Critical Communicative Methodology: including vulnerable voices in research through dialogue

This article describes how Critical Communicative Methodology (CCM) has been used successfully to analyse educational inequalities in ways that generate real transformation towards social justice. We begin by arguing that educational research today should employ new methodological approaches that can ensure the inclusion of different voices in social science research and the production of knowledge that transforms social exclusion. We then analyse the main epistemological positions of CCM, based on Habermas’ communicative action theory, and explain how it was implemented in the European Union-funded INCLUD-ED project. Finally, we illustrate how INCLUD-ED has had a social and political impact and we argue that research with vulnerable groups, based on the principles of CCM, can generate social and educational transformation.     

Action research as a tool of professional development of advisers and teachers in Croatia

Whilst educational action research is not unknown in Croatia, its use is not widespread. In part, this might be because action research assumes a high level of autonomy for practitioner–researchers, and a constructivist view of knowledge, neither of which are traditional characteristics of the Croatian system. This article reports on a capacity building programme in which 18 senior advisers from the Education and Teacher Training Agency developed action research projects in Croatian schools. The article outlines the context of the programme, describes the programme itself, and presents an analysis of the advisers’ action research projects. This shows that action research was used by advisers, supporting teachers, to effect change in schools. The principles of action research were generally understood, and produced evidence of practical change, collaboration and mutual understanding. Although action research is generally understood as a ‘grassroots movement’ this article suggests that action research can lead to desirable change, even when imported from elsewhere. Thus action research holds one answer to the question, how to promote beneficial life‐long learning among education professionals.     

Three Educational Scenarios for the Future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge

This article draws on social realist approaches in the sociology of knowledge and in light of them constructs three scenarios for the future of education in the next decades. The primary focus of the article is on one of the most crucial questions facing educational policy makers — the relationship between school and everyday or common sense knowledge. The different possibilities for how the school/non-school knowledge boundaries might be approached are expressed in three scenarios —'boundaries treated as given', 'a boundary-less world' and the idea of 'boundary maintenance as a condition for boundary crossing'. The curriculum implications of each are explored and the article makes the case for the third scenario. The factors likely to make one or other scenario dominate educational policy in the next 20–30 years are also considered.     

“访谈法”在教育研究中的运用——以陶行知研究中的专家访谈为例

文章试图探讨访谈法在教育研究中的作用。文章首先通过梳理访谈法的基本概念和分类,来概括教育研究中的访谈法的主要特点。其次,文章集中分析访谈案例,考察访谈法在教育研究中的具体应用。文章以陶行知研究为个案,以“无结构式”的深度访谈的方式采访了相关专家,在一定程度上还原了陶行知的日常生活细节和生活教育的现场感。文章认为,访谈法丰富了陶行知教育思想研究的内涵,使我们对陶行知先生的生平有了许多新的发现,对他的教育思想也有了更多的感性认识,对还原一个客观、生活化、人性化的陶行知,有着十分重要的意义。文章在最后总结了访谈法的优点和局限。认识这种优点和局限,能够让教育研究者更好地发挥访谈法的作用。     

Social justice dilemmas: evidence on the successes and shortcomings of three principals trying to make a difference

Social justice leadership has become a popular topic and catchphrase in the field of educational leadership. However, most scholarly and empirical contributions have ignored the inherent tensions, challenges and dilemmas associated with the practice of school leadership and the realities principals confront on a daily basis. This is partly because researchers have tended to ignore multiple facets of justice in their empirical investigations as well as how larger forces outside the school associated with historical, political, social and economic injustices marginalize students and communities. This article explores three cases of challenging school–community contexts that confound and partially subdue the efforts of well-intentioned principals. Each case highlights a dedicated principal committed to their school and community, and documents the significant progress made in addressing particular social justice issues, but also how they confronted justice dilemmas that they believed required them to prioritize certain social justice issues over others. These findings have important implications for how principals view their communities and engage in critical reflection about the leadership decisions and actions they take on a daily basis. This article concludes with implications for future research and a discussion of how aspiring principals can be better prepared to lead for social justice and effectively address justice dilemmas without ignoring or putting off other injustices.     

