Taking a stance: resistance, faking and Muddling Through

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on project-based learning in media practice education, identifying three themes of interest. The first questions the recontextualisation of practice from the professional to a pedagogic environment. The second theme questions how much we know about what goes on inside a project and contrasts the ways in which students ‘do’ projects with the ways in which educators idealise project work as a mirror of professional practice. The final theme questions whether processes and procedures external to a project environment may result in a decoupling between professional practice and the everyday formulations of practice enacted by students. While educators may seek to encourage students to simultaneously adopt academic, professional and creative identities, as part of an active and purposeful approach to doing projects, this article questions whether tensions between these identities may actually encourage students to engage in decoupling behaviour. The article aims to encourage media practice educators to reflect on their own use of projects and question the ways in which the identities students claim as learners align with educator's beliefs and values.