This book is about the sensuous, living body without which individual knowing and learning is impossible. It is the interface between the individual and culture. Recent scholarship has moved from investigated knowing and learning as something in the mind or brain to understanding these phenomena in terms of the body (embodiment literature) or culture (social constructivism). These two literatures have expanded the understanding of cognition to include the role of the body in shaping the mind and to recognize the tight relation between mind and culture. However, there are numerous problems arising from ways in which the body and culture are thought in these separate research domains. In this book, the authors present an interdisciplinary, scientific initiative that brings together the concerns for body and for culture to develop a single theory of cognition centered on the living and lived body. This book thereby contributes to bridging the gap that currently exists between theory (knowing that) and praxis (knowing how) that is apparent in the existing science and mathematics education literatures.

A philosophical history of the body and a work of recovery, bringing to light many aspects of this history that have been lost or forgotten in the West after the Scientific Revolution.

This accessible, introductory text explains the importance of studying 'everyday life' in the social sciences. Susie Scott examines such varied topics as leisure, eating and drinking, the idea of home, and time and schedules in order to show how societies are created and reproduced by the apparently mundane 'micro' level practices of everyday life. Each chapter is organized around three main themes: 'rituals and routines', 'social order', and 'challenging the taken-for-granted', with intriguing examples and illustrations. Theoretical approaches from ethnomethodology, Symbolic Interactionism and social psychology are introduced and applied to real-life situations, and there is clear emphasis on empirical research findings throughout. Social order depends on individuals following norms and rules which are so familiar as to appear natural; yet, as Scott encourages the reader to discover, these are always open to question and investigation. This user-friendly book will appeal to undergraduate students across the social sciences, including the sociology of everyday life, the sociology of emotions, social psychology and cultural studies, and will reveal the fascinating significance our everyday habits hold.