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The article presents the author's comments in response to Sam Hillyard's recent article on the issue of theory development in interactionism, ethnography, and the sociology of education. According to the author, Hillyard's definition of "interactionism" is very lax, and not well-formulated. The author says that he does not agree with Hillyard's claim that there has been much more theory development in ethnographic studies in the sociology of education.

In their rejoinder to our article about their work on evidence-based science education, Millar et al. (2008) claim that we misrepresented their position, and that our argument was false or unclear in key respects. In this brief reply we argue that their criticisms are misdirected, and that they fail to engage in the sort of dialogue that is necessary if the important problems surrounding the relationship between research and educational practice are to be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are some important ambiguities in discussions about the implications of 'evidence-based practice', both for educational research and for the work of teachers. In this paper we explore several of these through examining the Evidence-based Practice in Science Education (EPSE) study—part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), a major UK research initiative that is explicitly committed to improving the contribution of educational research to policymaking and practice. The field of science education is in some ways a critical case, given that the notion of evidence-based practice treats scientific research as a privileged source of evidence. We examine the assumptions built into the EPSE study, and how these relate to the classical medical model of evidence-based practice, and to some other approaches to educational research that are concerned with closing the gap with practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core idea of action research is that there should be an intimate relationship between inquiry and practical or political activities. A challenge to this idea based on an influential ancient Greek hierarchy between theoria and praxis is examined. The contrary, pragmatist, notion that all inquiry arises out of human activity is accepted, but not the instrumentalism sometimes derived from it. Research must be treated as operating on the same plane as any other activity, but the relationship between the two will always be less than isomorphic, and this creates the prospect of severe tensions. These can be managed contextually in two ways: by subordinating inquiry, or by making it primary. Both are legitimate, but any attempt to treat the two components of action research as equal faces contradiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several writers have argued that educational research should be educative; in the sense of being geared directly to improving educational practice. This is proposed on a variety of grounds—from appeals to the meaning of the word 'educational', through claims about the very nature of all social inquiry, to arguments that there is a need for a practical form of educational research that is distinct from social scientific work. This article suggests that while these arguments point to important distinctions among types of research, they do not formulate those distinctions soundly; and a more effective formulation will be attempted. Moreover, in conclusion, it will be argued that research cannot be educative, only informative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to Michael Bassey's argument that case study research, and educational and social research generally, ought to be aimed at producing 'fuzzy' generalisations and predictions. His characterisation of these is examined against the background of the other types of generalisation he discusses. The conclusion reached is that what he has identified is not a distinct type of generalisation but a mode of formulation that ought to be employed in all predictions for practical use derived from scientific generalisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the relevance of qualitative inquiry to policymaking and practice; against the background of recent attacks on educational research generally, and on qualitative work in particular. It outlines the contribution of the latter, referring to some examples of this kind of work over the past couple of decades. The discussion is organised around the five capacities ascribed to symbolic interactionist/phenomenological research by David Hargreaves in an article published in 1978: 'appreciative', 'designatory', 'reflective', 'immunological', and 'corrective'. It is argued that today there is more need than ever for research serving these functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]