Search

Arriving in the UK after exile from Nazi Germany, Karl Mannheim taught sociology at the London School of Economics and then also at the London Institute of Education, where he was awarded a chair just a year before his untimely death in 1947. In his later writings and teaching, Mannheim argued that the sociology of education could make a crucial contribution to the new type of society he regarded as essential if the problems of liberal democracy were to be overcome, and the slide towards totalitarianism avoided. And the period immediately after his death was a key phase in the development and establishment of the sociology of education in Britain. Jean Floud, who took over teaching the subject at the Institute of Education after Mannheim's death, played a central role in this, but, while she had studied with him and served as his research assistant, she adopted a very different approach. This focused, in particular, on whether the existing structure and operation of educational institutions restricted social mobility. As a result of this change in focus, Mannheim's work had a very marginal role in the subsequent history of British sociology of education. In this article, I compare Mannheim's and Floud's competing conceptions of the character and role of the subdiscipline, and how these fared in later developments within the field.

It is widely assumed that researchers must normally secure informed consent from participants if research is to be ethical. But what exactly are people being asked to consent to? Most obviously, it is to supplying, or providing access to, data; but are they also agreeing that this data can be used in any way relevant to the research, or do they retain a right to control its use? A third question is: are they consenting to themselves being included within the focus of study, so that asking for consent amounts to assigning a right not to be researched? A further question concerns whether there can be group rights not to supply data, to control the use of data, and/or not to be researched? Such claims have been made by spokespersons for the disabled, indigenous groups, commercial organisations, governments, and religious cults. Justifications for these various rights usually appeal to the principle of autonomy, in one form or another. Yet this principle, being universal, must also apply to researchers themselves. So, does this imply that researchers have a right to carry out research? As this makes clear, there are conflicting rights-claims around research. This paper will examine these and their implications.

In the past few decades, there have been efforts to transform qualitative inquiry, drawing on resources from both imaginative literature and art. There have long been tensions within social science that have encouraged the use of these resources, but the recent "literary turn" is more radical. The assumptions underpinning it are examined, and it is argued that what is most important is the purpose for which modes of expression are employed and how well they serve this. The problem with the literary turn is that it frequently involves substitution of the purposes of art or politics for those of social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to some recent discussions in the Journal about how interview data can be used. While recognising the value of detailed analysis of the discourse employed in interviews to identify its formal features, it is argued that such analysis is not essential for all the purposes for which interview data can be employed in social research; that informal understanding of everyday language use, built up through ordinary experience and during the course of inquiry, can often be relied upon. It is also argued that practical cautions against taking interview data at face value must not be conflated with philosophical doubts about whether interview data can serve as a source of evidence about anything beyond the interview context. [For the original article, "Beyond Performative Talk: Critical Observations on the Radical Critique of Reading Interview Data," see EJ1259552.]

In this paper some fundamental criticisms of Max Weber's conception of the vocation of science are addressed. These well-known criticisms focus on his admission that science cannot demonstrate its own value, and his broader claim that there can be no rational basis for committing oneself to one set of ultimate values as against another. Instead, he insisted that the adoption of such values is necessarily a matter of individual decision. Influential critics have argued that this amounts to relativism, or even nihilism: that, if it were true, neither science nor anything else could have genuine value, all value-judgements would be arbitrary or entirely instrumental (e.g. a matter of self-interest). I will outline Weber's position, and then examine the arguments of some of his critics: focussing particularly on Midgley and Strauss. This provides the basis for a careful reassessment of Weber's position, and for some suggestions about how he could respond to these critics. It is argued that fundamental values operate in a dialectical relationship with specific evaluations, and that they arise naturally out of more or less universal features of human beings' life experience. While this does not provide a compelling rational basis for commitment to those values, even less for prioritising one over another, it tells us why we often feel a need to uphold them. Furthermore, despite the fact that it does not guarantee agreement, rational clarification of these values and their implications, as well as appraisal of their relative significance in particular cases, is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers what it could mean to say that epistemologies and methodologies are racially just or unjust. It has been argued that this has nothing to do with whether an individual researcher is racist: he or she could be anti-racist but still use an epistemology that is racially biased. To explore this issue, some pioneering research by Allison Davis, an influential African-American scholar in the 1940s and 1950s, is examined. This research dealt with the effects of social class cultures on academic achievement in the United States. While Davis was well-known at the time, his work in this field is now largely forgotten. Two senses of 'racially-just' are examined in this paper, relating: to the intrinsic character or origin of epistemologies and methodologies; or to the implications for and likely consequences of their use. Davis's investigations employed methods and assumptions that are rejected by many educational researchers today. I will address the question of whether these can be criticised as racially unjust; and, if so, on what basis. This evaluation will lead to a consideration of the broader question of the terms in which it is appropriate to assess educational research, and in particular the epistemologies and methodologies on which it depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper notes that, in the field of education and beyond, the term "ethnography" has acquired a range of meanings, and comes in many different versions, these often reflecting sharply divergent orientations. I argue that this is a major problem that requires attention; particularly since today there are some serious threats to the practice of ethnographic work, on almost any definition. However, while we need to forge greater agreement about the meaning of the term, this is a challenging task. Indeed, if we take "ethnography" to refer to a whole methodological approach little agreement will be possible. I argue that it "may" be feasible if we treat ethnography as one methodological strategy among others, each having varying advantages and disadvantages for the purposes of investigating particular topics. However, the fundamental disagreements among ethnographers today about ontological, epistemological, and axiological matters render even this by no means unproblematic.

