Vol. 1 (2025)
Practice Theory: Past, Present, Future

Essays

Practice Theory Perspectives on Learning and Social Change

Published 09-07-2025

  • Stephen Kemmis

Stephen Kemmis
Adjunct Professor, Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University

Abstract

This essay briefly outlines an individualist, cognitive, epistemic view of learning and supplements it with a sociomaterial, ontological view of learning as coming to practice differently. It draws on anthropological views of learning in communities of practice to outline a sociomaterial view of learning distributed among participants in social ensembles in which different participants come to practice differently from one another. It argues that learning is an ontological transformation, not only of learners, but also of the worlds they inhabit – in particular, practices, sites and arrangements, histories, and lives. Understanding learning as transforming learners’ worlds locates learning in processes of social change, allowing researchers to show how distributed learning in social ensembles contributes to social movements for cultural, economic, ecological, social, and political transformation.

Keywords

communities of practice, education, ensembles, learning, sociomateriality

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