We/you can tell talk from matter: a conversation with Håkan Larsson and Mikael Quennerstedt

How we go about conceptualising and articulating relationships between the body as ‘matter’ and its ‘mattering’ in and by culture, is a critical issue for educational researchers, perhaps especially so for those in Physical Education, Health and sport (PEHS). This paper engages such issue via conversation with ideas presented in the recent work of Håkan Larsson and Mikael Quennerstedt, published in this and another journal (Quest). While we share much the same interests as Håkan and Mikael in researching educational processes, including how policy and pedagogical transactions evident in formal and informal education, PEHS impact subjectivity to either prohibit or progress the well-being of children and young people and, even more broadly, greater equity and equality in society and schools, we highlight some clear points of divergence especially with their views as to how future research might advance understanding of relationships between education, embodiment and specific movement forms. The paper advocates attention to both matter and mattering and their relationality, via border crossings of an ideational, intellectual and disciplinary kind.     

Embodying skilful performance: Co-constituting body and world in biotechnology

This article offers a philosophical-empirical account of embodied skilful performance in the practice of plant biotechnology. Drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty and others, we elaborate how skilful performance emerges from and through reciprocal relations encompassing the body-in-the-world and the world-in-the-body. The contribution of this article lies in offering an account of skilful performance that is attentive to a perceiving, motile, feeling body entwined with world. In genetically modifying plants, scientists direct their senses of touch and vision to manipulating plant materials and matter, ‘reading’ subtle changes in tissue cultures, plantlets and so on. In rhythmic movements, they extend their bodies through skilful use of complex equipment, while calling on ‘intuition’ to guide their work. Skilful performance, then, relies on our lived body that is not merely a physical object among other objects, nor a passive instrument for the mind, but dynamic and inescapably entwined with people and things in a world in flux. Bringing to the fore how perceiving, motile, feeling bodies are implicated in skilful performance has significant implications for education and workplace training.     

The Black Women’s Gathering Place: reconceptualising a curriculum of place/space

ABSTRACT

This article de-centres imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal traditions of critical approaches in Curriculum Studies via an examination of experiences shared at The Black Women’s Gathering Place (BWGP), a non-traditional space where a diverse, intergenerational group of Black women engage with each other through the sharing of stories. In the BWGP, we enact components of Pinar’s [2004. What is Curriculum Theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum] concept of currere, simultaneously re-entering our collective and individual pasts and re-imagining our futures in an effort to reconcile our public and private selves. Taking up tenets of Black feminist theory, theoretical framings of hidden curriculum, and components of Ng-A-Fook’s [2007. An Indigenous Curriculum of Place: The United Houma Nation’s Contentious Relationship with Louisiana’s Educational Institutions. New York, NY: Peter Lang] ‘Curriculum of Place,’ we reconceptualise a curriculum of place/space that negotiates dominant norms expressed in social environments. In this space, we validate traditional knowledges upheld in communities of Black women across the Diaspora. The BWGP allows us to argue for a re-presentation of extant knowledge by and about Black women.     

Bodily experience and mathematical conceptions: from classical views to a phenomenological reconceptualization

Mathematical concepts and conceptions have been theorized as abstractions from—and therefore transcending—bodily and embodied experience. In this contribution, we re-theorize mathematical conceptions by building on recent philosophical work in dialectical phenomenology. Accordingly, a conception exists only in, through, and as of the experiences that the individual realizes it. To exemplify our reconceptualization of mathematical conceptions, we draw on an episode from a study in a second-grade classroom where the students learned about three-dimensional geometrical objects.