It is widely recognised that academic freedom is currently under threat. But there is also considerable dispute about the meaning of the term. In this paper I examine two recent and important accounts of the nature of academic freedom that seek to distinguish it clearly from free speech. Such a distinction is, in my view, essential. The aim of the paper is to clarify and resolve differences between these two accounts, and thereby to develop further the conceptualisation of academic freedom.

This article investigates the value of ethnographic re-studies, and some of the theoretical and methodological issues that carrying out a re-study can generate. It is argued that the disputes that arose around some classic examples in anthropology and community studies are particularly illuminating. For example, Mead's work on Samoa and Redfield's study of Tepoztlán, and the re-studies of these, generated considerable discussion, and this still offers lessons for today. Three key functions of re-studies are discussed: replication, mapping change, and producing a fuller portrait of a community or institution. Also explored is the role of the personal characteristics and the theoretical orientations of researchers. It is concluded that re-studies reveal threats to validity that are present in all social research. At the same time, there is a danger that the discrepancies in findings between study and re-study will be exaggerated, indeed that the methodological problems involved will be mistakenly treated as representing a logical impasse.

It is argued in this paper that a significant number of definitions of terms provided in currently available methodological texts are inadequate or positively misleading. Some do not cover the main meaning of the term but focus instead on a non-standard one. Others fail to pick out the distinctive features of what is being defined. There are also those that fail to indicate relationships to related terms or those with similar meanings. Finally, there are some definitions that are simply incorrect in significant respects. It is argued that defective definitions are worse than useless and are a disservice to students.

In some quarters today there are arguments to the effect that research ethics codes should be formulated in terms of principles, rather than specific prescriptions and proscriptions. This derives in part from what is probably the most influential approach to bioethics: principlism. What is provided here is an exploration of the nature of ethical principles as these relate to social research, and of the debates around them. It is argued that principles are useful, so long as they are treated as reminders of what ought to be taken into account, rather than as premises from which specific ethical judgments can be derived. At the same time, it is concluded that any move towards formulating codes in terms of principles is likely to make little difference in practice for researchers under the present regime of ethical regulation.

The parallels and differences between current forms of populism and early 20th-century fascism have been the focus for much discussion. This article examines the relevance today of Karl Mannheim's analysis of fascism and of its relationship to democracy in the 1930s. He argued that the threat of fascism arose from the very nature of liberal democratic society, rather than being a product of external forces. He claimed that liberal democracy is transitional, rather than stable in character, and that the new emerging form of governance that was required to replace it shared a key component with fascism: a high level of social and economic planning. At the same time, he insisted that, as a pathological development, fascism served to illustrate the disastrous consequences that a failure to engage realistically with the process of societal development can have for upholding Western civilisational ideals. This article explores Mannheim's arguments against the background of current thinking about populism and 'post-democracy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, the relationship between research and teaching has often been framed in terms of experimental investigations demonstrating what are effective pedagogical techniques. However, this is only one of several influential models of that relationship. While research literacy plays a key role in all of them, these models vary according to the type of research knowledge and skill felt to be of value to teachers, and in how teaching and education are conceptualised. This can be illustrated by the diverse forms of educational action research, and by different interpretations of "reflective practice". To further explore the role of research literacy, I examine the case of research on teaching about research methods, addressing the following questions: What role does pedagogical research play in research methods teaching? What might this tell us about the relationship between research and teaching more generally? What does it say about the notion of research literacy? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fassin, Didier (Ed.). If Truth Be Told: The Politics of Public Ethnography. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 2017. $27.95, 358 pp., paper (9780822369776). In this edited collection, ethnographers discuss their [...]

