Lens Of Social Practice Theory Research Articles

Parent–child mobility practices: revealing ‘cracks’ in the automobility system

ABSTRACTMany commentators are concerned about automobility’s ill-effects and seek a shift away from auto dependence towards more sustainable transport. Little research, however, considers the ways that parent–child mobilities are linked to such a transition. Through the lens of social practice theory, this paper explores how parents travelling with young children preserve and challenge automobility as they enact auto dependency, multimodality and altermobility. The paper argues that it is vital to understand these practices for identifying ‘cracks’ in automobility and the possibility of more sustainable and equitable daily mobilities. The research is based on qualitative parent interviews undertaken in Vancouver (British Columbia).

Dirty Laundry in Manila: Comparing Resource Consumption Practices for Individual and Shared Laundering

SummaryChanging lifestyles in developing and emerging economies entail a shift in technology use, everyday practices, and resource consumption. It is important to understand the sustainability consequences of these changes and the potential for policy to guide practices toward more sustainable lifestyles. In this study, we investigate laundry practices in the City of Manila, the Philippines, and compare the resources consumed in three different modes of laundering. We examine (1) traditional washing by hand, (2) washing by machine at home, and (3) using a laundry service. In addition to comparing the consumption of water, energy, and detergents, we also examine the social aspects of laundering using the lens of social practice theory. We use empirical data gathered in interviews with laundry service operators and people laundering at home to undertake qualitative and quantitative analyses of laundry practices and resource consumption. We find that hand washing uses the least water and energy, but large quantities of detergents. Machine washing and laundry services are comparable for water consumption, but energy use is much higher for services as they use dryers. Social changes, such as an increase in work available for women and the nature of future housing, are likely to influence the dominance of either shared or individual laundering methods. These findings illustrate the social complexity of transitions to product‐service systems and the interdependencies between their social and environmental impacts.

A new resource for examining and responding to the contexts of alcohol-related harm.

Commentary to: All drinking is not equal: how a social practice theory lens could enhance public health research on alcohol and other health behaviours

Do practice approaches go far enough in shifting focus from the individual?

Commentary to: All drinking is not equal: how a social practice theory lens could enhance public health research on alcohol and other health behaviours

Practising drinking, practising health.

Commentary to: All drinking is not equal: how a social practice theory lens could enhance public health research on alcohol and other health behaviours

All drinking is not equal: how a social practice theory lens could enhance public health research on alcohol and other health behaviours.

The social meanings, settings and habitual nature of health-related activities and their integration into our daily lives are often overlooked in quantitative public health research. This reflects an overly individualized approach to epidemiological surveillance and evaluations of public health interventions, based on models of behaviour that are rooted in social cognition and rational choice theories. This paper calls for a new approach to alcohol epidemiology and intervention research informed by theories of practice. Practices are conceptualized as routinized types of human activity that are made up of, and can be recognized by, the coming together of several interwoven elements in the same situation (e.g. materials, meanings, skills, locations, timings). Different practices are interconnected-they can occur simultaneously (e.g. drinking and eating), hold each other in place (e.g. after-work drinks) or compete for time (e.g. parenting versus socializing). Applying these principles to alcohol research means shifting attention away from individuals and their behaviours and instead making drinking practices an important unit of analysis. Studying how drinking practices emerge, persist and decay over time, how they spread through populations and local or social networks and how they relate to other activities of everyday life promises new insights into how, why, where, when and with whom drinking and getting drunk occur. Theories of practice provide a framework for generating new explanations of stability and change in alcohol consumption and other health behaviours. This framework offers potential for novel insights into the persistence of health inequalities, unanticipated consequences of policies and interventions and new interventions targets through understanding which elements of problematic practices are likely to be most modifiable. We hope this will generate novel insights into the emergence and decay of drinking practices over time and into the geographical and socio-demographic patterning of drinking. Theories of practice-informed research would consider how alcohol policies and population-level interventions might differentially affect different drinking practices.

