EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Paul DowlingInstitute of EducationUniversity of London

Pedagogic Dogma

• Plato

• Piaget

• Politics

• Education = production & transmission of knowledge/skills in contexts that vary in terms of the strength of Institutionalisation of practices

• Educational Research = the production of knowledge concerning these contexts and their associated practices

Development Economics A-level

Mathematics & MFL Texts

Teaching and learning Japanese

Sociology of Literary Studies

Knowledge production in educational studies and medicine

The rules of fencing

Learning how to dress in Taiwan

The regulation of online communities

Lesson study project in Indonesia

Modifying the practice of fencing

Lesson study project in Indonesia

Learning to write fanfiction

• Some arguments for ‘why education research is not as straightforward as finding a cure for cancer’– Philosophical– Sociological– Semiotic– Historical– Theoretical– Methodological– Political– Practical

Philosophical Arguments

• Objects of natural sciences (NS) are different from those in the social sciences and humanities (SSH)• cause —> meaning

• Relationships between researcher and researched in NS are different from those in SSH

Sociological Arguments

• Strength of institutionalisation (paradigms) in R&D and schooling, but see:

– Latour, B. and S. Woolgar (1979). Laboratory Life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills: Sage.

– Turnbull, D. (2000). Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers. London: Routledge.

– Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic Cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Grounded Theory

SAM

Luria,

Bernstein

Social Theory

(Some) Ethnography

Semiotic Arguments

• Objects are moments of a system not elements of a set

• Tacit knowledge

Historical Arguments

• Foundation disciplines (history, philosophy, psychology, sociology)

• Curriculum studies

• Subject studies

• Importance of authors in SSH c.f. scientific knowledge in NS

Theoretical Arguments

• Emphasis on theory building in SSH

• Value of petits reçits

Methodological Arguments

• Resistance to ‘laboratory’ approach in favour of fieldwork– Ethnography

– Case study

– Practitioner research

– Action research

– Clinical interview

Political ArgumentsIn their condemnation, Gross and Levitt portray scientists as the good and virtuous defenders of rationality protecting themselves from the onslaught on the evil and misguided people of postmodern and feminist irrationality. They accuse academic groups that critique science as being guilty of 'intellectual dereliction' [...]. From now on Gross and Levitt advise scientists to be on the guard against the erosion of scientific rationality wherever it may occur. Scientists are encouraged to attend seminars given by nonscientists about science in order to set the record straight. They are invited to scrutinize the tenure decision of science critics and evaluate the science education curriculum at their respective universities to make sure it has not been infiltrated by anti-scientists [...]. Gross and Levitt's critiques go so far as to argue that if the humanities faculty were to walk out of an institution such as MIT, that the science faculty could manage to put together a respectable humanities program. On the other hand, if scientists were to walk out, the humanists would be unable to carry on the science curriculum [...]. (Ward, 1996; pp. 49-50)

Practical Arguments

• Negative comparison with medicine

• Lack of progress in education

• Jargon

• Career trajectories

• Funding

SSH Borrowings from NS

• Conceptual borrowings (proprioception, autopoiesis, emergence, affordance, homeostasis, entropy, …)

• Ethical reviews

• Research design (RCTs & experimental design)

What does educational research look like?

The Use of Research

• Closed systems

• Inform practice in contexts outside of that of its production

• Political or economic resource

• Interrogators of practice in contexts outside of that of its production

ReferencesDowling, P.C. (2009). Sociology as Method: Departures from the forensics of

culture, text and knowledge. Rotterdam: Sense.

Dowling, P.C. & Brown, A.J. (2010). Doing Research/Reading Research: Re-interrogating education. Second Edition. London: Routledge

Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic Cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

Latour, B. & Woolgar, SLaboratory Life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverley Hil. (1979). ls: Sage

Turnbull, D. (2000). Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative studies in the sociology of scientific and indigenous knowledge. London: Routledge