edd assignment 1 josephine v saliba

Doctor of Education (EdD), Module ER1: Introduction to Educational Research

Research methodologies and methods cannot be value free. Discuss this assertion with

reference to one or two-peer-reviewed research papers in an area of

professional interest to you.

“This is my truth, tell me yours.”

The Manic Street Preachers (Epic Records: 1998) quoting Aneurin Bevan, Welsh British Labour Party politician, (15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960)

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/aneurin_bevan.html)

1. Introduction

"Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth -- don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency."

AesopGreek slave, citizen, author of fables

(620-560 BC)(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/values)

Science, truth, discourse ... the personal mantra emerged from my initial experiences within the

Doctorate in Education programme. Or rather, science, truth and discord, as so many apparently

conflicting theories, viewpoints and methodologies were compared, contrasted and digested.

Particularly striking was the claim that research involves the complex interaction of the

‘researcher’s moral, competency, personal and social values’ (Greenbank, 2002:791) but that the

positivist approaches to research ‘continue to influence both policy and practice in education’

(Jones, 2000 in Greenbank, 2000:793).

Greenbank’s conclusions that research methods cannot be value-free and that research is not able

to uncover the truth as different realities impinge on the values of the research process

challenged me. My experience within hierarchical educational insitutions exposed me to

traditional empirical theories and methodologies. Although other viewpoints were not

unfamiliar, they were often discarded in an effort to provide the ultimate valid, reliable and

generalisable work that would be accepted by tutors and employers alike.

Josephine V. Saliba

http://www.quotes.net/authors/Aesop


This stimulated me to not only explore the seemingly opposing qualitative methodology of

ethnography but also to explore my bias in view of these separate stances.

The parallels between my situation working in adult literacy education in Malta and the scenario

in my choice of article, Karen Vaughan’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart? Theoretical and ethical

implications of doing post-structural ethnographic research’, were of immediate interest. Issues

of methodological tension between diverse approaches, between educational authorities and

professionals in the educational field and the narratives of the various students passing through

the system seemed all too familiar. The motivation to explore these struggles whilst

contemporarily looking at the local situation vis-a-vis my positionality increased especially in

view of my background in political sciences. Consequently, working within a conservative

professional environment in close proximity of adult learners with a variety of learning and

literacy disadvantages coupled with a tendency to rebel against a small island culture and

mentality, together with a suspected deep-seated personal sympathy in favour of ethnography

were definite influences in the choice of theme and text for the purpose of this paper.

This meltingpot of reactions was stirred by Vaughan’s article which ‘explores some of the more

disturbing aspects’ that emerged from research she carried out in 2001 (Vaughan, 2004:389). A

New Zealand state-funded alternative secondary school once praised for its innovative

programmes was now recommended for closure by the Education Review Office. An

establishment promoting ‘active learning, a focus on students as individuals, co-operative

teacher-student class planning, and attempts to make school learning directly related to “real

life”’ was being ‘considered a failure’ (ibid:390). Vaughan’s paper explores ‘the theoretical and

ethical implications of doing a “post-structural ethnography” in a context that was intrinsically

and overly political’ (ibid:389-390) at a time when school authorities ‘were shifting away from

the influence of radical sociological educational theories towards an emphasis on particular

definitions of school effectiveness’ (ibid:391). What was once valued for its uniqueness was

now being judged by mainstream ‘post-1989 quasi-market conditions (ibid:391).

Vaughan’s research approach:

Josephine V. Saliba


‘became based on a blend of post-structuralism (acknowledging the historical

specificity of discourse), ethnographic case study methods (data collection and

documentation), and Foucauldian notions of genealogical inquiry (disruption of

notions of progress or the apparent self-evidence of certain categories) and

governmental power relations (as a combination of totalising and individualising

modes of power) to form a “post-structural ethnography” (Britzman, 1995). This did

not make for research findings in the traditional sense, particularly not those of a

problem-solving nature, so much in favour in education currently. However this

approach did allow me to find out about what is speakable, or what is reasonable or

proper, what is within and outside the boundaries of success in schooling today.’

(Vaughan,

2004:391-392)

Vaughans’s article thus departs from the traditional to search for what lies behind the realist

tales, the tension between the ‘self-evident’ and the insistence on the validity of ‘unresolved’

issues (Vaughan, 2004:400). Quoting McNay (1994), she refuses ‘to submit to the government

of individualisation by constantly interrogating what seems natural and inevitable in our identity’

(Vaughan, 2004:401). Such introspective inquiry questioning conventional schooling is

performed through discourse exploring ‘the knowledge foundations out there in the world of

research and education and in here, within the researcher’ (ibid:401) where the accepted

positivist scientific theory and traditional role of the researcher is challenged.

