Reclaiming the practical: Formal and substantive rationality in social work practice
Issue Date
1992Author
Kondrat, Mary Ellen
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Published Version
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30012164Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In this article, I argue that the starting point for inquiry about practice knowledge
should be the empirical question, How does the competent practitioner go about
knowing "in" practice? Using the work of J u r g e n Habermas, Michael Polyani, Donald
Schon, and others, I advance a claim for the nonderivative status of substantive
rationality alongside the technical in the construction of professional knowledge. I
maintain that the researcher and practitioner have functionally different relationships
to the practice arena and, therefore, differing cognitive interests for their involvement
in that arena. These interests are assumed decisive for (1) categories in which knowledge
is structured, (2) methods by which truth claims are authenticated, (3) the type of
discourse in which knowledge is communicated, and (4) the mode in which knowledge
is available to the knower.
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Citation
Kondrat, M.E. (June 1992). Reclaiming the practical: Formal and substantive rationality in social work practice, Social Service Review, 66(2), pp. 237-55.
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