Search

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 article presents the author's comments on an article by Ann Oakley about the role in educational research of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic review (SR). Criticizing her arguments in support of the adoption of new technologies within education research, the author states that her response rules out the sort of constructive discussion essential to scientific work. Furthermore, he states that Oakley has misrepresented the arguments of other critics on this issue.

The author reflects on the concept of linguistic ethnography (LE). In this context, the author mentioned about a broad range of work, sharing family resemblances and reflecting features of the particular niche in which it has developed. The subsequent articles explore various issues and relationships relevant to LE.

This article addresses the perennial issue of the criteria by which qualitative research should be evaluated. At the present time, there is a sharp conflict between demands for explicit criteria, for example in order to serve systematic reviewing and evidence-based practice, and arguments on the part of some qualitative researchers that such criteria are neither necessary nor desirable. At issue here, in part, is what the term 'criterion' means, and what role criteria could play in the context of qualitative enquiry. Equally important, though, is the question of whether a single set of criteria is possible across qualitative research, given the fundamental areas of disagreement within it. These reflect divergent paradigms framed by value assumptions about what is and is not worth investigation. In addition, there are differences in methodological orientation: over what counts as rigorous enquiry, realism versus constructionism, and whether the goal of research is to produce knowledge or to serve other goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity is not only an important and difficult theoretical issue but also one that arises as a methodological problem. Indeed, which of the available conceptions of identity is adopted has implications for the very form that social inquiry takes. In this article, three quite different notions of identity are explored, as substantive agency, as a matter of discursive attribution, and as an analytic model. The issues involved in the use of each of these versions of identity in research are explored. In the second half of the article, in order to examine these problems in more concrete terms, we look at how they emerge in internet ethnography concerned with 'pro-ana' websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational research in Britain has been subject to substantial government intervention in recent years. The rationale for this has been the demands made by a model of evidence‐based policymaking and practice that carries implications for other fields of social research as well. In this paper, the growing influence of this model is sketched, and it is argued that it relies on some very questionable assumptions about what research can offer policymakers and practitioners. It is concluded that the consequences of enforcing this model are likely to be negative for both sides, but especially for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word critical has become an honorific title used by researchers to commend their work, or the particular approach they adopt. Conversely, the work of others is often dismissed on the grounds that it is "uncritical". However, there are important questions about what the term critical means, about what we should be critical of, and about the form that criticism ought to take. These questions are addressed here in relation to both the role of the social researcher itself and that of researchers operating as public intellectuals. It is argued that the distinction between these roles is an important one, and has implications for what can legitimately be criticised, on what grounds, and in what way. In each case, there are proper limits to criticism, albeit different ones. Like anything else, criticism is not always a good thing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 laissez-faire 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several writers have appealed to the literature on communities of practice as a way of thinking about the nature of educational research. In this paper, I look at the benefits and dangers of doing this. There seem to be two main sorts of lesson that have been drawn from this literature, one about research as an activity in its own right, the other about its relationship to educational practice. These ideas certainly suggest some important points about educational research itself, for example countering the notion that it could involve merely following an abstract set of methodological rules derived from the model of natural science. However, there have long been criticisms of this type of naturalism, and so there is a question about whether the literature on communities of practice adds anything distinctive in this respect, for example by comparison with the work of Kuhn in the history and philosophy of science. There is also the issue of whether educational research is a single community of practice, or is a field containing multiple such communities; and whether the literature on communities of practice effectively rules out any attempt at community building as against the organic growth of local cultures. The second strand of argument, this time about the relationship between research and educational practice, is potentially very radical in its implications. Indeed, I will suggest that it threatens to eradicate educational research as a distinctive form of activity. However, it raises some serious questions about the literature on situated learning in communities of practice, concerning the roles of reflection, propositional knowledge and narrative. While not wishing to deny the value of this literature, I conclude that any application of its central ideas to the case of research requires considerable caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comments on an article by Lauder, Brown, and Halsey, that deals on a political arithmetic to make sociology useful. These are some of the significant issues raised in the article: 1) relationship between social science and policymaking; 2) association between quantitative and qualitative approaches in social science, and; 3) need for policy research to draw on many disciplines. However, while raising important questions, there are some major uncertainties surrounding the authors' argument. They announce that they are to advance the position that sociology needs to develop an approach to research which focuses on fundamental social problems. But what they are proposing is not really new, since much sociological research has been concerned with fundamental social problems.

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]

Reflects on the relationship between the past, present, and future of qualitative research. Association of negative connotation with being backward-looking; Major traditions of ethnography; Details on the urban settlement from the perspective of social control; Opinion of the author on a conference that celebrates the past.

