Creating a World of Educational
Quality through Living Educational Theories
Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of
Bath.
Paper to be presented at AERA 2007 in Chicago as
a contribution to the programme of the Self-Study of
Teacher Education Practices Special Interest Group in the session on Place, "Race," Culture, and Society: Creating a World of
Educational Quality on Friday, April 13 - 8:15am - 10:15am,
Building/Room: Hotel Inter-Continental Chicago / Exchange, Eleventh Floor.
Draft 6
March 2007
Abstract
The originality of this research lies
in the suggestion that a world of educational quality could be created through each individual creating and sharing an
explanation for their educational influences in their own learning
and in the learning of others. The presentation is focused on a new epistemology for educational knowledge that has been generated by practitioner-researchers
who have produced such explanations. At the
heart of this epistemology are values-based living standards of judgement.
These values are distinguished through their flow of life-affirming energy
in the generation of the explanations as living educational theories. The validation of the living
standards includes digital, multi-media explanations of educational influences
in learning by self-study researchers. The processes of legitimation include
the living standards of judgement of some 20 living theory doctorates flowing
through web-space from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml.
The socio-cultural significance of these living educational theories, flowing
through the interconnecting and branching channels of communication of
web-space, is connected to insights about relational epistemologies from
ecological feminism. The
significance is also analysed in terms of the living theory responses to
colonising power relations that go beyond a decolonising influence in the
education of social formations.
Introduction
What I am
hoping to do in this presentation is to captivate your imagination about a new
way of thinking about educational knowledge with living educational
theories. By a living educational
theory I am meaning an explanation that an individual produces for her or his
educational influence in learning. This can be an explanation of educational
influence in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning
of social formations. In supporting the generation of living educational
theories I want to contribute to the mission of the University of Bath in terms
of a distinct academic approach to the education of professional practitioners.
I may be mistaken in thinking that you are like me in wanting to live as
meaningful and as productive a life as possible and that we all, at times,
reflect on our lives with the intention of working out ways of living our
values as fully as we possibly can, both in our workplaces and wider existence.
Much of the energy I devote to my professional practice in education is based
on the assumption that I am not mistaken in this belief. As I tutor and
supervise masters and doctoral researchers in generating their own living
educational theories I express my faith in the belief that enhancing the
cultural influence of these theories is a worth while form of life as that this
is making a contribution to the creation of a world of educational quality.
The importance
of epistemology in educational research and theorizing is that it enables us to
understand the grounds for validating and legitimating an educational
knowledge-claim. An epistemology clarifies the nature of the logics, units of appraisal
and standards of judgment in a claim to knowledge. Any new epistemology must
face the task of developing comprehensible, communicable and acceptable
standards of judgment for evaluating the validity of a contribution to
educational knowledge in the Academy.
This
presentation is focused on communicating the meanings of values in new living
standards of judgement for the new epistemology. The meanings of the values in the standards are both
life-affirming and energy-flowing. I will clarify these meanings below. To
avoid repeating both life-affirming and energy-flowing I will assume these
terms before my use of the words values and standards.
The
contributions to educational knowledge I have in mind are the living
educational theories produced by practitioner-researchers as they explore the
implications for their educational influences in learning of asking,
researching and answering questions of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am
doing?' I began to use this idea of living educational theory (Whitehead, 1989)
to distinguish these explanations of learning from the explanations derived
from propositional theories and applied to particular cases. I use the idea of
living theory because I could not find any propositional theory, taken
individually or in any combination, that could produce an adequate explanation
for my educational influences in my own learning or in the learning of others
or in the learning of social formations.
To stress the importance of energy and values, in explanations of
educational influences in learning, I want to draw your attention to Vasilyuk's
point about the poor conceptualizations of the links between energy and
meaning, energy and values and energy and motivation:
Conceptions involving energy are very current in psychology, but they have been very poorly worked out from the methodological standpoint. It is not clear to what extent these (p. 63) conceptions are merely models of our understanding and to what extent they can be given ontological status. Equally problematic are the conceptual links between energy and motivation, energy and meaning, energy and value, although it is obvious that in fact there are certain links: we know how 'energetically' a person can act when positively motivated, we know that the meaningfulness of a project lends additional strength to the people engaged in it, but we have very little idea of how to link up into one whole the physiological theory of activation, the psychology of motivation, and the ideas of energy which have been elaborated mainly in the field of physics. (Vasilyuk, 1991, pp. 63-64)
My emphasis on the importance of multi-media narratives in communicating the educational knowledge in living educational theories is because the moving images emphasise the importance of flows of energy in values-laden explanations of educational influences in learning. The moving images also serve to stress the importance of developing a living logic for an epistemology of educational knowledge. I use Marcuse's (1964, p.105) idea of logic as the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational. In developing a living logic of educational knowledge I have been influenced by Ilyenkov's (1977) failure to provide a satisfactory answer to the questions, 'If an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought be (statement about the object) that expresses it? Can and should an objective contradiction find reflection in thought? And if so, in what form?' (p. 320). My focus on developing a living logic for educational knowledge emerged from the belief that Ilyenkov's failure was due to his decision to 'write' Logic, because a full definition cannot by any means be given by a 'definition' but only by 'developing the essence of the matter' (Ilyenkov, 1977, p.9). The problem with focusing on 'writing' is that it is difficult to establish living meanings and the living logics flowing from embodied knowledge, once written statements are the given of communication. Hence my emphasise below on the living logics expressed in life, moving images and language. I also want to acknowledge my understanding of the 2,500 year argument between dialectical and formal logicians about the validity of their logics for defining rationality. Popper (1963) has produced a very clear argument, using Aristotelean logic to justify his claim that the explanations of dialecticians, in that they contain contradictions, are entirely useless as theory and based on nothing better than a loose and woolly way of speaking. Dialecticians (Marcuse, 1964) believe that propositional theories abiding by the Law of Contradiction are masking the dialectical nature of reality as this is grounded in contradiction. In proposing a living logic of educational knowledge grounded in a perspective of inclusionality as a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries I hope to show how this living logic can integrate insights from both dialectical and propositional theories without engaging in a battle over their validity.
I like the
headings that AERA required participants to use in the submission of their
proposals. These headings are: Educational Significance, Objectives,
Theoretical Frameworks, Methods and Data Sources. In the main body of this presentation I focus on the
educational significance of living standards of judgment for a new epistemology
of educational knowledge. In the four Appendices I describe in more detail the
following objectives, theoretical frameworks, methods and data sources that
support the case I make for the educational significance of the presentation.
I have three
objectives. The first is to
present the new standards in a way that communicates their relationally dynamic
nature with space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative. The second is to present a form of
educational theorising that serves emancipatory interests while resisting
colonizing interests. The third is
connected to my political and ethical intent. I want to use an African idea of
ubuntu as providing a way of being and living standard of judgment that can
serve the interests of humanity in creating a world of educational quality. I
know this use of ubuntu will be seen as problematic because of responses to an
earlier paper on ubuntu (Whitehead, 2005) but I want to acknowledge some
profoundly significant ideas that are emerging from Africa that can contribute
to the creation of a world of educational quality.
