New Spaces for Difference
Critical Studies of Learning Practices
Will be published approx. on 31. August 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-009-73450-9 (ISBN)
Description
This book brings together an international team of scholars to explore participation, change and transformative possibilities in everyday life. Drawing on critical ethnographic and participatory research from Brazil, Denmark, and Italy, it examines how people in marginalized positions - socially excluded children and young people, former gang members, rock musicians, bank employees and sex workers - engage in learning practices across diverse contexts. The chapters challenge conventional notions that oppose equality and difference, offering a critical perspective grounded in social practice theory, critical psychology, and urban anthropology. With a strong focus on co-produced knowledge and learners' perspectives, the book offers new conceptual tools for understanding learning as a dynamic, relational and political process rooted in everyday struggles. Essential reading for researchers, students, and professionals across education, anthropology, psychology, social work, pedagogy, and human geography.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Ana Maria R. Gomes | Dorte Kousholt | Jean Lave
New Spaces for Difference
Critical Studies of Learning Practices
Book
approx. 08/2026
Cambridge University Press
€142.50
Not yet published
Content
List of figures; List of contributors; Part I. Spaces for Difference: 1. How it all began: developing a collaborative inquiry into learning, marginality and change Dorte Kousholt, Marina V. França and Ana Maria R. Gomes; 2. Learning through differences: the possibilities of everyday life Ana Maria R. Gomes, Jean Lave, Dorte Kousholt, Marina V. França and Line Lerche Mørck; Part II. Learning Differences in Contemporary Cultural Practices: 3. On practice, practitioners and the learning of futebol in Brazil Eliene Lopes Faria and Ana Maria R. Gomes; 4. Apprenticeship, conflicts and learning in bakeries in Denmark Klaus Nielsen; 5. Co-participative learning through 'diverse experts' relationality: a case study in a major Italian bank Roberta Bonetti; 6. Songwriting as learning: a dialectical perspective on Danish rock band practice Lars Brinck; Part III. Learning from the Margins in Cross-Contextual Struggles: 7. Learning and personal/political transformation: the Danish production school way Jean Lave; 8. Learning not to belong - processes of exclusion in Danish schools Dorte Kousholt; 9. Learning sex work in Brazil across contexts of continuity and difference Marina França; 10. Learning to become a good Muslim - transformative mo(ve)ments beyond gang engagement and radicalization in Denmark Line Lerche Mørck and Iram Khawaja; Part IV. Contradictory Co-Production of Everyday Life with Children: 11. Participation of children and adolescents in household care: exploring learning processes in everyday life in Brazil Adriana Drummond and Ana Maria R. Gomes; 12. For all? Co-producing 'street-lab', a local cultural project in Denmark Line Lerche Mørck and Maja Baunbjerg; 13. Urban space and children territorialization in a Brazilian metropolis Samy Lansky and Maria Cristina Gouvea; 14. Rethinking problems in Danish Schools: learning from everyday conflicts Charlotte Højholt and Dorte Kousholt; Index.