Both conversation analysis (inspired by ethnomethodology) and discourse analysis (of the kind proposed and practised by Potter and Wetherell) are usually treated as self-sufficient approaches to studying the social world, rather than as mere methods that can be combined with others. And there are two areas where their conflict with other approaches is clearest. First, they reject the attribution of substantive and distinctive psychosocial features to particular categories of actor as a means of explaining human behaviour. Second, they reject use of what the people they study say about the world as a source of information that can ever be relied on for analytic purposes. These two negative commitments mark conversation analysis and discourse analysis off from almost all other kinds of social scientific research. In this article, I consider how sound the justifications are for these commitments. I conclude that they are not convincing and that neither approach should be treated as a self-sufficient paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments of the author on sociologist Jonathan Potter's response to his article. Potter thinks the author is confused, but the author suggests that even if this is true, it arises at least in part from the character of approaches to research he was discussing and how they present themselves. Potter is right to baulk at the choice between paradigm and method which the author's title seems to offer. There are different ways of interpreting each of these options and this means that simple dichotomy is involved. So the author accepts all what Potter says about the diversity of discourse analysis and that it is not a paradigm in full Kuhnian sense. The focus of the author's article was more specific, it related to whether conversation analysis and discourse analysis can be justified as self-contained approaches to social research and whether claims about their methodological superiority can be sustained. Potter questions the author's attribution to constructionism of the idea that social phenomena do not have the kind of objective reality normally ascribed to them by social actors and most social scientists.

Concern with the dissemination of research findings has increased in recent years, in the wake of critiques of research for failing to have an impact on policy-making and practice. The most direct way in which research findings can be disseminated to a wide audience is via the mass media. However, coverage of social and educational research in the media is very limited. Furthermore, when it is covered researchers often complain that their work has been distorted. This article examines some of the media coverage of an Office for Standards in Education commissioned review of research on the education of ethnic minority children, published in 1996. Analysis of this media coverage is used as a basis for addressing questions about what is involved in media representation of research, how it should be evaluated, and what meaning can be given to the concept of distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their article in this issue, Speer and Hutchby argue that qualitative researchers' fears about the reactive effects of audio- or video-recording on the quality of data are misplaced. They claim that these fears stem from a methodological orientation which assumes that in order to study the world we must obtain data that are unaffected by the process of research, that we should observe the social world as if through a one-way mirror. Yet, they point out, most research strategies do affect the data produced. So, the authors argue, qualitative researchers are faced with an intractable dilemma. The solution proposed is to abandon naturalism and to investigate those occasions when people address the fact that their talk is being recorded, using a conversation analytic approach. In response to this, I argue that a concern with reactivity does not imply commitment to any naïve naturalism, and that the approach recommended by the authors does not avoid this methodological problem, unless one is prepared to accept that conversation analysis is the only legitimate form of social research; a proposal for which the authors do not provide a convincing case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Difficult dilemmas face social researchers — in the field of social work and social policy, as elsewhere. These can include tensions between the following: doing what a commitment to research requires or serving policymakers; prioritizing basic inquiry or promoting applied research; having a primary concern with producing knowledge versus an immediate and urgent commitment to practical improvement in the world. These dilemmas are probably intrinsic to the position of social research in modern societies, but they are becoming more severe at the present time. It is argued that, in dealing with them, we should be clear about the distinctive character of research, as against other related activities; and must recognize its heterogeneity, identifying the dimensions that differentiate its legitimate forms. [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 discusses the implications of radical criticism of interview studies for educational sociology. A recurrent theme in commentary on the sociology of education bemoans the tendency for it to become cut off from the parent discipline, charging it with failing to draw on developments there. A recent variation on this theme is Delamont et al.'s criticism of British ethnographic work in education for failing to keep pace with the latest methodological developments, as portrayed in Denzin and Linconl's moment model; though they are also critical of the development character of that model. Whatever the accuracy of this charge in general, and irrespective of whether keeping up is always desirable, it is true that there has been recent work in the field of methodology that has had little noticeable impact on qualitative work in the sociology of education. A key example is what was referred to as the radical critique of interviews. This critique focuses on what is regarded as increasing over-dependence among qualitative researchers on interview data, and above all their use of such data as a window on the world and/or on the minds of informants. Furthermore, some of the critics argue that this privileging of interview material reflects a wider trend: the emergence of the interview society. Concern over the status and use of interview data is by no means new, of course. However, the grounds for this concern, and the conclusion drawn, have changed somewhat. In the past, the focus was on the issue of how do we know the informant is telling the truth, on the incompleteness of interview data and on the difference between what people say and what they do.

