Tracing radical working-class education: praxis and historical representation

Growing collections of social and educational history chronicle the many instances of educational agency that lie outside institutional narratives. Renewing and developing historical understanding, these histories raise important methodological questions surrounding historical representation. Addressing such questions, this paper develops the methodological notion of praxis as a means to trace genealogies of radical working-class educational agency. It is concerned primarily with the possibility of history to create understanding across temporality, and with the place of theory in histories that mobilise conceptual terms of reference, such as class. Reflecting on research undertaken on the temporally and culturally distinct Socialist Sunday Schools and Black Saturday Schools, the discussion begins by considering the academic representation of working-class communities. Following from this, analyses of Marx, Foucault and Ricoeur inform the conceptual development of praxis. The paper concludes by reflecting on the use of community-based testimony in constructing genealogies of radical working-class education.