My paper thus departs from the issue of discourse as a social scientific term. A background in

political sciences, communication studies and education converged on one loaded word –

‘science’. Hopf (2004) claims that discourse analysis is much more scientific than is generally

acknowledged by positivist practitioners. Unlike natural sciences, social sciences are ‘products

of human agency’ (Hopf, 2004:31), where ‘meanings stand mostly in relation to each other,

rather than in relationship to an objective reality’ (ibid). However, this does not detract from the

scientific nature of social sciences since, as Gadamer (1981) argued, the two strands are merely

seperated by the difference in their aims of knowledge. Yet, social sciences require ‘the

emergence of a new notion of science and method’ (Gadamer, 1981:6). Discourse analysts need

Josephine V. Saliba


to adhere to ‘some common forms of research design and social science methodology’

(Hopf, 2004:32) based on‘methodological self-consciousness’ that considers ‘the replicability

and competitive validity of their findings’ (ibid.).

Nevertheless, in a developing country where dialogue is the buzzword usually preceding

educational reforms and innovations by authorities, traditional scientific data and statistics have

become as influential as political or religious convictions (Baldacchino and Mayo, 1997).

Positivist scientific data legitimising the administration’s position prevails as proof for the

necessity of change and positivist studies backup the effectiveness of the benchmarks proposed.

Malta’s hierarchical education setup often indulges in token allusions to dialogue

(Bezzina, 1999). Therefore, Vaughan’s article had personal appeal not only due to the questions

raised by the programme lectures but also because issues of dialogue, truth and narratives

raise regular professional standoffs.

This paper, similarly to Vaughan’s, thus focuses on tensions between various interpretations as

to the value of truth. It specifically discusses the interaction between the general attitude of local

education administrative authorities and my stance as a practitioner who is professionally and

ethically bound to convey the voices of my students within the college’s fora of dialogue. To

this end, Vaughan’s post-structural approach is discussed as well as compared and contrasted

with more traditional and positivist values. The paper concludes by considering whether such a

methodology would professionally benefit me to engage in an educational dialogue that is more

real, valid and participatory in an environment where multiple values and truths can be shared in

a more collegial rather than hierarchic manner.

2. In search of the ‘truth’

"… truth and reality are indeed invoked through discourse.”Karen Vaughan

New Zealand Council for Educational Research(http://www.runninghot.org.nz/)

Josephine V. Saliba


Vaughan’s article intends to engage its audience in the discourse initiated throughout her

research project. Major dictionaries equate discourse with dialogue, debate and semantics.

Following Foucault (1977, 1980, 2003), discourse became closely associated with theories of

power and the state where language is institutionalised to affect a possible truth or truths as

various protagonists struggle for power. The priveledged powerful can affect views and values

by constructing social rituals that further exploit the power-knowledge relationship. Britzman

(1995), interprets this relationship from the post-structuralist stance. Departing from the purely

scientific structuralist viewpoint, she asserts the necessity to study the processes which produce

knowledge. Hence she questions the ‘authority of empiricism, the authority of language, and the

authority of reading or understanding’ (Britzman, 1995:230). Quoting Said (1978), Britzman

encourages the study of the structures that make up and explain the narrative texts of particular

macro and micro cultures (ibid:229).

Following Britzman, Vaughan explores the Foucauldian ‘regimes of truth’ and through discourse

analyses the reality that ‘several competing sides’ construct through subjective ‘representation of

the truth or right’, a reality that, as Britzman states, might be assumed to be ‘somehow out there

waiting to be captured by language’ (Vaughan, 2004:392). Vaughan further challenges this

assumption that might lend itself to positivist arguments of truth or fiction within traditional

ethnography. She adopts post-structuralism and Foucauldian genealogy to portray reality as a

historically specific discourse where that particular reality is ‘produced through a web of power

relations/discursive practices’ (ibid:392). Thus Vaughan challenges the traditional simplistic

meaning of discourse as dialogue especially when used as a term to reinforce

traditional power relations.

This challenge is locally topical. The Maltese equivalent of discourse means a formal exchange

of words in debates where people are free to agree or disagree, often most emphatically in a

typically Mediterranean way, with the ideas of a main speaker. The formal term used is diskors.

Deriving from the Latin discursus meaning to run to and from, it aptly describes formal

debates such as budget speeches id-diskors tal-budget or even gossip diskors \ejjed,

situations which are not renowned for their strict adherence to the truth.

The Maltese language distinguishes between the etymological Latin derivation

Josephine V. Saliba


and the original Semitic word for spoken dialogue which is ta]dit or more colloquially titkellem.

Ta]dit is how ordinary folk informally converse about mundane topics.

The original Semitic ]adit literally means the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad about the word

of Allah. Subsequent Catholic domination eradicated ]adit from the vernacular but not the word

titkellem. Titkellem’ originates from kelma meaning word. The surviving expression tag]ti

kelma literally means to give your honest and true word. Jitkellmu, they talk, is even today used

to describe genuine consultation and participation in debates or issues (Aquilina, 1987, 2006).

These dialectic meanings of diskors possibly evolved from the historical political and

socio-evolutionary processes of an island culture. Eastern and Western colonisers imposed

diverse cultures, languages, values and beliefs for hundreds of years and the local population

internalised the dichotomy that to speak to each other, jit]addtu or jg]idu kelma was somehow

perceived to be more real or true than the diskors of the rulers and politicians that was and

remains most often mistrusted. This perception thus ingrained in the language of the people is an

influence to be taken into account by social scientists attempting to tackle local discourses

between the researcher, the researched and the entity commissioning research

of particular social impact.