The production of 'systematic' reviews of research findings has recently come to be treated as a priority in the field of education, and other areas too. Such reviews are believed to play an important role in making evidence from research available in a usable form to policy-makers and practitioners. This article examines the assumptions about research, and about the task of reviewing, which are built into the concept of systematic review. In addition, attention is given to the likely consequences of the priority now being given to this type of review. [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]

Howard Becker's article 'Whose side are we on?' has been widely cited, and widely misunderstood. It has frequently been interpreted as recommending partisan research, or as suggesting that social research cannot be objective. This article examines Becker's position in detail, arguing that while there are some ambiguities within it, what it proposes is neither epistemologically nor politically radical in the way that is frequently assumed. What is true, though, is that Becker believes that systematic and rigorous sociological research inevitably tends to have radical political implications. In addition, he adopts a form of cultural relativism, whilst holding on to a notion of objectivity that is grounded in a commitment to pragmatism. [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]

The distinction between basic and applied social research continues to be influential. Problems with this distinction are identified, and an alternative typology is presented. This distinguishes, first of all, between scientific and practical research, in terms of their audience and mode of validation. Further distinctions are then made within each of these categories, between theoretical and substantive scientific research, and between contract-based versus autonomous, and dedicated versus democratic, practical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores metaphors in ethnography. Five moments through which qualitative research has passed; Role of researcher as bricoleur; Problems with bricolage as a model for ethnographic work.

The macro-micro problem has been a prominent feature of British sociology of education since the early 1970s. In this discipline macro and micro have each come to be associated with particular theoretical perspectives, notably Marxism and interactionism respectively. This has had several unfortunate consequences. First, arguments about the value of macro and micro work have often been little more than dismissals of one perspective by proponents of another. Second, the macro-micro debate has conflated several quite distinct methodological issues. This article focuses on one of these issues: the question of whether social events can best be explained as the product of large or small scale structures. It is claimed that this issue cannot be resolved by philosophical analysis alone, the answer is a matter for empirical discovery. Moreover, the problem cannot be settled at the moment because we have insufficient well-established theories. Only when more such theories are available will we be able to resolve the question of whether valid macro and micro theories are possible. What stands in the way of achieving this, however, is precisely what led to the fruitless character of the macro-micro dispute in the first place: the organization of the sociology of education around theoretical perspectives rather than around substantive research problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archiving of qualitative data seems likely to become much more common in the future. It promises to make an important contribution to the development of sociological research. This contribution relates to at least two main areas. It should facilitate assessment of the validity of particular studies; and it ought to increase the scope for secondary analysis. At the same time, the archiving of qualitative data and its use are not without problems. This paper examines both the possibilities it opens up and the limits to the contribution it can make. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's response to comments by Caroline Ramazanoglu, Lorain Gelsthorpe and Anne Williams on his discussion of feminist methodology. Ramazanoglu attributes to me a fundamental opposition to the central tenets of feminism, claiming that I regard the whole of feminism as largely unconvincing, and complains that this only emerges piecemeal in my article rather than being stated explicitly at the beginning. What the central tenets of feminism are is a matter of dispute, I imagine, but I certainly do not reject the whole of feminism, nor does this follow from what I wrote. What I do find convincing is the case for a distinctively feminist methodology, and this is indicated at the start of my article, in the abstract. As I also make clear there, I do not deny the validity of all of the arguments that form part of the case for a feminist methodology, although I question some interpretations of them. In my view the idea of a feminist methodology suffers from the same weaknesses as all attempts to establish new research paradigms based on distinctive epistemological and/or political assumptions. One of the elements of feminist methodology that I questioned is the idea that the transformation of gender relations, which is the point of feminism, properly be the point of feminist research.