Gestures and conceptual integration in mathematical talk

Spontaneous gesture produced in conjunction with speech is considered as both a source of data about mathematical thinking, and as an integral modality in communication and cognition. The analysis draws on a corpus of more than 200 gestures collected during 3 h of interviews with prospective elementary school teachers on the topic of fractions. The analysis examines how gestures express meaning, utilizing the framework of cognitive linguistics to argue that gestures are both composed of, and provide inputs to, conceptual blends for mathematical ideas, and a standard typology drawn from gesture studies is extended to address the function of gestures within mathematics more appropriately. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of the original article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

具身认知理论及其对教学设计与技术的应用启示

具身认知主张身体的知觉是行为产生的基础,认知是具体的个体在实时的环境中产生的。在关于世界、心智、知识和认知等多个方面,具身认知与客观主义和建构主义在范式上都呈现出很大不同。由于抓住了具身性这一核心特性,具身认知发现了一条与客观主义和建构主义两种关于现实的极端观点之间的中间道路,对以往的理论具有更大的包容性和扩充性。具身认知对于我们理解学习,明确一切教育实践的出发点具有深刻而巨大的意义,也为更具包容性的贯一教学设计提供了可能的认识论基础。同时,具身认知对于开展与教学活动并行的教学设计,设计整合了物理、生物与电子媒介的"认知系统"环境,对于促进学习具有重要的启示意义。     

消费文化语境下舒斯特曼“具身化”美学反思

舒斯特曼所倡导的一切从"具身"出发的思想尽管对拓展传统美学的研究范围,开辟新的美学增长点具有重要意义。但是,在消费文化弥漫的社会大潮中,一方面,形形色色的"泛具身化"现象引起了人们认知的混乱与价值判断的模糊,渐渐偏离了舒氏的理论初衷;另一方面,新媒体技术的发展所带来的"去身化"现实,不断挑战着"具身化"的合法性存在。由此不得不让我们重新反思和探索"具身化"美学未来的发展路径。     

Bodies of knowledge: The concept of embodiment as an alternative to theory/practice debates in the preparation of teachers

The theory/practice divide is a persistent theme in teacher education research. This article reports on a phenomenological study of thirteen newly-qualified teachers across their first two years of teaching and their sense of preparedness to teach. Analysis of interviews with the teachers suggested they equated ‘being prepared’ with ‘being knowledgeable’, with being knowledgeable described in embodied terms, rather than as knowledge held ‘in the head’. We argue that the concept of embodiment, particularly as it has been taken up within the ‘practice turn’ in teacher education, offers a potential alternative to long-standing theory/practice entanglements in debates about learning to teach.     

Re-embodying (preservice middle years) teachers? An attempt to reposition the body and its presence in teaching and learning

This four-part story is about one teacher educator’s attempt to embody praxis as a form of academic work, emphasizing the importance of the corporeal in learning and teaching. I describe the inter-related context (1) of my embodied self, the teacher education course I constructed, and theory employed in mediating course practices. Evidence of praxis in emergence (2) is illustrated through written text and visual artefacts of the operationalized assessment. I discuss (3) using embodied subjectivities, the importance of practice/praxis, and how we operationalize discourse in education to then pose questions (4) as flows for teacher educators, preservice teachers and teachers in their classpaces.     

教育中信息技术用途及限度的伊德技术现象学分析

信息技术在教育中的应用弥漫着一种盲目乐观的情绪,缺乏对其应用方式与限度的理性分析。以当前技术哲学主流的技术现象学,特别是美国著名技术哲学家伊德的“人一技术”关系现象学作为分析框架,来理性分析教育中的信息技术应用是必要的。技术现象学中最基础的问题就是人与技术的关系问题。伊德指出人与技术存在4种关系,即具身关系、解释关系、它异关系与背景关系,这4种关系形成了“人一技术”关系的连续统,具有较好的理论自洽性与普适性。用这一框架来分析信息技术在教育中的应用,则分别对应于教育传播技术、教育数据挖掘、教育游戏技术和默会教学法。作为“双刃剑”的另一面,信息技术在教育中的应用限度应重点考虑技术对人的知觉的片面转化、人工智能的局限和技术的文化适应问题。