Because of the
importance of insights from the theoretical frameworks of others I seek to
engage with the most advanced social and other theories of the day, in the
growth of educational knowledge. Hence in Appendix 2 I draw attention to some
of the theories that have informed my own educational theorizing while
stressing that each living theory is unique in the constellation of insights
drawn from such theories.
Research
methods are highly significant in answering research questions and in gathering
data. So, in Appendix 3 I outline the methods used in this research, including
a commitment to methodological inventiveness (Dadds and Hart, 2001).
Data sources
are also vitally important in establishing the validity of the evidence used to
justify a claim to educational knowledge. Hence in Appendix 4 I outline the
data sources that have been subjected to explicit principles of rigor and
validity and used in this presentation. These are all accessible from web-space
from the given urls.
The rest of
the presentation is focused on its educational significance.
The
Educational Significance of Energy-flowing Values in Creating a World of
Educational Quality Through Living Educational Theories
One
of the most significant insights I gained in the course of writing this paper
was from the following response by Moira Laidlaw to an earlier draft:
Jack,
just had an idea and it may be off the wall, so ignore it if it is. You write
about the inclusionality of ideas and so on. I wonder though, whether there
isn't a profound living contradiction in the way you're expressing yourself.
The people you write about having influenced your ideas are not people but
ideas. Is this fully in keeping with your energy-flowing values? I suspect at
some profound level not. Because I don't believe that Alan Rayner, or Yaakub or
Jackie or Eden are simply ideas to you. I am NOT suggesting there's anything
wrong with the way in which you are conducting your ideas, but if in your
writing the people you clearly respect come over as containers of ideas and not
as human beings, then I think there's a balance of style gone awry. This is not
a personal criticism of your way of treating people in the flesh, because you
do that so bloody brilliantly, but it may be a criticism of how their ideas
seem to be include-alls for their humanity. Sorry if this remark is off the
wall. There are points in the paper, say the clips at the beginning, and the
clips after page ten, but sometimes, in the style of the way you write about
others, is a sense of their ideas being the only consideration and I KNOW that
isn't true of how your influence and their influence on you works. Or am I
missing the point here and being irredeemably female!!!? (e-mail
1 March 2007)
As I read Moira's 'irredeemably female!!!?' I recalled the educational influence in my thinking of a point she made in 1995 that I should stress the living nature of the standards of judgment. Moira's point above about being 'irredeemably female', moved me to connect my present writings to writings on relational understandings. I am thinking in particular of Thayer-Bacon who stresses the importance of the relational (e)pistemology. Thayer-Bacon offers a pragmatist social feminist view in a relational perspective of knowing. She offers a feminist (e)pistemological theory that insists that our standards are social constructed, and thus continually in need of critique and reconstruction. This (e)pistemology according to Thayer-Bacon, and I agree, must be inclusive and open to others, because of its assumption of fallible knowers. (Thayer-Bacon, 2003, p.7).
I am also aware of the significance of the 'loving eye' (and loving 'I') in sustaining connection from the ecological feminist perspective of Karen Warren. For Warren it is the loving eye that appropriately acknowledges relationships in which one knows the boundary of the self and the other. The loving eye is vital in perceiving, responding to, noticing and attending to the boundaries between self and other (Warren, 2001, p. 331).
In agreeing with Laidlaw I want to show you a collage of video-clips that for me connects and sustains me through relational spaces and boundaries that flow with our unique values and our common humanity as well as our ideas. You can access the collage with its visual narrative at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jack/jwyoutubeimages3.htm and stream the video-clips to your browser by clicking on any of the clips below. Most of the clips are some 5 minutes long and because of their number I am not expecting you to access them all for this presentation. What I believe is that any one of the clips will serve to communicate the importance of a flow of energy with values in explaining both what the individuals are doing and their educational influences in learning.
My appreciation of the use of multi-media technology in communicating relational meanings through dynamic boundaries such as those between the clips below, occurred by accident. I had separated the clips on my hard drive with the intention of writing a visual narrative on each clip (like the ones above and below the collage). As I tried to bring the separate clips into my paper the clips automatically grouped together. As this happened I appreciated that I was feeling the connection between the flows of life-affirming energy and values between the individuals shown on the clips. I felt a strong resonance with the values and understandings being expressed in each others' living space and through the boundaries of each clip. I am suggesting that such flows of energy, values and understandings between our boundaries are both vital and necessary in explanations of educational influences in learning. The visual narrative at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jack/jwyoutubeimages3.htm provides more contextual information on the clips and I recognise the need to provide more contextual information so that you can understand more fully the connections between the individuals and their explanations of educational influence in learning.
As Margaret Farren (2005) stresses
in her expression of a web of betweenness and Jacqueline Delong (2002)
emphasises in the evolution of a culture of inquiry, a relational epistemology
requires the expression of values and a
shared expression of connection that carries pleasure and hope for humanity.
Rayner describes this connection in terms of receptive responsiveness as he
seeks
to re-frame, within a 'living theory' context, the very meaning of 'educational
leadership' from the prescriptive imposition of authority to the evolutionary navigation of transformation:
Only
the latter can provide the basis for true 'learning' and 'creative exploration'
by 'showing' what's possible, not
'telling' what's done. Could anyone 'tell' me how to ride a bicycle? Just
imagine the instruction
manual - let alone the
lecturer with powerpoint - informing me how to calculate dynamic balances in
ten dimensions simultaneously! But someone who through her own learning shows
me what's possible and supports and encourages me as I gain the 'feel' of the
flow the bike and I are inclusions of - now there's a form of leadership I can
recognise without defining exactly how it's done. This is the form of
leadership which I think may, in all humility - because it involves the
humility of including oneself as a
learner - be recognised as 'world leading' - but according to very different
standards of judgement from those conventionally prescribed. I think this is
what Jack may have been feeling for. (Rayner's contribution to BERA e-seminar 26 Feb 2007 14:06)
In each living educational
theory presented below, the practitioner-researcher is expressing such humility
and educational leadership, through including themselves as learners. Each
researcher works with a relationally dynamic understanding of living standards
of judgment and includes analyses of the socio-cultural influences in their
work and understanding.
As I have said, the educational significance of this presentation is in the claim that a new epistemology for educational knowledge has been produced in living educational theories that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality. Each living theory, flowing through web-space, is grounded in the expression of the values of the practitioner research. They are grounded in one's being in and towards the world, that is, one's ontology (Bullough and Pinnegar, 2004). Each unique living theory shows how the meanings of the values that give meaning and purpose to life, are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality.
The following self-study researchers have engaged with professional, academic, cultural and political relationships in the creation of their unique living theories. They have sustained their enquiries over many years, including the legitimation of their knowledge-creation in doctoral theses of at least five year's duration. They are continuing their post-doctoral enquiries in Chinese, Canadian, South African, Irish and UK contexts.
Each
practitioner-researcher (McNiff, 2006; Laidlaw, 1995; Whitehead, 1999 Delong,
2002; Farren, 2005;) has used action and reflection cycles that are consistent
with some ideas of scientific enquiry (Medawar, 1969; Popper, 1969) to clarify
the meanings of the values as these emerge in the practice of their enquiries.