There is now a considerable literature advocating a feminist methodology. This article summarises the features of such a methodology under four headings: the ubiquitous social significance of gender, the validity of experience as against method, the rejection of hierarchy in the research relationship, and the adoption of the emancipation of women as the goal of research and the criterion of validity. The arguments supporting each of these themes are assessed. The conclusion reached is that while some of these arguments are convincing the overall case for a feminist methodology is not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the commitment of ethnography to the goal of producing theoretical descriptions of particular settings, groups or organisations. It is argued that both the concepts of theory and description assumed by this goal are misconceived. Various interpretations of the concept of theory embedded in ethnographic work are examined, revealing some serious difficulties. It is also argued that the concept of ethnographic description, as currently conceived, obscures the role of values and purposes in structuring descriptions. The conclusion reached is that the goals of ethnographic research need rethinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a shortage of well-developed and systematically tested theory in sociology, and in the sociology of education in particular. The studies of the effects of streaming and banding carried out by Hargreaves, Lacey and Ball provide one of the few examples of a powerful theory which has survived systematic testing. This sequence of studies provides the basis for a research programme extending beyond the field of education. At the same time, and more importantly, this body of research offers a paradigm for case study research designed to develop and test theory. In this way it helps to close the deplorable, and much lamented, gap between theory and empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to articles by Shilling and Abraham, which were concerned with the relationship between Giddens' structuration meta-theory, differentiation-polarization theory, and positivism. Despite their conflicting conclusions, both authors criticize my reconstruction of differentiation-polarization theory, and I try to clarify the nature of that reconstruction and the theory it represents. It seems to me that these articles display misunderstandings of, and unwarranted prejudice against, positivism; though they are of course by no means alone in this. I suggest that while the sort of debate in which these authors engage is welcome, there needs to be a more open-minded approach towards the theoretical and methodological resources available to sociologists of education, including those frequently dismissed as positivist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author Martyn Hammersley wants to look at the liberal concept of the university against the background of the economic and ideological models. Both research and education in universities are portrayed by liberals as consisting of participation in a continuing conversation that includes not just those presently active but scholars of the past as well, with the latter represented in a literature that has both substantive and methodological significance. The term "liberal education" is often most strongly associated with the humanities, indeed with the idea that the humanities should be the core of the university curriculum. There are two other principles central to the liberal model besides the rational pursuit of intrinsically valuable knowledge. Academic autonomy is often referred to, perhaps rather misleadingly, as academic freedom. This is the requirement that the pursuit of knowledge be relatively unconstrained by extraneous demands, such as those deriving from the political interests of the state or of powerful religious or economic groups in society.

Responds to the criticisms by David Hargreaves of educational research. Failings of educational research in relation to teaching; Recommendations for the role of teachers in educational research; Discussion of educational research as non-cumulative; Comparison of educational research with medicine.

Presents a report by education professionals and officials in Great Britain as a case showing the misuse of the findings of educational research. Analysis of the report titled, `Curriculum Organisation and Practice in Primary Schools: A Discussion Document'; Selective and over-interpretation of evidence; Relationship between the findings of research and educational practice.

Provides a methodological assessment of work on imbalances in classroom participation between girls and boys. Rationale for the research focus; Empirical contributions on information about differential male-female participation rates; Percentage of turns at talk and words spoken by girls and boys.

Examines the British sociology of education. Postmodernism as a stimulus for a fundamental reconsideration of the proper nature and role of academic research on education; Reasons for the demise of the sociology of education; Positive and negative functions of postmodernism.

This paper explores some fundamental methodological issues, in particular about the standards by which research should be judged, that are raised by 'anti-racist' criticism of recent work by Peter Foster on teacher racism in British schools. The nature of the debate surrounding this work is examined, and it is suggested that it derives from fundamental disagreements about the character and purpose of sociological research. Arising from this, the implications of social scientists abandoning a foundationalist epistemology are considered. It is argued that this does not necessarily, and should not, lead us to adopt extreme epistemological alternatives, such as relativism, standpoint theory, or instrumentalism. Instead, a less radical non-foundationalism is defended, and its implications for the dispute between Foster and his critics explored. It is also suggested that while the ethical and political criticisms made of Foster's work imply an activist conception of research, even from an 'anti-racist' point of view relinquishing the relative autonomy of research from practical politics is unwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the claims of Stephen Ball and Peter Woods in their ethnographic studies of option choice schemes. Woods' and Ball's central concern was with the amount of choice pupils had in selecting fourth- and fifth-year courses. They claim that there is an inconsistency between the amount of choice officially offered and the amount of choice pupils were actually given. This is an important issue in itself, but it has heightened significance for these authors because of the consequences that they believe pupil choice could have for the differentiation of pupils within schools. And such differentiation is considered to be important because of its assumed consequences for occupational placement and the reproduction of the social class structure. Alongside with the role of schools in the reproduction of social inequality, there is another theme in these two studies, the importance of giving attention to micro as well as macro special processes. The accounts of option choice that they provide are in each case part of ethnographic studies of particular schools. The authors emphasize the importance of investigating processes of social interaction within the school, rather than treating the schools as black boxes and only studying their inputs and outputs.

A paean to Trumpery, teasing its unwitting intellectual antecedents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a letter to the editor about education.

Replies to the comment made by Barry Troyna on the alleged adoption of `methodological purism' in educational research by Roger Gomm, Peter Foster and the author. Absolute proof demanded by the methodological purist; Judgement of claims based on plausibility in relation to knowledge and credibility in relation to judgments; Initial assumption of researchers that critics are behaving reasonably.