The article begins by examining the variety of meanings that can be given to the word "theory", the different attitudes that may be taken towards theories of these various types and some of the problems associated with them. The second half of the article focuses on one of these types, explanatory theory, and the question of what is required if case study research is to be effective in producing sound theories of this sort. A range of important distinctions is outlined and questions are raised about the possibility of, and need for, such theories. (Contains 9 notes.)

Sam Hillyard's (2010) recent article has the value of highlighting the issue of theory development in interactionism, ethnography, and the sociology of education. It also reminds of a fruitful, and unique, research programme in educational research that stretched from the early 1960s into the 1990s. However, in the author's view Hillyard's discussion is misleading in several respects. Some of these are specific points of historical, textual, or conceptual inaccuracy. Others relate to the issue of theory development, and her criticisms of the author's evaluation of this research programme 25 years ago (Hammersley, 1985). In this article, the author contends that while Hillyard's article serves the function of highlighting issues that continue to be important, its contribution is blighted by some important misinterpretations and failings. It seems to demonstrate that there has been little collective progress made in dealing with these issues since the path-breaking work of Lacey and Hargreaves that she rightly celebrates. (Contains 2 notes.)

In their response, "Challenging Neorealism" (pp. 30-39) to the author's article, Smith and Hodkinson begin by characterising their discussions over the years as failing to lead to any change in view; though, toward the end, they suggest that they have learned something from the process, as indeed the author has. Although the productiveness of any dialogue is not to be judged simply, or even primarily, by whether or not one side manages to persuade the other to adopt its point of view, dialogue must amount to more than an exchange of fixed opinions. Speaking for himself, it is not that the author expected or hoped that they would reach complete agreement, even less that he would simply persuade Smith and his colleagues to adopt his point of view. But a reasonable expectation, he believes, was that they would achieve a clearer understanding of where they disagreed and why, and perhaps even that they would reach agreement on some matters even though they failed to do so on others. The author's impression is that even this more modest expectation has not been realized.

This article raises serious questions about the relativist approach to assessing qualitative research that has been championed by John K. Smith and various colleagues. They reject not just empiricism but also what they refer to as "neorealism." Against both these positions, they advance an antirealist, anti-ontological argument to the effect that we should not assume the reality of social phenomena as existing independently of our knowledge claims about them; insist that assessing the value of research findings is always a practical matter, rather than an issue of method; and claim that we must abandon epistemic in favor of moral criteria in assessing social research. On the basis of detailed scrutiny of their arguments, it is shown that neither the critique of neorealism they present nor the alternative approach they recommend is coherent or convincing. (Contains 21 notes.)

Furlong and Oancea's influential framework for assessing the products of applied and practice-based educational inquiry raises some important issues about the criteria by which research should be judged. They begin by outlining the current significance of the issue, and some of the uncertainties surrounding the definition of applied and practice-based inquiry. They then present four sets of criteria by which such research can be assessed, covering, in shorthand terms, epistemic, technical, practical and economic dimensions. The issue of assessment criteria has recently been highlighted by public criticism of the quality of educational research, by attempts to incorporate qualitative work into systematic reviews, as well as by the continuing disputes generated by major methodological divisions among qualitative researchers. In this article, several aspects of the framework offered by Furlong and Oancea are examined. To start with, there is a discussion of the mode of argument they employ, and of how they define "applied and practice-based educational research". It is argued that explicit justification is not presented for some key, and controversial, elements of the argument. One of these is the idea that a new social contract is required between educational researchers and the funders and non-academic users of their work. The nature of the proposed contract is examined, through a discussion of to whom educational researchers should be accountable, how, and for what. It is argued that the typology of research offered by Furlong and Oancea is inadequate, and an alternative is proposed. The ways that the authors formulate the four sets of criteria by which research should be judged are also examined in some detail. It is suggested that there are potentially serious conflicts amongst these criteria, and that by no means all of them are appropriate standards in terms of which educational researchers, of any kind, should be held accountable. (Contains 10 notes.)