The educational significance of the use of this action research methodology is
that it can demonstrate how the values of the self-study researcher can form,
in the course of their emergence and clarification in practice, the explanatory
principles and living standards of judgement for evaluating the validity of the
knowledge claims. The evidence-based claims of educational significance, in
generating a new epistemology for educational knowledge can be accessed in
their flow through web-space from the urls below. Each of the video-clips shows
an expression of the values of the researcher that characterise both our
uniqueness and common humanity. The clips can be accessed from a streamed
server from the url immediately below each picture and the doctoral thesis of
each practitioner-researcher can be accessed from the given location.
Jean McNiff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGyuQ1uTrzM
McNiff, J. (1989) An explanation for an individual's
educational development through the dialectic of action research. Ph.D. thesis,
University of Bath. This thesis is in the Library of the University of Bath.
You can access details of Jean's publications and other work at http://www.jeanmcniff.com
In the video-clip, McNiff is explaining to colleagues in St. Mary's
College the contexts of her present research and her future plans. Her
outstanding contributions to the development and communication of a new
epistemology for educational knowledge as well as her global educational
influence is largely due to the responses to presentations such as that above
in different international contexts and to the clarity of her writings and
their capacity to captivate the imaginations of her readers about her
generative and transformation approach to self-study in action research.
Moira Laidlaw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1jEOhxDGno
Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own
living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational
development?
Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl
This video-clip was taken at the end of a lesson with
students in Guyuan Teachers College (Now Ningxia Teachers University). I had
switched the camera off and then turned it on again as Laidlaw moved to the
door of the classroom. This is one of the most significant clips I have made in
showing the responsive receptiveness of an educator with students as she
communicates a recognition and valuing the other in expressing her own
life-affirming, energy flowing values in loving what she is doing.
The international excellence of Laidlaw's
practitioner-research can be appreciated in the action research accounts she
has been influential in stimulating in China's Experimental Centre for
Educational Action Research in Foreign Language Teaching. The centre is now
hosted by Ningxia Teachers University. Some of these accounts can be accessed
from
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml
Jack Whitehead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBTLfyjkFh0
Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve
my practice? Creating a discipline of education
through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007
from http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml
The above video-clip is from a performance
text in which I am reconstructing my response to a draft report of a Senate
Working Party that was established in 1990 to investigate a matter of academic
freedom following a Board of Studies decision that there was prima facie
evidence of a breach of my academic freedom. The draft report produced by the
Working Party claimed, rightly, that my academic freedom had not been breached.
In the clip I am expressing my values of academic freedom, justice and
responsibility in claiming that the Working Party would be shirking their
responsibilities as academics if they did not acknowledge the pressure to which
I had been subjected. The final report to Senate stated that while my academic
freedom had not been breached this was because of my persistence in the face of
pressure. A less determined individual might well have been discouraged and
therefore constrained. It is such
life-affirming, energy-flowing values that this presentation is claiming can
help to form into the living standards of judgment of a new epistemology for
educational knowledge.
Jacqueline
Delong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1ilkWB9Dc
Delong,
J. (2002) How Can I Improve My Practice
As A Superintendent of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28
February 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml
In this clip, Jacqueline Delong and I are discussing the Abstract
for her thesis and the importance of communicating Delong's system's influence
as a living standard of practice and judgment. In the earlier clip above Delong is responding to a question
about the system's supports she has helped to create for teacher-researchers.
Her flow of pleasure as she describes the responses of the S.W.A.T. team is the
quality of energised and energising expression that I am claiming can form the
new living standards of judgment for the new epistemology of educational
knowledge.
Margaret Farren
http://www.dcu.ie/~farrenm/chrisvalidatear.ra
Farren, M. (2005) How
can I create a pedagogy of the unique through a web of betweenness? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February
2007 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/farren.shtml
Margaret Farren's practitioner-research is
to my mind world leading. This is because of the way it shows how an individual
researcher can produce her own educational knowledge in her living theory,
while demonstrating how the social formation of a university can be moved, in
its curriculum and assessment procedures to integrate support for the creation
of the living educational theories by other practitioner-researchers. In
expressing her pedagogy of the unique within a web of betweenness Margaret is
showing the values that constitute her explanatory principles in the
explanations of her educational influence in her own learning and the learning
of her students. In her living theory doctorate Margaret also explains her
educational influence in the curriculum and assessment procedures of a university
in a way that is consistent with her values in a web of betweenness.
The creation
of a world of educational quality through living educational theories requires
a global approach to the development of cultures of enquiry (Delong, 2002). If
there is one thing that is certain in the creation of a world of educational
quality it is that human beings have much to learn in how to contribute to this
creation. Learning
is one of the
characteristics of being human. I do like and agree with Habermas' conjecture about
learning and I think it bears repeating:
It is my conjecture that the
fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an
automatic inability not to learn. Not learning, but not-learning is the
phenomenon that calls for explanation at the socio-cultural stage of
development. Therein lies, if you will, the rationality of man. Only against
this background does the over-powering irrationality of the history of the
species become visible. (Habermas, 1975, p. 15)
Human
beings learn many things, some of which are not educational in the sense that
the learning does not carry hope
for the future of humanity. In creating a world of educational quality it is
important to ensure that the learning is educational. Self-study researchers can
contribute to a world of educational quality through living educational
theories that explain how values that give meaning and purpose to life are
being lived as fully as possible. The validation and legitimation of living
educational theories requires an engagement with the power relations in the
Academy that are resistant to recognising new living standards of judgement.
Schon (1995) recognised this resistance in his understanding that the new
epistemology would present a challenge to the epistemology of the modern
research university. He also recognised that introducing
the new scholarship into institutions of higher education means becoming
involved in an epistemological battle. He says that it is a battle of snails,
proceeding so slowly that you have to look very carefully in order to see it
going on. But it is happening nonetheless (p. 32) My own responses to this
resistance and 'battle of snails' have changed over the years.
My
early responses in the workplace to experiences of the denial of recognition of
the significance of the educational knowledge being generated through my
research were characterised by the expression of anger towards the individuals
who seemed to me to be continuing to support the truth of power in the face of
the power of truth (Whitehead, 1993). While the expression of anger was
therapeutic, in the sense that holding it in, could have damaged my
well-being, I had not learnt how
to re-channel this energy, into the creative energy, love, hope, pleasure and
justice of living educational theories .
I hope that my present responses are characterised more by these
qualities and the expression good humour and the pleasure of receiving the data
I need to show the workings of the power relations that continue to support the
truth of power. I am thinking of data that explicitly denies recognition to the
significance of the knowledge-base of living educational theories on the
grounds that the accounts of this educational knowledge must be seen in
internationally reputable and refereed Journals. When this claim was made in
2006, no such e-journals existed, to my knowledge, that could both present the multi-media explanations of
living educational theories and had the time to become internationally
recognised!
