The problem of how learning should be socially organized: relations between reflection and transformative action

Within critical theory progressive relationships between reflection and action involve confronting contradictions within practice artistry from a dialectical view of practice as praxis and as the means whereby one can move in the direction of positive change or social transformation. Freire captures this idea of reflective praxis in his pedagogical approach to conscientization, a form of codification and the encouragement of human agency, but it is also a key feature of the work of Antonio Gramsci. Reflective praxis differs from activity in general as it is enacted through theory that is formulated on understandings of contextual (situated) practices. This is important because if or when theory and practice are separated they fall into a distorted one-sidedness and if context is ignored the mode of existence, expression or internal organization of the content of action cannot be grasped in terms of its totality of relations and possible contradictions.