Woodland neglect as social practice

The ‘under-management’ of forests is a long-standing challenge for forest policy in Europe and North America. In policy and research arenas it is most frequently explained via reference to individual land-managers’ decisions made on the basis of calculations of economic cost and benefit: a manifestation of the ‘attitudes’, ‘behaviour’, ‘choice’ paradigm. This paper seeks to challenge this analytic perspective by considering ‘under-management’ through the theoretical lens of social practice theory. Drawing on extensive qualitative data from the UK, it describes a deep-rooted practice of woodland neglect that is apparent in the ways land-managers understand woodlands, interact mentally and physically with them, and in the technology associated with them. The emergence of the UK’s woodfuel sector is used as an opportunity to consider management change from the perspective of practice. The paper finishes by considering the implications of a practice of woodland neglect for theory and forest policy, noting the importance of social and technical innovation for practice change.

Achieving one-planet living through transitions in social practice: a case study of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

The per capita resource consumption for inhabitants of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (DR) is less than ten percent of the average American in most major categories, approximating “one planet” living in a nation that contributes disproportionately to global resource consumption. This article examines DR’s extraordinary energy and resource savings through the lens of social practice theory, which focuses on the meanings, competencies, and materials that individuals combine to form everyday practices. Participant observation and interviews with DR community members reveals how this rural ecovillage achieves remarkable energy and resource savings by transitioning away from the exclusive ownership of capital goods, investing in skills that facilitate the collective management of resources, and eliminating waste by taking advantage of locally available resources. Results suggest that local governments interested in sustainability and climate mitigation should encourage systems of collective resource management rather than maintaining a traditional focus on influencing changes in individual consumption choices.

“Obviously in the cool group they wear designer things”

Purpose– This paper aims to propose the lens of social practice theory (SPT) as a means of deepening insights into childhood consumer culture.Design/methodology/approach– The data comprise four qualitative interviews and ten focus groups with 58 8-13 year olds in six diverse schools across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Transcripts were coded with NVIVO10. Analysis was guided by the three elements of SPT: materials, meaning and competence.Findings– Branded technology products and clothes consistently combined with both the socially sanctioned objective of achieving and maintaining a place in the peer hierarchy and also the three skills the authors have labelled “social consumption recognition”, “social consumption performance” and “social consumption communication” in regular, predictable ways to produce an ordered and, thus, reproducible nexus of actions. Analysis of the inter-relationship between these elements showed that children’s consumption is a specific practice, embedded in their everyday routines. Consumption is also linked inextricably to social position; children’s variable performance of it links with their degree of social acceptance and popularity.Research limitations/implications– Although the study included a broad cross-section of school catchment areas, they cannot be said to represent all British children. Nonetheless, SPT provides an alternative theoretical perspective on children’s consumption by shifting the focus away from the child, the social context or even the products, thus ceasing to privilege the notion that consumption is something external to children that they learn to be socialised into; or to consciously use for their own symbolic or other purposes; or that they have to be protected from.Social implications– Consumption practice is deeply embedded in children’s relationships and is inextricably linked to their well-being. Policies seeking to tackle any single element of the practice, such as media literacy training, are only likely to have limited effectiveness. This research implies that responsible marketing measures need to concentrate on the links between all the elements.Originality/value– This SPT analysis of children’s consumption makes three contributions. First, it provides a much-needed new theoretical perspective beyond the dominant but limited “consumer socialisation” research paradigm that confines analysis of children’s consumption to the functioning of their individual cognitive capacity. Second, it suggests new research methodologies for understanding the interaction between children and the commercial world. Third, it offers a different approach to policymakers tasked with the controversial issue of regulating marketing to children.

Environmental identity formation in nonformal environmental education programs

This paper explores experiences that remained salient in the memories of former participants in three nature-based programs in Colorado, five to forty years after childhood involvement. Interviews with program founders and staff, archival research, and observations of current activities provided an understanding of each program’s history, mission and educational approach. In this context, 18 former participants were interviewed about program experiences that they remembered and program impacts on their environmental identities and academic or career choices. Results were analyzed through the lens of social practice theory, which has significant implications for the design and evaluation of environmental education programs. Results showed that social practice theory is a useful framework for interpreting the development of a social environmental identity, but an ecological identity that forms through direct contact with the natural world is an important complementary concept.