I
think this good humour and pleasure (as exemplified in the video-clips with
Murray and Delong, as distinct from my earlier responses (Whitehead, 1993), are
partially due to a feeling of well-being as I see the spread of ideas I value
and have helped to generate. In particular I think my capacity to re-channel
the energy of emotions that could be destructive, into productive responses, is
through my appreciation of the generative and transformatory power (McNiff, 1989) of flowing round
obstacles in recognising and working with the flow of relationships that are
contribution to the creation of a world of educational quality.
Rather than pointing to and naming those who exerted pressures that could have constrained my academic freedom, as I did in my earlier work, my choice today is to focus on the educational imagination that is necessary for recognising the significance of the new epistemology for educational knowledge. Time will tell is this is a failure of the imaginations of others in recognising such a contribution or a failure of my own in believing in the significance of this new epistemology! I say this with A. N. Whitehead's (1960) point of view in mind that a University should be concerned primarily with the imaginative acquisition of knowledge. For Whitehead, Universities are schools of education and schools of research. He believes that the justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest for life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. This learning, according to Whitehead, enables human beings to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest for life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes (p. 139). For Whitehead the proper function of a university is the imaginative acquisition of knowledge. As he says, A university is imaginative or it is nothing – a least nothing useful. (p. 145)
In the expression of my own zest for life
in education, I recognise the vital significance of a flow of life affirming
energy with the values that give meaning and purpose to my life. I imagine that
most educators and educational researcher are like me in feeling the flow of
this energy as an explanatory principle in explaining why they do what they do
and how they sustain their commitment to what they are doing in education.
I am hoping
that the expression of this energy, connected as it is to my passion to share a
new epistemology for educational knowledge, will help to captivate your
imaginations. I need to captivate
your imaginations because what I am saying about an epistemology for
educational knowledge is very different to the epistemology of the modern
research university. The main difference is in the meanings of the values in
new living standards of judgement. In saying this I am bearing Schon's (1995,
27) point in mind about how the new epistemology will challenge the
epistemology in the modern research university.
The
evidence of my contribution to the knowledge-base of living educational
theories, generated with the help of my own imagination, is in the Library of
the University of Bath and other Universities, like Kingston University,
Limerick University and the University of the West of England, that have
legitimated living theory dissertations and theses. It is flowing through
web-space through other publications and work in other Universities from http://www.actionresearch.net . What I
am hopeful about, in continuing to contribute to a world of educational quality,
is that those educational qualities and relationships with others that support
me, with good humour and much pleasure, are flowing into my capacity for
living a loving and productive
life. I am thinking of a life that continues to flow with the life-affirming,
energy-flowing values that carry hope for the future of humanity.
I
also wish to say of those who do not recognise the significance of this
contribution to educational knowledge (and who are engaged in the 'battle of
snails') that I recognise that their beliefs are likely to be held with
integrity. Hence I think that it is important to hold open forums in a
University for constrained disagreement. Where I am still puzzling away at is
what is an appropriate response when the disciplinary power relations of an
institution are used to protect from public questioning what should be academic
judgments. In saying this I am mindful of changes in my own universities
regulation from a position in 1980 where the judgments of examiners of research
degrees could not be questioned under any circumstances, to the position in
1991 when the regulations changes to allow questioning on the grounds of bias,
prejudice and inadequate assessment.
The
University of Bath has both provided a space of paradox in my productive life.
It has provided between 1973- present,
a living space of economic security for my creativity to flourish and at
the same time provided responses to the knowledge generated through my research
that question its significance. Hence it is continuing to provide a forum for
constrained disagreement in which I bear MacIntyre's point in mind:
The rival claims to truth of contending traditions of enquiry
depend for their vindication upon the adequacy and explanatory power of the
histories which the resources of each of those traditions in conflict enable
their adherents to write. (MacIntyre, 1988, p.
403)
Conclusion and Moving on
What I hope that this presentation has accomplished is to captivate your imagination in a way that resonates with your values and your recognition of the need for a new epistemology for educational knowledge. There is much work to be done in legitimating this epistemology throughout the Academy. I am hopeful that we shall work together to contribute to the creation of a world of educational quality, through educating the social formations of universities and the wider society about the educational significance of legitimating the living logics and living standards of judgment of inclusional in living educational theories.
I am thinking here of the significance for each individual and for the future of humanity of generating our own living educational theories with the life-affirming and energy-flowing values that sustain a connection with, and carry hope for, humanity and our own. What counts as educational knowledge in universities around the world has both reproductive and transformatory influences in individual and social formations. Because of this I am advocating the academic legitimation of this new epistemology for educational knowledge with its grounding in the flow of life-affirming, energy-flowing values of humanity in our educational practices and knowledge-creating activities.
Appendix 1
Three Objectives
The
first objective was to present the meanings of the values that constitute the
relationally dynamic standards of judgement used by self-study researchers in
enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' The presentation is
informed by an expression of inclusionality. Inclusionality is a relationally dynamic awareness of space
and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner, 2004).
As I
am contributing to a session on Place, "Race," Culture, and Society: Creating a World of
Educational Quality I particularly
want to acknowledge the influence of Yaakub Murray in bringing into my
awareness an understanding of a postcolonial critical consciousness. Yaakub
also raised my awareness of the importance of racialising my discourses with
understandings from different racial and ethnic groups and cultures. Because of
Yaakub's educational influence I want to focus your attention on a video-clip,
made by Yaakub's wife Asma, as we talk about Yaakub's doctoral research and
express pleasure in being together through our laughter. Yaakub is talking
about some of my educational influences. What I think the video-clip communicates
is a flow of life-affirming energy with our shared passion and love for what we
are doing in our educational enquiries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3TjLxEiyPk
The
main point that I am making is that an explanation of my educational influence,
in my own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social
formations, requires life-affirming energy-flowing values as explanatory
principles. I am also claiming that an individual's explanation for their
educational influences in learning in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve
what I am doing?', will also require life-affirming, energy-flowing values as
explanatory principles. For
example, in explaining Jacqueline Delong's educational influence in helping to
form and sustain a culture of inquiry in the Grand Erie District School Board
(Delong and Whitehead, 2007) we have drawn on the life-affirming energy-flowing
value of the pleasure and love in what Jacqueline is doing as she responds to a
question about the support provided for teacher researchers with her influence
as a Superintendent of Schools in the District School Board.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsECy86hzxA
We
have also used the following clip from a doctoral supervision session to
communicate the meanings of the expression of a life-affirming, energy-flowing
value of pleasure in what we are doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2kdOfRKFYs
the
fourth illustration of life-affirming, energy flowing values is provided by
Eden Charles in his doctoral research where he is describing his responses to
working with a group of women in Sierra Leone who experienced great pain during
the civil war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcfZE_z-C_w
In
his doctoral submission Eden explains his educational influences in his own
learning and in the learning of others in terms of an African Cosmology with
ubuntu and he develops the ideas of societal re-identification and guiltless
recognition in making his own contributions to the creation of a world of
educational quality. As I watch
the video of Eden I recall my experiences on the day in which I felt Eden's
receptive responsiveness to the humanity expressed by the women in Sierra Leone
in their life-affirming, energy-flowing humanising responses to their
experiences. I am wondering if I
have communicated the transformational potential of bringing life-affirming,
energy-flowing values in the living standards of judgment of a new epistemology
into the Academy?