Hence, it is worthwhile to turn back to Vaughan’s article and the Foucauldian principles it

endorses. Foucault’s episteme (1980) outlines the conditions which shape particular versions of

the truth created at a historical point in time and within which knowledge and discourses operate.

Significantly, Vaughan’s paper illustrates Foucault’s hypothesis that several epistemes may co-

exist and interact within the same power-knowledge system. Most notably, however, Vaughan

undertakes the scientific journey according to how Foucault proposes the

fundamental search for truth ought to be:

‘the strategic apparatus which permits (...) separating out from among all the

statements which are possible those that will be acceptable within, I won’t say a

scientific theory, but a field of scientificity, and which it is possible to say are true or

false. The episteme is the ‘apparatus’ which makes possible the separation, not of the

Josephine V. Saliba


true from the false, but of what may from what may not be

characterised as scientific.’ (Michel Foucault, 1980:197)

Foucault's episteme challenges the scientific interpretation of discourse in its widest sense. Since

discourse is limited by ideology, so it is important to show how ideology influences the science

used to gain particular instances of knowledge/truth. However, this should not be limited to

challenging the establishment. Ethnography risks indulgent self-righteousness as it ‘immediately

places the researcher in a tricky situation since any research that involves real people raises

tremendous pressure to take a humanist and holistic line, to produce the research as

a kind of “victory narrative”’ (Vaughan, 2004:393).

Nonetheless, Vaughan’s interpretation of Foucauldian post-structural ethnography may

substantiate how opposing theories and themes could co-exist within a science thus challenging

fundamental positivist assumptions that are so basic as to be invisible to people operating within

that historic specificity. Vaughan states that post-structural ethnography is particularly suitable

in challenging traditional positivist as well as ethnographic stances since it ‘highlights a

multiplicity of voices and discourses’ (Burstyn, 1990 in Vaughan, 2004:393). Vaughan’s article

thus embraces the search for knowledge by questioning the scientific process behind the power-

struggle discourses of both participants and researcher. This places Vaughan’s interpretation and

application of discourse at the frontline of current theories about the validity

of discourse as a scientific process.

3. Positivist values of truth: the influence of authority

"Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he has known nothing but what has passed under his own eye."

Thomas JeffersonThird President of the United States

principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776)(April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826)

(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/truth)

Josephine V. Saliba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States


The search for the truth is an ongoing centuries-long endevour. Western etymological

derivations of ‘truth’ evolved from diverse broad interpretations of words meaning faith and

knowledge. Together, truth, faith and knowledge have often been viewed as a triumvirate source

of power by diverse religions, philosophies, scientific hypotheses and political ideologies.

Epistemiology, the pursuit of the theory of knowledge, can be traced back to Aristotle, Socrates

and Plato. In Theaetetus, Plato’s dialogue, the seeker of knowledge is taken through an

epistemiological journey in search of true beliefs about what constittues knowledge in order to

understand knowledge itself (Chappell, 2009). Such a quest can be undertaken from an objective

or a subjective point of view, however, modern epistemiology requires that knowledge be based

on ‘demonstrable facts or observations’ (Opie, 2004:7).

The two major paradigms of modern epistemiological positionality are positivism and

antipositivism (Opie 2004:8) wherein both stances the quest for knowledge becomes the research

hypothesis, with the seeker of knowledge being the researcher. Opie however delineates the

modern scientific quandry as to whether this knowledge is comprised of truth or truths.

Positivists believe in a ‘single independently existing reality’ where truth is sought by

eliminating ‘preconceptions, personal views and value judgements’ from research

(Greenbank, 2003:792). As an antipositivist, Vaughan emphasises ‘a multiplicity of voices,

narratives, or discourses’ through her ‘post structuralist view that there is not necessarily one

truth or reality insofar as there are things which are true within particular discourses about ...

school and education generally’ (Vaughan, 2004:396). However, most authorities have long

considered such an interpretivist approach to be highly subjective while positivist approaches

have been ‘regarded as more likely to provide solutions and a ‘scientific’ justification for

government decisions’ (Carr 2000 in Greenbank, 2003:794).

Greenbank (2003) purports that positivist research follows clear procedures delivering answers

or at the minimum seeming to provide certainities in the way results are presented. Hence, it is

favoured by authorities who snub other interpretivist approaches that explore complex

educational issues without providing clear-cut solutions. This preference may lead some

authorities to have a declared or undeclared bias for ‘scientific’ data and statistics and so engage

in a self-perpetuating positivist attitudes which outrightly fund positivist research projects or at

Josephine V. Saliba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theaetetus_(dialogue)


the least favour such methodologies. Vaughan faced this difficulty as the documentation at the

school she was researching produced ‘prescriptive texts’ that seemed to impinge on her views as

a researcher on how a school and its rules and regulatory characteristics ought to be

especially in a knowledge-based market economy (Vaughan, 2004:396). This intensified ther

struggle to overcome traditional and culturally inherited traits in her personal ethnography.