Intercultural comparative research: rethinking insider and outsider perspectives

A commonsense problematic positions comparative researchers as either inside or outside cultures, or their situation is considered so as to acknowledge cultural fluidity and fragmentation. This article rejects the objectivism of these positions to provide a relational account. Using the lens of social practice theory, comparative pedagogy is analysed and a case study provided, where pedagogy is described as a socially situated phenomenon and research on pedagogy as a contested field. Three relations are examined: researchers to pedagogy in processes of data generation; researchers to theories of and empirical research about pedagogy in processes of analysis; and theories of and empirical research about pedagogy to pedagogy in processes of validation. Methodological insights into the status, legitimacy and limitations of research findings are discussed, and a view of comparative pedagogy as craft apprenticeship is presented.

Air-conditioning and antibiotics: Demand management insights from problematic health and household cooling practices

Air-conditioners and antibiotics are two technologies that have both been traditionally framed around individual health and comfort needs, despite aspects of their use contributing to social health problems. The imprudent use of antibiotics is threatening the capacity of the healthcare system internationally. Similarly, in Australia the increasing reliance on air-conditioning to maintain thermal comfort is contributing to rising peak demand and electricity prices, and is placing an inequitable health and financial burden on vulnerable heat-stressed households. This paper analyses policy responses to these problems through the lens of social practice theory. In the health sector, campaigns are attempting to emphasise the social health implications of antibiotic use. In considering this approach in relation to the problem of air-conditioned cooling and how to change the ways in which people keep cool during peak times, our analysis draws on interviews with 80 Australian households. We find that the problem of peak electricity demand may be reduced through attention to the social health implications of air-conditioned cooling on very hot days. We conclude that social practice theory offers a fruitful analytical route for identifying new avenues for research and informing policy responses to emerging health and environmental problems.

Professional development in person: identity and the construction of teaching within a high school science department

This is a narrative inquiry into the role of professional development in the construction of teaching practice by an exemplary urban high school science teacher. I collected data during 3 years of ethnographic participant observation in Marie Gonzalez’s classroom. Marie told stories about her experiences in ten years of professional development focused on inquiry science teaching. I use a social practice theory lens to analyze my own stories as well as Marie’s. I make the case that science teaching is best understood as mediated by socially-constructed identities rather than as the end-product of knowledge and beliefs. The cognitive paradigm for understanding teachers’ professional learning fails to consistently produce transformations of teaching practice. In order to design professional development with science teachers that is generative of new knowledge, and is self-sustaining, we must understand how to build knowledge of how to problematize identities and consciously use social practice theory.

A Matter of Trust in Metro Manila: Collective action towards ‘green economy’ transitions

Marlyne D. Sahakian reflects on the role of everyday people in charting transitions towards greener economies. The main assumption is that individual actions will not suffice: some forms of collective action will be necessary to challenge existing institutions, norms and values that are tied up with un-sustainable practices. Drawing from fieldwork based in Metro Manila, different forms of environmental mobilization are assessed through the lens of social practice theory and based on in-depth interviews and observations. Sahakian concludes that un-sustainable lifestyles in so-called industrialized countries may be setting norms and standards that are being upheld as ‘the good life’ elsewhere.

The practice of socialization and the socialization of practice

PurposeAt the core of how societies operate, lies social interaction. Organizations as significant social bodies rely on social interaction both to get things done in order to remain sustainable and to also impart a contribution to the wider society. Understanding the dynamics of social interactions in the way social agents and social action take place through the lens of social practice theory could yield powerful insights both about practices of socialization as well as the socialization of practices. The purpose of this paper is to fundamentally reveal the tensions that such interactions expose and the dynamics in negotiating individual and collective priorities.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a conceptual approach on the links to be established between practice and socialization.FindingsThis paper focuses on how a practice perspective provides valuable insights about how social agents get things done in organizations.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is linked with other papers in this issue where the dynamics in negotiating individual and collective priorities reveal the tensions that such interactions expose (“transaction”). This paper provides a useful foundation for examining why organization practices tend to have an institutional character. This issue reveals new possibilities for appreciating the emergent nature of socialization both as a practice and a process striving towards institutionalization.Originality/valueThis paper explores socialization as a practice that can provide new insights into the dynamics of social interaction.