The
second and third objectives below flow from the above, in responding to Snow's
point about the need to systematize the knowledge of practitioner-researchers
in education. The methods section below is also relevant to Snow's point:
The knowledge resources of excellent
teachers constitute a rich resource, but one that is largely untapped because
we have no procedures for systematizing it. Systematizing would require
procedures for accumulating such knowledge and making it public, for connecting
it to bodies of knowledge established through other methods, and for vetting it
for correctness and consistency. If we had agreed-upon procedures for
transforming knowledge based on personal experiences of practice into 'public'
knowledge, analogous to the way a researcher's private knowledge is made public
through peer-review and publication, the advantages would be great. (Snow, 2001, p.9)
My second objective was to present a form and content of educational theorizing
that engages with workplace, life-long learning, in a way that recognises and
resists colonizing methodologies while supporting an emancipatory interest.
I am thinking of educational theorizing as something that we do
throughout our lives as we reflect on what we have been doing with our lives,
what we have learnt about ourselves and others and about the cultural and other
social influences in what we do. Reflection is necessary to educational
theorizing but not sufficient to distinguish it. It is the explanations of our
educational influences in learning that are necessary and sufficient to
distinguish educational theorizing. This theorizing is not restricted to our
workplaces, although much of our reflections on what we are doing may be
connected to what we see as our work. It is certainly not restricted to schools,
colleges and universities. For example, the living theories flowing through
web-space from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml
include the explanations of educational influences in learning of police,
health, management, teachers and other education workers.
What each living educational theory has in common is the recognition and
engagement with power relations that serve a colonizing influence through the
exertion of pressure that denies the validity of the voice, values and
understandings of the practitioner researcher. I am using colonizing in the
sense of seeking to replace indigenous understandings with other forms of
understanding without respecting the vital part the indigenous understandings
play in the identity of the other.
I first became aware of such a colonising tendency of propositional theories in my early studies of educational theory at the Institute of Education of the University of London (1968-1972). The dominant view of educational theory of the time was known as the 'disciplines' approach because it held that educational theory was constituted by the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. The colonising tendency in this approach was its view that the explanations I generated from my practical experience were at best pragmatic maxims that 'should' be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. This mistake has been acknowledged and clearly expressed by Paul Hirst, one of the early proponents of the 'disciplines' approach when he said that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:
"... in the context of immediate
practical experience and will be co-terminous with everyday understanding. In
particular, many of its operational principles, both explicit and implicit,
will be of their nature generalisations from practical experience and have as
their justification the results of individual activities and practices.
In many characterisations of educational theory, my own included, principles justified in this way have until recently been regarded as at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That now seems to me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I suggest, must of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that are necessarily inadequate." (Hirst, 1983, p. 18)
Kierkegaard
pointed to this damaging colonising tendency of replacing the understandings
generated from practical experience with conceptual frameworks from traditional
propositional theories when he warned of the danger of creating unities in our
imaginations that become detached from practical living.
Hence
I want to hold firmly to my focus on the creation of living educational
theories in supporting an emancipatory interest in enhancing the flow of values
and understandings that are contributing to the creation of a world of
educational quality. This is why I emphasise the importance of questions of the
kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?', in retaining a connection with one's
practical life. This emancipatory
interest includes an understanding of critical theories. I am thinking here of
critical social theories that explain how economic and other interests work in
supporting power relations, in social, historical and cultural formations, that
reproduce existing inequalities and violations of the values that carry hope
for the future of humanity (Fromm, 1960; Marcuse, 1964; Adorno, 1963; Shroyer,
1963; Habermas, 1975, 1976, 1987).
I
owe much, in the growth of my educational knowledge, to these critical
theorists. Erich Fromm in particular
was influential in developing my understanding of a Marxist analysis of
capitalist social formations in the development of marketing personalities. I
understood the importance of the ethics in his humanistic psychology in
sustaining a productive orientation to human existence in the face of market
pressures to succumb to the marketing orientation. I followed and agreed with
his points about the need to retain the art of loving in one's own existence,
of the significance of hope and of small face to face groups engaging in
productive conversations for enhancing well-being in social formations.
Marcuse's (1964) idea of a one-dimensional existence served to re-inforce
Fromm's points about the importance of a productive orientation, and I continue
to use Marcuse's idea of logic as the mode of thought that is appropriate for
comprehending the real as rational. With Adorno (1963) and Schroyer (1963) I
focused on the critique of Heidegger that claimed the 'I' in Heidegger's
thought remained formal while pretending to contain content in itself. This
insight continues to focus my attention on ensuring that the 'I' within my
writings is authentic and contains content in itself. The words of Martin Buber help me sustain a connection with
this 'I' while being aware of the importance of avoiding the domination of the
'I' of ego:
"How much of a person a man is depends on how strong
the I of the basic word I-You is in the human duality of his I.
The way he says I - what he means when he says I -
decides where a man belongs and where he goes. The word "I" is the
true shibboleth of humanity.
Listen to it!
How dissonant the I of the ego sounds! When it issues
from tragic lips, tense with some self-contradiction that they try to hold
back, it can move us to great pity. When it issues from chaotic lips that
savagely, heedlessly, unconsciously represent contradiction, it can make us
shudder. When the lips are vain and smooth, it sounds embarrassing or
disgusting.
Those who pronounce the severed I, wallowing in the
capital letter, uncover the shame of the world spirit that has been debased to
mere spirituality.
But how beautiful and legitimate the vivid and emphatic I
of Socrates sounds! It is the I of infinite conversation, and the air of
conversation is present on all its ways, even before his judges, even in the
final hour in prison. This I lived in that relation to man which is embodied in
conversation. It believed in the actuality of men and went out toward them.
Thus it stood together with them in actuality and is never severed from it.
Even solitude cannot spell forsakenness, and when the human world falls silent
for him, he hears his daimonion say You.
How beautiful and legitimate the full I of Goethe sounds!
It is the I of pure intercourse with nature. Nature yields to it and speaks
ceaselessly with it; she reveals here mysteries to it and yet does not betray
her mystery. It believes in her and says to the rose: "So it is You"
- and at once shares the same actuality with the rose. Hence, when it returns
to itself, the spirit of actuality stays with it; the vision of the sun clings
to the blessed eye that recalls its own likeness to the sun, and the friendship
of the elements accompanies man into the calm of dying and rebirth.
Thus the "adequate, true, and pure" I-saying of
the representatives of association, the Socratic and the Goethean persons,
resounds through the ages." (Buber, 1970, p.117)
With
Habermas (1975, 1987) I have kept my focus on learning with my own distinct
emphasis on explaining educational influences in learning. I also continue to
use Habermas's (1976) four criteria of social validity from his work on
communication and the evolution of society, to strengthen the validity of
explanations of educational influence in learning.
Ideas
of each of these theorists have helped me to understand the colonizing
influences of the social formations in which I live and work. They have served
to keep my enquiries grounded in serving the emancipatory interests that are
enhancing the flow of values, skills and understandings that carry hope for the
future of humanity.