Such a dilemma can also be identified within my local context. A developing country, Malta is

increasingly emphasising research in and development of higher education and adult literacy to

increase employment, develop the country’s workforce and productivity as well as comply with

European Union targets such as the Lisbon Agenda. However, since the research is more often

than not commissioned by central educational authorities, intrinsically the research values are

more often than not preoccupied with the techne rather than praxis aspects of education. The

most popular institute-based published research often deals with performance, job satisfaction

and aspects of educational management. Bezzina (1998, 1995), Borg and Falzon (1989) and

Farrugia (1986) state that national central authorities have a grip over various educational

initiatives and entities. While with one hand they encourage pockets of innovation in thought,

research and practice, they retain power and control with the other. Educational initiatives are

often labelled as ‘reforms’, a traditional and conservative term causing most reforms to lack ‘a

conceptual framework which defines the way forward’ (Bezzina 1999:54). Many other

researchers have shown that traditional schooling ‘fails to deliver on

such liberatory promises’ (Vaughan, 2004:398).

This situation prevails in developing countries where the most contentious value-related conflicts

revolve around professional stagnation, loss of legitimacy and deteriorating and unsatisfactory

organisational performance that causes members to become disgruntled (Saeed, 1996).

Similarly, in the still mostly hierarchical, centralised and bureacratic Maltese educational system,

professionals are constantly ‘sandwiched between a belief in democracy and participation on the

one-hand, and the daily experience of a lack of structures to function as decision-makers’

(Bezzina 1999:53). Value-judgement labels that administrations attach to what is portrayed as a

success or a failure are particularly restrictive, creating ‘inventions of the present’

(Vaughan, 2004:398) that influence policies or project outcomes.

Josephine V. Saliba


Personal involvement both as a practician and researcher within added-value initiatives or

learning support programmes attests this. Although such projects are increasingly encouraged,

ultimately it is not the value-added input that is highlighted but the rates of success translated

through statistics and diffused by the educational entity involved. The highest national

authorities often officially sanction most education programmes and so political agendas

exhorting scientific, statistical data as basis for effectiveness condition

project outcomes and future funding.

This dichotomy in attitudes persists within the literacy support unit at the national vocational

college where I work. Staff is praised for the sterling work with the most vulnerable members of

the college whilst directly and indirectly faced with faits accomplis, decisions intended to

indiscriminately achieve higher success rates irrispective of individual needs, abilities and

personalities of students and staff involved. This inevitably produces on-the-job stress and

tension which would undoubtably provide yet another opportunity for an empiric source of

traditional research to dispel them, but which for a self-reflective practitioner and researcher

provides a challenging quest. In a traditional, conservative environment where science has

become the new religion, and in which positivism is still endorsed by central authorities, the

local educational researcher must seek adaptive change where ‘new roles, new relationships, new

values, new behaviours and new approaches to work have to be forged’ (Bezzina 1999:54).

These values transform the researcher into a leader in educational innovation,

where ‘seeing is not believing’ (Vaughan, 2004:392).

Leaders in educational innovation are not necessarily administrators. Researcher practitioners

openly promoting changes are innovators; however, change issues with and within

administrations remain complex. Researchers from various methodological backgrounds,

moreso antipositivist ones, have been accused of bias not only in their choice of subject but also

in the processes and conclusions reached (Greenbank, 2003). Thus, the struggle between what

the authorities think is good for the people and what the people want to learn and do with their

Josephine V. Saliba


lives persists. The educational research debate continues, often with researchers

‘side-stepping’ obstacles (Vaughan, 2004:395).

Vaughan describes her often blurred outsider/insider role between various stakeholders and how

her position as researcher often ran the danger of becoming that of mediator or even ally/traitor.

In an effort to portray the existent multiple realities and as a post-structuralist ethnographer,

Vaughan concentrated on relaying multiple narratives including her own reflective journey

through these pitfalls. Accordingly, notwithstanding issues of value-neutralitity or the

representation of multiple truths, Greenback advocates the use of reflexive methodologies as the

benefits seem to outweigh the disadvantages whether the study is

positivist or interpretivist in inclination.

Current theories of educational research have moved beyond the strict delineations of

quantitative/qualitative, positivist or antipositivist. Although each approach retains identifiable

traits, the onus is now on ‘recognising the influence of values on the research process’ and on

‘the acknowledgement that educational research cannot be value-free’ (Greenbank, 2003: 799).

4. Values in educational research: the search for scientific truth/s

"The aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values.”William Ralph Inge

English author, Anglican priest,professor of divinity at Cambridge

(6 June 1860 – 26 February 1954)(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/values)

Vaughan succeeded Britzman (1995) in portraying the tensions between multiple realities/truths

as validly and scientifically acceptable as possible by questioning ‘how categories of resistance

become discursively produced and lived’ (Vaughan, 2004:396) since:

‘... if the assumption is that knowledge is real, objective and out there in the world to

be captured, researchers can observe, measure and quantify it. However, if it is

assumed to be experiential, personal and subjective, they will have to ask questions

of the people involved.’

Josephine V. Saliba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanism

http://www.quotes.net/authors/William+Ralph+Inge


(Sikes in Opie, 2004:21)

Vaughan represented the historically specific values within that particular schooling experience,

adopting the contemporary stance in educational research that states that

although the notion of truth remains focal, the attention should shift on how that particular truth

is represented, on the epistemiological position taken, and how knowledge is

acquired and communicated to others (Cohen et al., 2000:6 quoted in Opie, 2004:7).

