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: In this paper, a conceptual framework for interpreting cultural landscapes in the U.S. through the example of a residential suburb is presented as the tangible, visible articulation of numerous discourses.
Abstract: This paper presents a conceptual framework for interpreting cultural landscapes in the U.S. through the example of a residential suburb. The particular landscape is presented as the tangible, visible articulation of numerous discourses. Several examples of a “discourse materialized” in the landscape—landscape architecture, historic preservation, neighborhood associations, insurance mapping, zoning, consumption—are employed to demonstrate how the landscape at once constricts and is constructed by individuals who live in a particular place. U.S. cultural landscapes ultimately are viewed as material phenomena, reflective and symbolic of individual activity and cultural ideals, as they simultaneously are central to the constitution and reinforcement of those activities and ideals.
395 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use data from interviews and observations in four urban elementary schools to examine how schools respond to high-stakes accountability policies and conclude that issues of educational equity need to be given greater consideration in the implementation of high stakes accountability policies.
Abstract: In this article, the authors use data from interviews and observations in four urban elementary schoolsFtwo high-performing and two probation schoolsFto examine how schools respond to high-stakes accountability policies. The authors show that school responses to high-stakes accountability depend on the schools’ accountability status. In probation schools, responses focus narrowly on complying with policy demands, focusing on improving the performance of certain students, within benchmark grades, and in certain subject areas. In contrast, higher performing schools emphasize enhancing the performance of all students regardless of grade level and across all subject areas. Given the concentration of poor students and students of color in the lowest performing schools, the authors conclude that issues of educational equity need to be given greater consideration in the implementation of high stakes accountability policies.
394 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the use of competency frameworks, models, instruments and thinking in management and organizational life and how they have been transplanted both swiftly and se...
Abstract: Competency frameworks, models, instruments and thinking have long been ingrained and utilized in management and organizational life. Not surprisingly they have been transplanted both swiftly and se...
394 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the condition of "safety" around public race dialogue becomes a symbolic form of violence experienced by people of color, and that a subtle but fundamental violence is enacted in safe discourses on race, which must be challenged through a pedagogy of disruption.
Abstract: In education, it is common to put the condition of ‘safety’ around public race dialogue. The authors argue that this procedural rule maintains white comfort zones and becomes a symbolic form of violence experienced by people of color. In other words, they ask, ‘Safety for whom?’ A subtle but fundamental violence is enacted in safe discourses on race, which must be challenged through a pedagogy of disruption, itself a form of violence but a humanizing, rather than repressive, version. For this, the authors turn to Frantz Fanon's theory of violence, most clearly outlined in The Wretched of the Earth. First, the article outlines the basic assumptions of Fanon's theory of revolutionary, as opposed to repressive, violence. Second, we analyze the surrounding myths that an actual safe space exists for people of color when it concerns public race dialogue. Third, we critique the intellectualization of racism as part of the concrete violence lived by people of color in the academy, which whites continually reduce ...
390 citations
01 Feb 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present several strategic dilemmas that organizers and participants face, either explicitly as choices or implicitly as tradeoffs, in social movements, which represent agency in contrast to the structure that has interested scholars for so long.
Abstract: In theories of social movements, the structural models of the last thirty years may have reached the limits of their utility. Future breakthroughs are likely to arise from attention to the microfoundations of political action. The study of strategic choices may be one fruitful new path of research, especially if sociologists can develop an approach to strategy that takes cultural and institutional contexts more seriously than game theory, which has long dominated the study of strategy. As a starting point, I present several strategic dilemmas that organizers and participants face, either explicitly as choices or implicitly as tradeoffs. These choices represent agency in contrast to the structure that has interested scholars for so long. By portraying strategic players as audiences for words and actions, they are also thoroughly cultural. If we can begin to explain the choices faced and the choices made, we will go a long way toward opening up the study of social movements to strategic factors mostly ignor...
389 citations