My
third objective was to focus attention on values of humanity grounded in the African
cosmology of ubuntu (Benghu, 1996) that emphasise the significance of the
recognition of the humanity of the others in educational relationships.
In
focusing attention on the values of humanity I value Gaita's (2002) insights
into love, truth and justice as values of common humanity, especially his focus
on love:
To speak, as I do, of fully acknowledging another's humanity will, I know, sound like rhetoric to many people who would prefer to speak of recognising someone fully as a person, or even as a rational agent, at least when, in philosophical mode, they try to make perspicuous what really is the bearer of moral status. My endorsements of Weil's remark - that love sees what is invisible - will sound even worse to them. In this preface I can only plead that I mean both and soberly. Later I argue that improbable though it may seem at first, placing the weight that I do on our humanity and on love rather than on, say, the obligated acknowledgement of rights, is more hardheaded than the longing to make secure to reason what reason cannot secure, all the while whistling in the dark. "(pp. xx-xxi)
I
am identifying the creation of world of educational qualities with such values
of common humanity in living educational theories.
I
have a particular political and ethical intent in asking that we engage with
ubuntu ways of being from Africa in the language we use for stressing the
relational values of our humanity. The political and ethical intent that moves
me to do this is that I want to acknowledge a relational understanding of
humanity from Africa that could contribute to the creation of a world of
educational quality. I understand
something of the violations of humanity under the Apartheid regime and the
embrace of ubuntu in the South African constitution after 1994. Living near Bristol I am near a
significant place of the part played by British Colonial Interests in the Slave
Trade with its devastating consequences for several African countries as well
as for its dehumanising influence in the perpetrators. In supervising the
doctoral research programmes of Yaakub Murray and Eden Charles in particular,
with their foci on postcolonial critical consciousness and ubuntu respectively,
I have developed my own understandings of ways of being that emphasise the
significance of recognising our own humanity in the humanity of others.
In
my learning through supervising Simon Riding's research programme, with his
idea of 'Living Myself Through Others' (Riding, 2003), I have also developed my
understandings of relational ways of being and knowing in one of the English
translation of ubuntu of 'I am because we are?'
Through
conversations and her multi-media doctoral research programme, Marian Naidoo
has shown me how such qualities of relationship can help in the emergence of a
living theory of inclusional and responsive practice:
I am because we are (a never ending
story). The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive
practice. (Naidoo, 2005, Retrieved 28 February 2007
from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/naidoo.shtml
)
I cannot overstate the significance of Marian Naidoo's
multi-media communication of the meanings of a passion for compassion in her
emerging living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. The University
of Bath amended its regulations in July 2004 to allow the submission of e-media
in research degrees. Naidoo's use of e-media shows her relationally dynamic
awareness of space and boundaries in generating living standards of judgment
for
a new epistemology of educational knowledge..
I trust that the above section has served
to focus your attention on the possibility of engaging with the significance of
ubuntu as a relational way of being and relational standard of judgment in the
development of living educational theories. I am thinking of living theories
that serve the interests of creating a world of educational quality as I now
move on to consider the theoretical frameworks that have been significant in
the evolution of my own living educational theories. I want to stress the
importance of understanding that each living theory is unique and will draw on
the different constellations of values, skills and understandings from
theoretical frameworks such as those below that influence the individual in
their own socio-cultural and socio-historical contexts.
Appendix 2
Theoretical Frameworks
Insights from the
following theoretical frameworks, amongst many others, can be used in the
generation of the living theories and in the explication of the meanings of the
embodied values and the living standards of judgement that constitute a world
of educational quality. What I have done below is to bring together some of the
most influential ideas from a range of theories that are continuing to evolve
my unique living theory. I think
it is worth repeating that each individual will have their own unique
constellation of values, theoretical and emotional insights that are helping in
the evolution of their own living theory.
i)
Living Educational Theory
The idea of living educational theories as the
explanations that individuals produce for their educational influences in their
own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social
formations.
The explanations use,
as explanatory principles, the life-affirming, energy-flowing values that
individuals generate to give meaning and purpose to their lives (Whitehead,
1989). The recognition of the
possibility that individuals could generate their own living theories emerged
with the idea that this personal knowledge required a decision to understand
the world from one's own point of view as an individual claiming originality
and exercising judgement, responsibly with universal intent (Polanyi, 1958). It
also emerged with Erich Fromm's (1960, p.18) idea from The Fear of Freedom,
that if individuals can face the truth without panic they will realise that
there is no purpose to life other than the one they give to their own lives
through their loving relationships and productive work. It emerged with Fromm's
(1947) idea from Man for Himself that as individuals we are faced with a choice
in living and working within capitalist social formations. We can develop
marketing personalities that conform to the pressures of becoming human capital
defined by the priorities of capitalist market places and we can choose to
develope productive personalities that unite with the world in the spontaneity
of love and productive work in realising more fully the ethical values of
humanity. For an appreciation of the significance of Fromm's ideas for another
that is very similar to my own, see http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2000/genmay00.html. The idea of life-affirming, energy-flowing
values, emerged in relation to Paul Tillich's (1962, p. 168) expression of the
state of being grasped by the power of being itself, but without Tillich's
theistic commitment.
ii)
Inclusionality
In the first video-clip
of the above collage, Alan Rayner is talking about the way living boundaries of
inclusionality have become severed in western views of rationality. The idea of
Rayer (2005) expresses meanings of inclusionality as a relationally dynamic
awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative.
My present focus on
communicating meanings of
life-affirming, energy-flowing values as explanatory principles in
explanations of educational influences in learning, is informed by this
perspective of inclusionality. Inclusionality also informs the inclusion of
energy-space in the relationally dynamic standards of judgment for the new
epistemology for educational knowledge.
Rayner's ideas challenge the dominance of Darwin's evolutionary theory
of natural selection. In this presentation I use Rayners expression of
inclusionality to emphasise the significance of an evolutionary open process
that enables a creatively respective response in a living space that is fundamentally
fluid, rather than fixed:
Biological
evolution has been depicted in much the same way, as a process of progressive
adaptation involving the preferential selection of those forms that have a
competitive advantage in a defined set of circumstances or 'niche'. Here I show
how the rigid selectivity of this approach, whilst approximating to one aspect
of natural evolutionary processes disregards another, and so is profoundly
inadequate when attuning with an ever-changing context such as that currently
referred to as 'climate change'. For such attunement, a natural, evolutionarily
open, process is necessary to enable a creatively receptive response in a
space-including geometry that is fundamentally fluid, not fixed. This process
of 'natural inclusion' involves the non-linear integration, differentiation and
complementation of both radially symmetrical (all round) and polarized
(channelled) non-local and local spatial information. Here, the latter is a
dynamic inclusion - necessarily both including and included in the former, like
a weathervane signifying airflow or fish attuning with streambed. It cannot
operate as an independent executive object, isolated from what includes itself. (Rayner, 2007)
iii)
Communication and Learning
The idea that communication
is vital for social evolution and that in reaching understanding with each
other we are making four validity claims related to the comprehensibility,
rightness, truth and authenticity of what we are saying (Habermas, 1976). I continue to use these four criteria
of social validity to enhance the validity of living theories, by asking
validation groups of peers that read and respond to living theory accounts, to
use these criteria in responding to the explanation of educational influence.