Yet, the concept of truth in educational research remains as contentious now as before. The

characterisitics of educational scientific research remain debatable as there is still no single

definition (Carr, 2007). Modernist and postmodernist theories question whether traditional

scientific research methodologies can declare that they are rationally and truthfully valid means

of guiding educational policy and practice (ibid), an issue addressed by Vaughan in her

questioning the success/failure discourses at the school being researched.

Even recently, school communities often followed professional expertise which outlined

established positivist practices about which there was not much need or occasion to reflect

(Begley in Walker and Dimmock, 2002). Most policies in developing countries colonised or

otherwise culturally influenced by Great Britain and the United States in particular developed

along Western ethnocentric lines (ibid). Positivist, descriptive or correlational research-backed

policies were unquestioningly considered effective. Vaughan states that it was an unspoken

understanding that valued the alternative education provided by the school in the 1970s, and it

was mainstream scientific data that sounded the deathknell in the 1990s. Nevertheless, globally

‘the limitations of generalised descriptive research findings’ and greater support ‘for more

qualitative research methodologies’ (Begley, ibid:48) are steadily growning as more pluralistic

communities display various contextualised values. Accordingly, administrators are required to

apply values perspectives through reflection in order to engage in increased

educational praxis; improved self-knowledge should ideally lead to develop

more awareness of other values (Hodgkinson, 1991).

Nevertheless, value-dilemmas still occur between conflicting views posed by professional or

organisational expectations as happened within Vaughan’s case study school. Reaching

Josephine V. Saliba


consensus on educational issues between ‘traditional educational stakeholders has become more

difficult’ especially as value perspectives on administration are seen as abstract and

‘the literature on values and ethics has tended to remain relatively indigestible’ (Begley,

2002:49, 50). Begley (2002) has no definite solution but encourages leaders in educational

systems to seek out sources of value conflicts and analyse them for instances of organisational

meta-values delving deeper to seek out the sources of these values. Begley also reiterates

Hodginkson’s belief in uncovering individual values that might make up, influence or otherwise

impinge on the organisation and seek a consentual meeting point between the two, an effort

Vaughan engaged in through her post structural ethnographic study.

As Begley surmised and Vaughan experienced, this is not an obstacle-free process.

Organisational meta-narratives seek to deal with conflict by creating ‘big tent values such as

democracy’ (Begley, 2002:57). Such overarching abstract values often override the knowledge

of minor truths to create umbrella-like truths. This ritual rationality is based on the positivist

belief that what is objective and rational is best and occurs ‘when the decisionmaker masks the

real intention or likely effects of a decision process by highlighting values acceptable to the

stakeholders’ (ibid). Thus, as Vaughan discovered, what Plato terms as doxa, the belief in,

opinion about or even glory of self-evident truths (Harper, 2001), is often manipulated by

organisational leaders to suit their needs. When organisations use positivist research to back up

their doxa, this further encloses members at lower organisational levels within their sphere of

techne. Plato’s doxa is transformed into Aristotle’s endoxa, a seemingly more stable belief since

it is elicited from arguments that have tested the validity of the theoretical truth (Harper, 2001).

The search for scientifically-based knowledge, episteme, thus becomes even more crucial albeit

intricate. If the ultimate aim of research is to obtain and communicate knowledge ‘with the

ultimate view of informing practice and/or policy and thereby, improving things in some way’

(Sikes in Opie 2004:21), epistemiological positionality becomes even more relevant. Vaughan’s

research became complex as she navigated between an adamantly positivist central education

authority and a school staff reduced to recalcitrant yet resigned outcasts. Vaughan’s undertook

the role of troubling and possibly undoing those taken-for-granted concepts through post-

Josephine V. Saliba


structural ethnography. Similarly, the educational researcher needs to take up Theaetetus’

epistemiological quest equipped with more current tools ensuing the postmodern debate.

Arguably, the traditional scientific approach has been most influential, generating ‘the most

powerful forces to have shaped educational scholarship over the century’ unfortunately pushing

‘away from close interactions with policy and practice and towards excessive quantification and

scientism’ (Lagemann, 2000 in Carr 2007:283). Indeed, Carr (2007) questions this over-reliance

emphasising that education per se needs to be understood better to ‘enable those engaged in

educational activities to achieve their purposes in a more systematic and self-critical way’

(ibid:275). Critically acknowledging historical and cultural legacies embedded in education as a

concept and in resultant educational practices shifts the balance away from ‘methodological

sophistication’ or ‘technical expertise’ (ibid:282). Knowledge is no longer pegged and shaped to

fit a theory but enables practitioners in various educational spheres to engage in an open self-

reflective and critical dialogue (Hodgkinson, 1991, Begley, 2003 ). This would ideally help

education professionals to recognise mutual multiple existant truths and possibly engage in

genuine dialogue, as Vaughan tried and encouraged stakeholders to do through her research.

