A NEED FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH THAT CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE CREATION AND TESTING OF LIVING EDUCATIONAL THEORIES

A contribution to the symposium RESEARCH FOR SOME? THE THREES ANSWER BACK, at BERA 2003, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 13 September, 2003.

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath

In the original proposal for this Symposium I said that I would present an argument that selectivity which rewards education research as distinct from educational research, is damaging to all Institutions whether or not they have lost funding, because it leads to a degenerating research programme that has no space for problematising what counts as 'educational'. Mo Griffiths asked for some 1000 words to support my argument. Here they are!

In making a distinction between education research and educational research I am using a difference between the old disciplines approach to educational theory and a living educational theory.

The old disciplines approach held that educational theory was constituted by the disciplines of the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. I am referring to education research as research conducted from within such disciplines of education. I could make a case for extending this list to include theories of management, leadership, economics, politics and complexity but that isn't my purpose here.

I am referring to educational research as research that is conducted from the ground of educational practices with the intention of improving practice and/or producing explanations for the educational development of individuals and/or social formations. In my view living educational theories are constituted by the descriptions and explanations that individuals produce for their own enquiry learning.

Mo Griffiths (2001) asks in relation to social justice for education: What kind of theory is needed? She also asks two subsidiary questions:

(a) What might a useful theory (or theories) look like (For instance is a set of principles the answer? Or perhaps a series of little stories? Or definitions?)

(b) How should such theory be generated?

In responding to Mo's questions as part of my argument my answer includes two different kinds of theory. The first kind of theory presents explanations of educational practice within interconnected sets of propositions and conforms to the following definition:

" 'Theory' would seem to have the following features. It refers to a set of propositions which are stated with sufficient generality yet precision that they explain the behaviour of a range of phenomena and predict which would happen in the future. An understanding of these propositions includes an understanding of what would refute them." (Pring, 2000, p. 127).

Twenty years ago Paul Hirst acknowledged a mistake in his view of educational theory when he said that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:

"ä 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)

While this mistake was clearly recognised some twenty years ago it is a central point of my argument that greater selectivity in the funding of educational research is enhancing the colonising power (Murray, 2003) of propositional theories which serve the colonising interests of the old disciplines approach to educational theory. This is because the intellectual lenses through which the quality of educational theory is judged and funding allocated are still predominantly those of researchers who see theory in terms of interconnected sets of propositions.

The second kind of theory presents explanations in terms of the embodied values of educational practitioners and can be understood as 'living' theory. Living theory is constituted by the descriptions and explanations of individuals for their own learning in enquiries of the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?'

It takes philosophical imagination to see that in what an individual is doing there is an infinitude of knowledge previous to all deduction. I am thinking of the knowledge in what you, I and others are doing in our educational practices. I see such educational knowledge as values-based in which mediated connections of intentional implication are entirely intuitive and resistant to representation within interconnected sets of propositions. I am thinking of the embodied knowledge and values that we can make public through enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?'

Transforming embodied knowledge into public knowledge, that can be tested for validity in living educational theories, requires standards of judgement. Embodied values can be transformed into these standards in the process of their emergence and clarification in enquiries of the above kind. For example, in the enquiry 'How do I live my values of social justice more fully in practice?' the embodied value of social justice becomes a living standard of judgement and explanatory principle in the creation and testing of living educational theory. We can use such values-based standards of judgement in accounting to ourselves and to others for our own learning, our educational influences with others and in our influences in the education of social formations (Whitehead, 2003)

An e-forum for those interesting in an on-going educational conversation into the growth of educational knowledge has been provided by Je Kan Adler-Collins at Fukuoka University. You can join this living action research forum from the front page of http://www.actionresearch.net . It is e-forums such as this that might help us to transcend the colonizing power and other anti-educational influences of the present forms

of greater selectivity in the funding of educational research.

References

Griffiths, M. (2001) Social Justice for Education: What kind of theory is needed? The School Field, Vol. XII, No. 1/2, pp. 25-41.

Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines. London;RKP

Murray, P. (2003) Invitation to my multiracial and inclusional living educational practice, research and theory. Retrieved on 8 September 2003, from http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm

Pring, R. (2000) Philosophy of Educational Research. London; Continuum, 2000

Whitehead, J. (2003) How are the living educational theories of master and doctor educators contributing to the education of individuals and their social formations?

Paper presented on 12 September 2003 at the BERA Annual Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Retrieved on 9 September 2003 from http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jwbera03.htm