforts to understand the role of finances in student choice. The Research Literature and Conceptual Framework that Inform the Study The Student Choice Perspective Research on college students has been dominated by the research traditions of developmental and change theories (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). These research traditions are primarily centered in the values of students of traditional college-going age and background and neither can be easily adapted to the study of the new, contemporary college aspirants, who are increasingly diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. It is important to reflect briefly on the limitations of these traditional approaches before presenting student-choice theory as an alternative. The limitations of traditional models. One of the dominant traditions in college student research is student development theory (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991), which started with the study of students of traditional college-going age and background (e.g., Chickering, 1969; Perry, 1970). This approach was highly compatible with the characteristics and experiences of traditional students, but is not directly applicable to the college experiences of many of the new aspirants to college, an increasingly-large proportion of whom are minorities and older students. Minority students have different backgrounds and experiences before they attend college, compared to the middle-class students who were used as a basis for the developmental theories, while older students have already experienced and passed through many of the developmental sequences that are the focus of traditional stage theories of development. Developmental theory is also limited because it has few direct linkages to matters of public policy. …
698 citations
Book•
09 Aug 2007TL;DR: Coupland as discussed by the authors developed a coherent theoretical approach to style in sociolinguistics, illustrated with copious examples, and explained how speakers project different social identities and create different social relationships through their style choices, and how speech style and social context inter-relate.
Abstract: Style refers to ways of speaking - how speakers use the resource of language variation to make meaning in social encounters. This 2007 book develops a coherent theoretical approach to style in sociolinguistics, illustrated with copious examples. It explains how speakers project different social identities and create different social relationships through their style choices, and how speech-style and social context inter-relate. Style therefore refers to the wide range of strategic actions and performances that speakers engage in, to construct themselves and their social lives. Coupland draws on and integrates a wide variety of contemporary sociolinguistic research as well as his own extensive research in this field. The emphasis is on how social meanings are made locally, in specific relationships, genres, groups and cultures, and on studying language variation as part of the analysis of spoken discourse.
695 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the influence of experience on coaching practice and found that it is experience and the observation of other coaches that remain the primary sources of knowledge for coaches, despite this, coach education and continuing professional development fail to draw effectively on this experience.
Abstract: Research over the last decade has demonstrated that it is experience and the observation of other coaches that remain the primary sources of knowledge for coaches. Despite this, coach education and continuing professional development fail to draw effectively on this experience. Using the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper attempts to understand how the “art of coaching” can be characterized as structured improvisation and how experience is crucial to structuring coaching practice. An examination of current coach education and assessment demonstrates that coaching practice viewed as a composite of knowledge has not specifically addressed the pervasive influence of experience on coaching practice. Drawing on experiences from the educational field, we examine how coach education and continuing professional development can utilize mentoring and critical reflection to situate learning in the practical experience of coaching.
680 citations