Thus engaging in dialogue enables research, as Vaughan’s, to pursue truth from personal stances

and values while remaining:

‘...‘scientific’ in that it critically and systematically develops the body of knowledge

that structures the interpretations of educational practitioners and hence structures

education itslef; ‘practical’ in that it recognises that this knowledge always arises

from, and must always relate back to practice; and ‘educational’ in that it self-

consciously promotes the ethical ends that are constituitive of a practice as an

educational practice and justify its description in these terms.’

(Carr, 2007:283)

The epistemiological viewpoint of the researcher remains coloured by

personal ontological assumptions but instead of arguing about what is or

what is not scientific, the educational researcher, like Vaughan,

would thus search for the meaning of the values shaping the kind or kinds of truths observed.

Josephine V. Saliba



The possibility of sharing other truths apart from what the positivist tradition feeds us in the

name of rigour, relevance and validity, is personally liberatory in the local context that

inconsistently emphasises techne or praxis depending on differing professional circumstances.

The delinated dichotomy between positivism and antipositivism is often misleading when

applying this polarised vision to the actual versus percieved stances of educational research

(Sikes in Opie 2004:19). Whether the world is viewed as being independent of the interactions

between individuals and thus objectively real, or whether it is the result of social constructs that

are subjectively interpreted by individuals through various media (Sikes in Opie 2004:20), what

counts is how the results are conveyed by the researcher’s use of language

(Vaughan, 2004, Britzman, 1995). Educational research has its own semiological language

necessitating that the research of educational practices be observed on the basis of how the

activities are conducted and the purpose pursued (Carr 2007:275) as Vaughan did when trying to

represent her findings as truthfully and scientifically as she ethically felt she could.

5. Post-structuralism – narrative facts or fiction?

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."

Niels Henrik David BohrDanish physicist

(7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962)(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/truth )

The ultimate aim of a research project is the explanation and interpretation of the findings.

Positivists believe that there can only be an objective traditionally scientific explanation to

observations. However, semiology challenges this interpretation on the basis that humans are

able to reflect on and respond to human interaction. The development of the human race is

interlinked with the acquisition of knowledge and so people are ‘semiotic animals’ trying to

understand that knowledge they experience (Petrilli and Ponzio, 2007). People communicate

with signs to which they allocate various values to make sense of their lives. Although modern

Josephine V. Saliba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark

http://www.quotes.net/authors/Niels+Henrik+David+Bohr


semiology goes beyond verbal communication, language remains the most focal activity through

which meanings are conveyed.

‘The plurality of languages and ‘linguistic (verbal) creativity’ (Noam Chomsky)

testifies to the capacity of language understood as a primary modeling device to

produce numerous possible worlds.’

(Petrilli and Ponzio, 2007)

Educational research is an intentional human activity (Carr, 2007:274) and as such also a

semioethical process (Petrilli and Ponzio, 2007). Like Vaughan, the educational researcher is not

only the one who responds to the environment but also the one who gives meaning to the

interpretation of what is observed. Nevertheless the researcher does not have absolute power.

The significance given to the reasearch by any audience viewed through the concepts of

semiology goes beyond assigning meaning to what is read but also has other ‘far-reaching

consequence, implication, ultimate result or outcome’ (Petrilli and Ponzio 2007, online). The

relationship between researcher, research population and audience is thus a complex interaction

that ‘implies the dialogic nature of sign and semiosis’ (ibid.).

Post-structuralism semiotically confronts the empiricism, language and

interpretation/understanding of research (Britzman, 1995; Vaughan, 2004).

Schools and other educational insitutions are frequent locations of ethnographic studies due to

the many advantages in conducting such research with young people (Heath et. al., 2009).

Ethnography enables the researcher to explore the actual lived experiences of young people and

compare information obtained from various participants, young and adult, with actual behaviour

observed in contexts. As described in Vaughan’s project, it facilitates the exploration of context

through flexible processes that are sensitive to changes that evolve during the study

(Heath et. al. 2009:100-101). However, the methodology has its critics. Despite its advantages,

many researchers also insist on combining observations with other research methods (ibid) in

order to portray as wide a variety of truths and values as possible. At the other extreme,

positivists and post-positivists, although recognising the ‘valuing nature of individuals’,

Josephine V. Saliba


treat values as variables thus excluding the idea that values are central

to educational research and dismissing their role within research processes (Richmon, 2003:37).

Nevertheless, as has been argued here, this would seem to be counter-productive

to the development of educational systems which should consider the effect and

influences of values as:

‘scholarly inquiry into values may assist practitioners – those charged with the

formidable task of running schools and school systems – in assessing how particular

values perspectives may or may not apply to their work.’

(Richmon, 2003:35)

Vaughan’s post structural ethnography reveals the values within ‘textual identities’ and ‘regimes

of truth’ that ‘can be used to help us re-conceive of ourselves in terms of post-structural accounts

of the practices that invent schools, students, and teachers, both proper and improper’ (Vaughan,

2004:400-401). Richmon (2003) agrees that it is not important for censensus to be reached on

the meaning of values but on the fact that values do exist and should be taken into consideration

when implementing educational research or policies.

