Dialectic and conflicts: researching school as conflictual social practice

Charlotte Højholt, Dorte Kousholt

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperResearchpeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to develop a dialectical approach to analyzing social conflicts concerning children’s school life. Public education can be seen as a common cause different parties at the same time are engaged in and conflicting about. We want to discuss this unity between the distribution of different positions and perspectives and how the involved are engaged in a common but many-sided and contradictory matter.
Contradictions may be understood as incompatible as well as dependent elements in a common cause. The involved have to work with these contradictions every day. Contradictions are at one hand historical, and they demand situated handling and coordination in concrete situations to make things work.
The involved experience the contradictions from different positions, types of responsibilities and with insight from different locations. In this way contradictions have potential to turn into conflicts and the conflicts have personal and existential meanings to the participant in social practice (related to their possibilities for conducting everyday life) and they are historical and political (related to societal questions about education).
We draw on conceptualizations of social practice as contradictory and developed through its contradictions (Lave, Dreier, Axel). The theoretical discussion will be illustrated through examples from conflicts between children and between parents - in relation to dealing with focus on the tasks of the school as well as flexibility in relation to the social life of the school.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2017
Number of pages10
Publication statusPublished - 2017
EventThe 17th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology 2017: The Ethos of Theorizing - Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
Duration: 21 Aug 201725 Aug 2017
Conference number: 17
https://www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/istp2017/index.html
https://www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/istp2017/topic4.html

Conference

ConferenceThe 17th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology 2017
Number17
LocationRikkyo University
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityTokyo
Period21/08/201725/08/2017
Internet address

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