The ideas of Habermas (1975) about the significance of legitimation in what
counts as valid educational knowledge continue to focus my attention on
legitimating life-affirming, energy flowing values in living standards of
judgment in the Academy. Habermas' ideas on learning (1975, 1987) also serve to
reinforce the focus of my attention on the importance of explaining educational
influences in learning.
'It is my conjecture that the
fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an
automatic inability not to learn. Not learning, but not-learning is the
phenomenon that calls for explanation at the socio-cultural stage of
development. Therein lies, if you will, the rationality of man. Only against
this background does the over-powering irrationality of the history of the
species become visible.' (Habermas, 1975, p. 15)
"..... I have attempted to free historical
materialism from its philosophical ballast. Two abstractions are required for
this: I) abstracting the development of the cognitive structures from the
historical dynamic of events, and ii) abstracting the evolution of society from
the historical concretion of forms of life. Both help in getting beyond the
confusion of basic categories to which the philosophy of history owes its
existence.
A theory developed in this way can no
longer start by examining concrete ideals immanent in traditional forms of
life. It must orient itself to the range of
learning processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained
level of learning (My emphasis on learning) . It
must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively ordering totalities,
forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs as a whole. And yet it
can take up some of the intentions for which the interdisciplinary research
program of earlier critical theory remains instructive.
Coming at the end of a complicated study
of the main features of a theory of communicative action, this suggestion
cannot count even as a "promissory note." It is less a promise than a
conjecture." (Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
iii)
Ubuntu and a Web of Betweenness
The African idea of
ubuntu (Benghu, 1996) is loosely translated into english as 'I am because we
are' . I see its relevance to this
presentation in the assumption that a world of educational quality requires the
recognition by individuals of the humanity of the other.
In my thinking I see
ubuntu as being linked to the idea of the web of betweenness from celtic
spirituality in Farren's thesis on 'How can I create a pedagogy of the unique
through a web of betweeness?' (O' Donohue, 2003; Farren, 2005 – see http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/farren.shtml
). In Farren's thesis the 'web of betweenness' refers to how we learn in relation to one
another and also how e-media can enable us to get closer to communicating the
meanings of our embodied values (Farren, 2005). In Farren's thesis the theoretical framework of a pedagogy of the unique is
presented as a dialogic process
that reflects a growing openness to learning and relearning with others, in a
democratic process that gives adequate space to each participant to contribute
to the development of new knowledge, to develop their own voice, to make their
own insightful offerings and to engage in their own action, as well as to
create their own products, in an age of supercomplexity (Barnett, 2000). My
political and ethical intent in including ubuntu as an African concept in
living standards of judgment for a new epistemology of educational knowledge is
because it serves the purpose of internationalising the standards in a way that
focuses on the humanising qualities of relationships in a world of educational
quality.
iv)
Socio-cultural and socio-historical Theory
Ideas from socio-cultural theory (Said, 1993; Lantoff, 2000) are used to provide insights about the use of living theories as cultural artefacts flowing through web-space that can influence the creation of cultures of inquiry (Delong, 2002) in generating a world of educational quality. This influence is being expressed in a range of cultural contexts that are connected through the globalising interconnecting and branching channels of communication of web-space. This flow of living theories as cultural artefacts can be accessed from http://www.actionresearch.net .
I am using the word culture in the sense
expressed by Said:
As I use the word, 'culture' means two things in particular. First of all it means all those practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation, that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure. Included, of course, are both the popular stock of lore about distant parts of the world and specialized knowledge available in such learned disciplines as ethnography, historiography, philology, sociology, and literary history..... Second, and almost imperceptible, culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each society's reservoir of the best that has been known and thought. (Said, pp. xii-xiv, 1993)
My emphasis on the significance of living
educational theories for the creation of a world of educational quality owes
much to the idea of the power of cultural influences in the education of
individuals and social formations. Said's analysis of novels as influential in
the reproduction of imperial social formations serves to focus my emancipatory
interest in enhancing the flow of living educational theories that serve this
interest in helping to transform the world into a world of educational quality.
I have also found Foucault's (1980) ideas on the role of the specific and
universal intellectual and his emphasis on the individual speaking on their own
behalf in confronting the truth of power with the power of truth, influential
in the growth of my own educational knowledge. The socio-historical theories of
Fromm (1947), Marcuse (1964), Adorno (1963) and Habermas (1975, 1976, 1987) serve
to focus attention on the power of the interest groups that are sustaining
globalising capitalist formations and I do agree with Habermas' (2002) insight
about the importance of engaging with both individual and social influences in
enhancing civic rights and responsibilities:
"The dispute between the two received paradigms - whether the autonomy of legal persons is better secured through individual liberties for private competition or through publicly guaranteed entitlements for clients of welfare bureaucracies - is superseded by a proceduralist concept of law. According to this conception, the democratic process mush secure private and public autonomy at the same time: the individual rights that are meant to guarantee to women the autonomy to pursue their lives in the private sphere cannot even be adequately formulated unless the affected persons themselves first articulate and justify in public debate those aspects that are relevant to equal or unequal treatment in typical cases. The private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can only be secured only insofar as citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy." (Habermas, 2002, p.264)
In seeking to use insights from the most advanced
social theories of the day I have been drawn to Sen's economic theory of human
capability and the distinction he makes between this theory and an economic
theory of human capital. I recognise that much of what I have been able to do
in my productive life and what has yet to emerge, rests in the economic
security of a contract of employment at the University of Bath from 1973-2009.
v)
An economic theory of human capability
Ideas from an economic
theory of human capability are used to connect the educational influences of
economic globalisation to the values that carry hope for the future of humanity
and hence to a world of educational quality (Sen, 1999).
" ... what, we may ask, is the connection between "human
capital" orientation and the emphasis on "human capability" with
which this study has been much concerned? Both seem to place humanity at the
center of attention, but do they have differences as well as some congruence?
At the risk of some oversimplification, it can be said that the literature
on human capital tends to concentrate on the agency of human beings in augmenting
production possibilities. The perspective of human capability focuses, on the
other hand, on the ability‑the substantive freedom‑of people
to lead the lives they have reason to value and to enhance the real choices
they have. The two perspectives cannot but be related, since both are concerned
with the role of human beings, and in particular with the actual abilities that
they achieve and acquire. But the yardstick of assessment concentrates on
different achievements.
Given her personal characteristics, social background, economic
circumstances and so on, a person has the ability to do (or be) certain things
that she has reason to value. The reason for valuation can be direct (the functioning
involved may directly enrich her life, such as being well‑nourished or
being healthy), or indirect (the functioning involved may contribute
to further production, or command a price in the market). The human capital
perspective can‑in principle‑be defined very broadly to cover both
types of valuation, but it is typically defined‑by convention‑primarily
in terms of indirect value: human qualities that can be employed as
"capital" in production (in the way physical capital is). In this
sense, the narrower view of the human capital approach fits into the more inclusive
perspective of human capability, which can cover both direct and indirect consequences
of human abilities." (Sen, 1999, p.293)
I find that economic theories of human capital have
helped me to understand the power relations of capitalist social formations
that serve a reproductive interest.