What authorities consider as ‘administrative science’ often primarily deals with organisational

effectiveness as evidenced by student achievement data while ‘notions of values are frequently

ignored’ (Richmon, 2003:41). This in itself highlights other underlying values espoused by

administrations favouring efficiency and accountability, ‘a particular view of education as an

adjunct of the economy and as a marketable commodity’ (Sikes, 2006:47). Such authorities

control which ‘knowledge and “truths” are given the status of acceptibility and admissibility’

(Sikes, 2006:48), again what Vaughan terms ‘inventions of the present’ (Vaughan, 2004:398).

Education thus becomes mere schooling. Research-practitioners who refute this, who reflect and

act on their praxis through post-structuralist ethnography explore the semiotics of ‘the history of

truth itself’ (McNay, 1994 in Vaughan, 2004:400) thus troubling the status quo.

Josephine V. Saliba


However, post-structuralist ethnography seems to be a double-edged sword as while it seems to

challenge the traditional, positivist-inclined establishment, it seemingly cannot

offer conclusive solutions.

‘Instead of bringing subjects together into one cohesive voice, a post-structural

account often highlights a multiplicity of voices and discourses (Burstyn, 1990),

some of which are contradictory and inconclusive.’

(Vaughan, 2004:392-393)

This is especially problematic when trying to give a voice to the narratives of a minority group.

Vaughan states that she had to consider such issues when setting out her research aims and

design since post-structural ethnography, unlike earlier forms of ethnography does not give in to

the humanist emotions and pressures to produce a ‘victory narrative’ (Vaughan, 2004:393).

Vaughan’s post-structural ethnography thus seemingly had less ‘political applicability’ than

traditional ethnography as she consciously decided to avoid the role of ‘truth-seeker/truth-teller’,

limiting the extent her own values could influence or advantage any of the participatory

stakeholders (ibid). Vaughan does not negate that her choices and methodologies are the result

of processes based on her values, but as a researcher she tried to take the most ethical of

approaches when negotiating the ‘games of truth’ operating within the power-struggle at the

study location. This renders her research all the more relevant and valid according to various

endorsements of scientific research as a systematic and self-critical journey that can benefit

informed educational practice and policy (Sikes, 2004; Carr, 2007). Nevertheless, writing a

post-structuralist ethnographic account poses ‘narrative dilemmas’ (Britzman, 1995:231).

‘The ground upon which ethnography is built turns out to be a contested and fictive

geography. Those who populate and imagine it (every participant, including the

author and the reader) are, in essence, textualised identitites. Their voices create a

cacophany and dialogic display of contradictory desires, fears, and literary tropes

that, if carefully “read”, suggest just how slippery speaking, writing, reading, and

desiring subjectivity really are.’

(Britzman, 2004:230)

Josephine V. Saliba


Like Vaughan, the researcher thus has to navigate dangerous waters in trying to avoid partial

truths or fictions. This is especially difficult not only due to the subjective beliefs

and values of the researcher as a person, but also because of imposed constraints on the research

such as time, gatekeepers to information, the empowerment or otherwise of disadvantaged

participants and other social structural constraints and human agencies (Heath et.al., 2009).

Thus, a poststructural ethnographic account should seek to be scientific by ‘regulating fiction’

(Vaughan, 2004:400), by questioning how relationships and struggles based on a multiplicity of

values and voices are discursively produced and lived in the particular context studied at that

point in time (Britzman, 1995; Vaughan, 2004).

‘In poststructuralist versions, “the real” of ethnography is taken as an effect of the

discourses of the real; ethnography may construct the very materiality it attempts to

represent. Poststructuralist critiques begin with assumptions of historicity and

definite ethnography as both a set of practices and a set of discourses. As an

interpretive disturbance to the promise of representation, poststructuralists read the

absent against the present. Thus the ethnographic promise of a holistic account is

betrayed by the slippage born from the partiality of language – of what cannot be

said precisely because of what is said, and of the impossible difference within what is

said, what is intended, what is signified, what is repressed, what is taken,

and what remains.’

(Britzman, 1995:230)

Vaughan regulates the fictions generated by multiple truths by representing the various voices

through semiological discourse. Consequently, in accordance with current debates about

scientific validity, this and similar studies interrupt the often bipolar view of common issues such

as power/pleasure, power/freedom, and reality/fiction (Vaughan, 2004:399). Truth is thus no

longer sought through greater knowledge but through discourse which should trouble our present

interpretation of the past, disrupt the continuity and the identity reinforced through idealistic and

thus fictitious narratives, and question our present values, how we came by them and how we are

interpreting them when creating our lived realities. It should also prepare us for failure.

Josephine V. Saliba


6. Conclusion

"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."

Erich FrommGerman Jewish social psychologist, psychoanalyst,

humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist(March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980)

(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/search)

I started out this paper as a modern-day Theaetetus in search of knowledge to consider whether

research can ever be value free. Despite a self-confessed partiality to ethnography, I realise that

even my choice of Vaughan’s article in attempt to challenge positivist and hierarchical theories is

a legacy of a positivist and traditional background. Taking on the ‘small island syndrome’

(Baldacchino and Mayo, 1997) influencing the local adult education system appealed to my

sense of social justice but on concluding this paper I see that I was in effect on the look-out for a

‘victory narrative’ as explained by Vaughan.

