science

Praxis intervention

Praxis intervention is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Praxis intervention rather than just read about it. In short: Praxis intervention is a form of participatory action research that emphasizes working on the praxis potential, or phronesis, of its participants. This contrasts with other forms of participatory action research, which emphasize the collective modification of the external world.

Key takeaways

Praxis intervention belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Praxis intervention to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Praxis intervention from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Praxis intervention is a form of participatory action research that emphasizes working on the praxis potential, or phronesis, of its participants. This contrasts with other forms of participatory action research, which emphasize the collective modification of the external world. Praxis potential means the members' potential to reflexively work on their respective mentalities; participant here refers not just to the clientele beneficiaries of the praxis intervention project, but also the organisers and experts participating in such a project. Praxis intervention is intended to lead its members through a "participant objectivation". The method prioritizes unsettling the settled mentalities, especially where the settled mindsets prevalent in the social world or individuals is suspected to have sustained or contributed to their suffering or marginality.

Reflexive and routine praxis Karl Marx conceptualized praxis in two forms: reflexive and non-reflexive. Mihailo Marković expanded on the concept of praxis, identifying key elements such as creativity, autonomy, sociality, rationality, and intentionality. These moments of praxis offer alternatives to sameness, subordination, massification, blind reaction, and compliance.

Reasons

Praxis intervention makes research, creative expression or technology development into a bottom-up process. It democratizes making of art, science, technology and critical conscience. The praxis intervention method aims at provoking members to unsettle their settled mindsets and to have a fresh look at the world around and intervene. For instance, members may take a fresh critical look on the gender relations existing, if the praxis intervention method is applied to study gender relations. They would be unsettling their biographically and structurally ingrained perceptions of gender relations and freshly look at it. A gradual process by which members are helped to reflexively recognize the arbitrary and discriminating mindsets within themselves and the world around and working towards correcting it is praxis intervention. The praxis intervention method helps members to struggle against structurally ingrained discrimination. Praxis intervention helps respondents to come out with answers which they would not have otherwise expressed. Questionnaire based surveys, formal interviews, and even focus group discussions are not useful to help respondents to come out with genuine answers to the questions posed at them. Praxis intervention as it helps groups of people probing their own conditions phase by phase through prolonged discussions, experiments and conscious explorations is capable of coming out with better quality data that could be useful for the group to challenge existing epistemic structures and work out their own well-being. Praxis intervention is useful wherever reflexivity is a major component in a research project.

Systematic participant objectivation Praxis intervention interferes not only with the habitus of the people with whom the action research is carried out, but also the praxis intervention practitioner's own habitus. In this respect, the practice of praxis intervention is also a systematic participant objectivation. Participatory objectivation is "objectifying the act of objectification". By objectifying the objectification it is meant the researcher, while observing and objectifying, takes a similar critical distance towards the objectification itself. It is being sensitive to the immensely possible biases from the researcher's social coordinates, field and intellectual orientation and self-critically problematising them to reduce the impact of the biases. According to Bourdieu, within the sociological analysis, the participant objectivation is the essential but difficult exercise of all because it requires the break with the deepest and most conscious adherence and adhesions, those quite often give the object its very interest for those who study it, that is, everything about their relation to the object they try to know that they least want to know. It is through the participant objectivation that the practical relation to practice is substituted with the observer's relation to practice. Through the practice of participant objectivation, Bourdieu aims to make the critical and political activity of social research the "solvent of doxa". Though the practice of reflexive participant objectivation, the practitioner re-looks the taken-for-granted assumptions in order to wake up from their epistemic sleep and helps their clients too to help them to wake up from their own.

In practice

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Praxis intervention

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Praxis intervention claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Praxis intervention before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Praxis intervention ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Praxis intervention

In research: Praxis intervention appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Praxis intervention in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Praxis intervention is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Social philosophy, Social science methodology, Social work, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Praxis intervention outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Praxis intervention in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Praxis intervention means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Praxis intervention out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Praxis intervention in simple terms?

Why does Praxis intervention matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Praxis intervention?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Praxis intervention.