This article is a reply to Gewirtz and Cribb's argument for ethical reflexivity, presented in a previous issue of this journal. These authors compared their views with mine, suggesting a way in which the differences between our positions could be overcome. I argue that, while there is certainly substantial agreement, there are also some fundamental differences between us, notably about the goal of research. Indeed, in my view, what they recommend involves a greatly increased danger of bias and a version of scientism. At issue here is, in large part, the "kind" of ethical reflexivity that is appropriate in sociological work. (Contains 8 notes.)

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. (Contains 14 notes.)

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.

This article offers a Weberian perspective on philosophy's relationship to social science research in education. Two key areas where it can make an important contribution are discussed: methodology, and the clarification of value principles that necessarily frame inquiries. In relation to both areas, it is claimed that some researchers underestimate philosophy's contribution, while others exaggerate it. Thus, in methodological work, there are those who effectively suppress philosophical issues, producing "methodology-as-technique"; at the same time, others generate "methodology-as-philosophy," often denying the possibility of knowledge, the regulative ideal of truth, and the desirability of objectivity. It is argued that both these tendencies are counterproductive: neither enables research on education to flourish. In relation to the second area, it is shown that philosophy is needed to clarify the value principles that educational researchers use to frame their inquiries; but, at the same time, that it cannot provide a value framework to govern social science. The concept of equity is discussed as an example. In summary, it is argued that while philosophy plays an essential role in social and educational inquiry, there are important limits to its contribution.

This article reviews a range of difficult issues that currently face ethnographic research, and offers some reflections on them. These issues include: how ethnographers define the spatial and temporal boundaries of what they study; how they determine the context that is appropriate for understanding it; in what senses ethnography can be--or is--virtual rather than actual; the role of interviews as a data source; the relationship between ethnography and discourse analysis; the tempting parallel with imaginative writing; and, finally, whether ethnography should have, or can avoid having, political or practical commitments of some kind, beyond its aim of producing value-relevant knowledge. (Contains 12 notes.)

In a previous article, Phil Hodkinson argued that there are currently attempts to impose a methodological orthodoxy on educational research, one that is empiricist in character and privileges quantitative method. While agreeing with much of what he says, I take issue with key elements of his argument. I suggest that he presents too rosy a picture of the existing state of educational research, question his apparent advocacy of a laissezfaire approach to its governance, and argue that he underplays the significant role that methodological rules can play in shaping the practice of research in desirable ways. I suggest that his approach is likely to reinforce paradigmatic fragmentation in the research community, and that this weakens any attempt to resist the internal and external pressures that currently threaten to damage or destroy educational research in the UK, and elsewhere.

If findings from qualitative and quantitative components in mixed methods research are to be synthesised, the quality of each must be assessed. But an obvious problem is that there are no generally agreed criteria for assessing qualitative findings. The question of criteria has long been debated in the methodological literature. I argue that some important distinctions need to be made if progress is to be achieved on this issue. Perhaps the most important one is between the standards in terms of which assessment is carried out and the indicators used to evaluate findings in relation to those standards. I go on to outline what I believe is involved in such evaluations, rejecting the possibility of a detailed and explicit set of indicators that can immediately be used to determine the validity of knowledge claims. My approach broadly fits the framework of mixed methods research, since I deny that there is any fundamental philosophical difference between quantitative and qualitative methods. But it is at odds with widespread views, even within the realm of mixed methods, whose advocates seek radically to redefine the ontological, epistemological, and/or axiological assumptions of social scientific research, for example in the name of a transformative approach. [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.

States that production of systematic research findings has recently come to be treated as a priority in education. Examines assumptions about research and about reviewing that are built into the concept of systematic review. Gives attention to likely consequences of the priority given to this type of review. (BT)

This article, titled "Dangerous Liaisons in the Wasteland? A Found Document," discusses the author's experience with reviewing research proposals related to waste reduction. The author expresses surprise and confusion at the unconventional and theoretical approaches proposed by researchers, such as examining capitalism as the root of waste, exploring structural racism in waste production, and investigating waste through artistic expressions. The author questions the value and practicality of these proposals and suggests that further research should be conducted on the issue of waste in social science. The article raises concerns about the potential wastefulness of research activities and the use of public funds. [Extracted from the article]