It is difficult to overcome inherited cultural dichotomies. I was convinced I would discuss

Vaughan’s article in view of the tensions she mentions between educational authorities, teaching

professionals and their students’ narratives and I was prepared to argue how her choice of

methodology would help me challenge those local issues which generally stifle the narratives of

my disenfranchised students: the language-question; colonialism and roman catholicism;

radicalism and conservatism; education for export and employment; the influence of clerics and

teachers with diverse backgrounds and values (Baldacchino and Mayo, 1997).

However, departing from the concept of discourse and how it is especially relevant in

educational research opened up an internal dialogue with myself that made me even more aware

of how research can never be value-free.

Josephine V. Saliba


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychology

http://www.quotes.net/authors/Erich+Fromm


Convinced of my firm belief in dialogue, I intended to use Vaughan’s article as the springboard

to advocate a particular methodology as means of bringing round my college administration to

hear my and my students’ voices as to our values and needs. Indeed, I still appreciate Vaughan’s

arguments that post-structural ethnography is effective within the:

‘particular neo-liberal political context today which continues to shape the discourses

we come to know as proper, right, or natural in education’ especially when

discussing ‘teacher professionalism, effective schooling, enterprise culture and the

knowledge economy, “at risk” youth, and classroom management.’

(Vaughan, 2004:399).

However, I came to realise that ‘achieving social justice as a result of research is never going to

be a simple or straightforward manner’ (Sikes, 2006:49). Even the way I envisaged I would

possibly use post-structural ethnography to engage the authorities in dialogue had to be

reviewed. I came to realise that dialogue as described by Vaugahn was not heckling authorities

through an attitude of what Vaughan calls ‘moral transcendence’ but primarily to first question

and reflect upon my own beliefs and values before possibly challenging

my inherited cultural narrative.

Nevertheless, I cannot negate the power of language, of researching and writing about multiple

realities and voices. As a practitioner/researcher I cannot refute ‘the essential importance of

harnessing the power of useful and dangerous theories to shed new, crititcal, and

transformational light on the findings of empirical research’ (Sikes, 2006:49). In my local

context, post-structuralist ethnography may be appropriate in disturbing the normalisation

processes of positivist studies as used by hierarchical authorities and tracing the

‘competing regimes of truth’ (Britzman, 1995:235) that would otherwise smooth over the

complexities of multiple truths in educational contexts.

Josephine V. Saliba


Still, while reflecting on my own praxis might be admirable, it is also true that due to factors

described in this paper, educational administrations no longer regard education as being

primarily an ethical issue that aims to bring about social justice (Sikes, 2006). ‘The debate

surrounding ethics, and particularly professional ethics, continues’ (Richmon, 2003:43) and

although values are now part of the jargon of researchers in educational administration and

leadership, ‘what values are and how they should be studied remains a disputed issue’ (ibid:45).

The most likely approach to unblock this impasse in consensus seems to be dialogue, particularly

in the form of Vaughan’s post-structural ethnographic discourses between relevant stakeholders.

From an administrative leadership point of view, this provides:

‘a potentially more auspicious direction for the application of values, suggesting that

discourse, dialogue, introspection, contemplation and reflection, in and of themselves

may have redemptive properties for practitioners, ameliorating administrative

sensibilities and elevating ethical capacities without giving dogmatic primacy to the

rightness of some values over others. A process oriented focus on values

contemplation seems to be gaining momentum, and in some ways, provides a far

more promising direction for the future, than calls for the objectification of values

through rational, arbitrary criteria.’

(Richmon, 2003:43)

Thus, recognising that educational contexts are made up of multiple values enhances reflection,

enables critical reflection and determines which approaches may best inform educational practice

(Richmon, 2003:45). This is indeed heartening and renders Vaughan’s stance possibly more

relevant to my local scenario. Undeniably there is no one truth and no one research ideology; so

ideally ‘employing theoretical and methodological bricolage’ would contribute to this

multilateral reflective process by all interested stakeholders, administrators and researcher alike

(Sikes, 2006:49). However, I also think that the the assumption of post-structuralist ethnography

as one of these methodologies also greatly facilitates educational discourse

as it helps arguments move away from restrictions of such dichotomies as true/false,

objective/subjective and valid/invalid statements (Britzman, 1995).

Josephine V. Saliba


Hence, from my particular perspective, if I want to share my truth with other professionals, be

they practitioners in my same field or administrators I feel that like Vaughn it would be

worthwhile to engage in post-structuralist ethnographic narratives as elucidated by Britzman.

Particular versions of the truth should not only ‘question how regimes of truth become

neutralised as knowledge’ but should make readers critically read ‘beyond the myth of literal

representations’ (Britzman, 1995:237). The researcher must address personal ‘textual strategies

and political committments’ to evidence ‘the differences between stories, the structures of

telling, and the structures of belief’ (ibid.). Values highlighted ought to contradict sources of

power and ‘provoke a different way of thinking, an ethic that refuses the grounds of

subjectification and normalisation and that worries about that which is not yet’ (ibid.).

This is what I, like Vaughan, believe should represent my truth.

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."Andre Gide

French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947(22 November 1869—19 February 1951)(http://www.quotes.net/quotations/truth )

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edd assignment 1 josephine v saliba

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