Envisioning practice: the roles of context, judgement and informal learning

Abstract

This paper explicates practice by examining a relationship between context, judgement and informal learning that is potentially lifelong. On common understandings of the nature of learning practice is of marginal interest, partly because it is so contextual. However it becomes a much more central case of learning in alternative theories of learning such as Dewey's. We argue that judgments, activities, practices, traditions, narratives form a nested series of concepts that enable us better to understand informal learning and its lifelong import. Drawing on Dewey's work as well as Macintyre's moral theory, an explanation of context is given in which the notion of judgement is central. It is argued that judgement depends upon an identification of context which is nested according to the interests and purposes of those interested in identification.