The economic theory of human capability, that stresses the importance of
living values such as freedom reinforces my commitment to enhance the flow of
values, skills and understandings, serve my transformatory interest of creating
a world of educational quality.
Appendix 3
Methods
When
conducting any form of research, especially in relation to data gathering and
theory generation and testing, the appropriateness of the methods we use is
highly significant. In living theory educational research, the methods need to
be appropriate for the generation and evaluation of living theories of
educational influence in learning in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve
what I am doing?'
The
use of multi-media in explanations of educational influences in learning
Eisner's
(1993) Presidential Address to the American Educational Research Association
served to reinforce my belief in the value of multi-media in explanations of
educational influences in learning.
Naidoo (2005), Farren
(2005) and Farren and Whitehead (2006) have demonstrated how digital, multi-media visual narratives can help
to clarify the meanings of the values of self-study researchers. They show how
the meanings of these embodied values can be formed and expressed in the living
standards of judgement that can characterize a world of educational
quality. Farren's (2005)
multi-media approach, using a Moodle environment for e-learning, demonstrates
how a pedagogy of the unique can emerge from a web of betweenness.
An
action research approach to educational enquiry that includes methodological
inventiveness
An
action research approach to educational enquiry can demonstrate how the
embodied values can be transformed into living critical standards of judgement
for testing the validity of contributions to knowledge of self-study
researchers. As the practitioner-researcher expresses concern that the values
that give meaning and purpose to their lives are not being lived as fully as
possible, the imagination responds with possibilities that if realised in
practice would improve matters in terms of the the realisation of values. With
the actions, data gathering and evaluations, the individual, often with the
help of others in validation meetings, clarifies the meanings of their
ontological values as these emerge in practice. In this clarification the
expressions of embodied values are formed into communicable living standards of
judgment that can be used to evaluate the validity of the educational
knowledge. The significance of the use of the action reflection cycles is that
the expression of embodied ontological values can be formed into living
epistemological standards of judgment. This inclusion of ontological values
into living epistemological standards is of vital significance in the creation
of a new epistemology for educational knowledge and for a living theory
approach to the creation of a world of educational quality.
A
process of methodological inventiveness
(Dadds and Hart, 2001) can be used in explaining the self-study
researcher's responsiveness to the continuously evolving present of the
educational enquiry:
" The importance of methodological
inventiveness
Perhaps the most important new insight for both of us has been awareness that, for some practitioner researchers, creating their own unique way through their research may be as important as their self-chosen research focus. We had understood for many years that substantive choice was fundamental to the motivation and effectiveness of practitioner research (Dadds 1995); that what practitioners chose to research was important to their sense of engagement and purpose. But we had understood far less well that how practitioners chose to research, and their sense of control over this, could be equally important to their motivation, their sense of identity within the research and their research outcomes." (p. 166)
"If our aim is to create conditions that facilitate methodological inventiveness, we need to ensure as far as possible that our pedagogical approaches match the message that we seek to communicate. More important than adhering to any specific methodological approach, be it that of traditional social science or traditional action research. may be the willingness and courage or practitioners – and those who support them – to create enquiry approaches that enable new, valid understandings to develop; understandings that empower practitioners to improve their work for the beneficiaries in their care. Practitioner research methodologies are with us to serve professional practices. So what genuinely matters are the purposes of practice which the research seeks to serve, and the integrity with which the practitioner researcher makes methodological choices about ways of achieving those purposes. No methodology is, or should, cast in stone, if we accept that professional intention should be informing research processes, not pre-set ideas about methods of techniques..."(p. 169)
Enhancing Validity
The
methods used to enhance validity draw on Habermas' (1976) four criteria of
social validity of comprehensibility, truth, rightness and authenticity. In a research
programme lasting several years (the living theory doctorates have been created
from at least five years part-time study in a workplace) the validity of
explanations of educational influences in learning can be enhanced through a
form of creative and critical educational conversation in a validating meeting
in which questions are focused on the comprehensibility of the account; on the
quality of the evidence presented to justify assertions and claims to
knowledge; on the awareness of the normative assumptions that are being used to
structure the report; on the authenticity of the reseacher in the sense that
over time, through interaction, the reseaching is showing that they are truly
committed to the values and understandings they claim to espouse.
Enhancing Rigor
The methods used to enhance the rigor of
the enquiry draw on Winters'
(1989) six criteria of rigor of reflexive critique, dialectical critique,
risk, plural structure, multiple resource and theory practice
transformation. Peggy Leong (nee
Kok) (1991) was the first living theory action research to fully integrate this
approach to enhancing rigor into her explanation of educational influences in
learning. I continue to find Winters' six criteria helpful in enhancing rigor
(See the Appendix of Whitehead 2006 - http://www.nipissingu.ca/oar/new_issue-V821E.htm )
Appendix 4
Data
The processes of enhancing
validity and rigor do depend on the quality of the data that are being used as
evidence in relation to a claim to know. Here are the data sources that are
being used in the claim to have generated a new epistemology for educational
knowledge that can be used in the creation of a world of educational quality
through living educational theories. The Data sources are all flowing through
web-space and open to your scrutiny.
The
following data sources are used below in the evidence-based claims of
educational significance. These claims include the validation and legitimation
of the living standards of judgement from self-study researchers that can be
used to distinguish a world of educational quality.
Accounts
of educational influences in learning of higher education educators. For an
exemplar of this data see Hartog
(2004). The data include:
i)
Action research accounts with Chinese characteristics generated by
action researchers in China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action
Research in Foreign Languages Teaching at Ningxia Teachers University (http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml
)
ii)
Accounts of educational influences in learning of 20 self-study
researchers from a range of professional contexts who have been awarded their
doctoral degrees. (Whitehead, 2007 - http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml)
iii)
Accounts of educators learning from
their self study research with Delong (2001), Delong & Black (2002),
Delong, Black & Knill-Griesser (2003, 2004, 2005), Delong, Black & Wideman (2005). The
data includes an account of the significance of the flow of an educational
leader's passion for professional practice that is focused on democratic
processes of accountability (Delong, 2002) into the educational provision of a
District School Board. (http://www.actionresearch.ca/
)
iv)
Accounts of educators learning from their self-study research with Farren
(2005) at Dublin City University. (http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/
)
v)
Accounts of educators learning
from their self-study research with McNiff (McNiff, 2006; McNiff &
Whitehead, 2006; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006) through her work as Professor of
Educational Research and as an International Consultant in Education. (http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html
)
The validity, rigor and legitimacy of this data, in
the masters and doctoral degrees have, as well as being subjected to the
processes described above for enhancing these qualities, been subjected to the
quality controls of the internal and external examining procedures of the
Universities that have accredited the work for the higher degree. These are the data used above in
supporting the evidence-based claims of educational significance.
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