Transforming Practice, a comprehensive collection of articles from Museum Education Roundtable's Journal of Museum Education, presents a rich and exemplary selection of writing in one accessible resource. Each of the book's four sections includes an introductory essay; "sparks" excerpted from each article that alone might ignite debate; "reflections" by some of the authors looking back on their work; and discussion questions. Four case studies in the final section highlight the fascinating interplay among change, response, and understanding. Transforming Practice is a professional development tool--a resource for museum training programs, small museums, staffs, practitioner groups, and friends to inspire conversation, critique, debate, and your own writing. As Stephen E. Weil writes in his foreword, this book reveals "the richness of ideas, the dedication to excellence, and the extraordinary depth and variety of talents to be found among this generation of museum educators." Sponsored by the Museum Education Roundtable.This title is sponsored by The Museum Education Roundtable. The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, dedicated to enriching and promoting the field of Museum Education. Through publications, programs, and communication networks, MER fosters professionalism, encourages leadership, scholarship, and research in museum-based learning, and advocates the inclusion and application of museum-based learning in the general education arena. For more information on MER and its activities, please contact via email at [email protected], or on the web at www.mer-online.org. Members receive the Journal of Museum Education as a benefit of membership. Write to MER at PO Box 15727, Washington, DC 20003.

Integrative Gestalt Practice (IGP) is a new approach to understanding and working with complexity and wholeness in people's lives. Amongst the many published books on the market today focusing on the need for specialization and manualization, this book introduces an alternative approach to working professionally with people. By combining basic principles from the gestalt-approach with basic elements of integral theory introduced by Ken Wilber, IGP develops a frontline framework for integrating different forms of theoretical and practical knowledge of human life-processes. This, for instance, can sustain the integration of various psychotherapeutic approaches, and - on a more general level - raise a more common capacity for perspective taking and meaningful disagreements between people. The book shows in various ways how concepts of field theory, self-regulation, contact, awareness and creative experimentation can be directly applied in working with people. The IGP model can be used in many different contexts: in therapy, organisational work, coaching and pedagogy. The book contains a rich combination of theoretical elaborations and practical exercises.

Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective—one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia’s political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals’ aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people’s lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli’s long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.

Architecture has hit something of a sticking point when it comes to adapting to contemporary life and its various concerns - the finite resources of the planet, the lack of diversity in the profession, the punishing lifestyle afforded by traditional practice models. Changing the Game explores how to create and run a future-proofed small practice through value-driven decision-making and profitability. It considers 'sustainability' in every sense of the word, looking beyond materials and projects to the socio-economic repercussions and responsibilities the modern practice must engage with. This practical and accessible book walks readers through the journey of building a culture that reflects a sustainability/entrepreneurial led-mindset - whether you're starting your own practice or trying to effect change from within an existing practice. It examines efficient practice models and structures, including lean practice models that are sustainable, profitable and innovative. It showcases how small practices can compete in a global environment; through collaboration; innovation and specialising. It includes case studies and interviews with exciting small practices that are punching above their weight to inspire, share ideas and encourage outside-the-box thinking. Importantly, it engages with the urgency of the Climate Emergency as well as the Societal Emergency: how, following the pandemic, climate issues such as air pollution and dense urban development have predominantly affected those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Picking up on the monastic tradition of creating a "rule of life" that allows for regular space for the practice of spiritual disciplines, Ruth Haley Barton takes you more deeply into understanding seven key spiritual disciplines along with practical ideas for weaving them into everyday life.

A fully-updated and reworked version of the classic book by Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart, now joined by Rhonda Nixon, The Action Research Planner is a detailed guide to developing and conducting a critical participatory action research project. The authors outline new views on ‘participation’ (based on Jürgen Habermas’s notion of a ‘public sphere’), ‘practice’ (as shaped by practice architectures), and ‘research’ (as research within practice traditions). They provide five extended examples of critical participatory action research studies. The book includes a range of resources for people planning a critical participatory research initiative, providing guidance on how to establish an action research group and identify a shared concern, research ethics, principles of procedure for action researchers, protocols for collaborative work, keeping a journal, gathering evidence, reporting, and choosing academic partners. Unlike earlier editions, The Action Research Planner focuses specifically on critical participatory action research, which occupies a particular (critical) niche in the action research 'family'. The Action Research Planner is an essential guide to planning and undertaking this type of research.