The power of positioning: on the normalisation of gender,race/ethnicity,nation and class positions in a Swedish social work textbook

This article presents a feminist reading of a Swedish social work academic textbook as a case study. We use a discourse analytic approach and positioning theory, focusing on author positions through different story lines. The aim is to make visible how differences are created and positions of the author/reader normalised in terms of gender, race/ethnicity and class. The analysis illustrates how the organisation of the book privileges a particular story line by presenting gender research in a special section of the book and as a perspective. A neutral, unmarked author position is assumed, presented as a common ‘we’ by identifying ‘women researchers’ and ‘feminist’ points of departure as different. If the unmarked author/reader ‘we’ position appears desirable and morally superior, the clients’ gender, ethnicity and class are often openly discussed in relation to social problems, positioning them as ‘the other’. Finally there is also a story line of more critical and ambivalent knowledge positions.     

Schools in the making: mapping digital spaces of evidence

In this article, the focus is on educational governing in the making. Drawing on conceptual underpinnings of socio-technical approaches, this implies an interest both on the way in which a sound knowledge base for policy measures is created, as on the distribution of that knowledge through publically available instruments. Governing by evidence only is possible when it relies on concrete instruments, such as feedback reports, publically consultable audits and examples of good practice. Since knowledge-related practices increasingly make use of online tools where knowledge is accessible for each and all, three websites are analysed in a particular way to describe the making of evidence. First, considered as active devices, the websites are analysed as essential components of the governing by evidence: by publishing specific data and information in a particular way, they come to constitute what comes to count as evidence and the way in which it comes to count. By addressing their visitors in a particular way, moreover, they constitute for whom it comes to count as evidence. As such, we argue, it becomes visible that digital spaces of evidence actually make schools real, and, at once, that there are different modes for schools to exist.     

Knowledge activism: bridging the research/policy divide

How research can better inform policy and how policy can have a better research base are longstanding issues both in educational research and across public policy generally. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this article argues that progress in increasing the impact of research can be made through a clearer understanding of the nature of politics. Arendt’s identification of ‘persuasion’ as the defining activity of the political sphere is used to argue that the communication of research findings, relevant to education policy, must be similarly aligned if it is to be effective. The article views approaches such as knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange as inadequately constructed and instead promotes the concept of ‘knowledge activism’ as a means by which research evidence can be made operational in political terms. The article acknowledges the risk to academic integrity and objectivity of such overtly political behaviour but argues that remaining outside the political sphere simply guarantees minimal research impact.     

Learning from each other: what social studies can learn from the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution in science

This article addresses the need for researchers to move beyond discipline-specific approaches to research and practice and offers an example of how interdisciplinary understandings can increase knowledge in respective disciplines. The specific focus of the article is the shared challenges of broaching controversy in science and social studies classrooms. Although there is much that social studies teachers can learn about the teaching of controversial public issues from the challenges science educators face in teaching evolutionary theory, and vice versa, the two literature bases have little overlap. Through this example of broaching curricular controversy in the classroom, the author argues that content instruction can be improved by increasing awareness of research and practice in other disciplines.     

Action Research and Policy

This article examines the relationship between action research and policy and the kind of confidence teachers, policy makers and other potential users may have in such research. Many published teacher action research accounts are criticised on the grounds that they do not fully meet the conventional standards for reporting social scientific research, and by implication are held to be less trustworthy. Action research is nevertheless often seen by some academics and policy makers as a potential method for developing theory, disseminating good practice, or raising standards. Through a discussion of three major approaches to action research—seen variously as professional learning, practical philosophy and critical social science—it is argued that judgements about confidence depend upon understanding the various kinds of knowledge claim that can be made by action researchers, and appropriate judgements concerning the strength of evidence or reasons.     

‘You Norwegians think we female Muslims are not free’: enactment of gendered positional identities during transition stages

This article describes two young Norwegian ethnic-minority girls in their efforts to involve social networks and to position themselves as learners in the transition between lower and upper secondary school. The article explores how they experience future possibilities represented by education and how they use resources in negotiating their everyday lives. We use the concept of social gendered positional identities to study how educational choices are individually and collectively formed and enacted in these girls’ everyday figured worlds. The study builds on ethnographic data collected by following two classmates across multiple settings over two years. We develop biographical cases to demonstrate how cultural factors relevant to learning emerged in particular contexts. The article concludes that gendered positions and choices made in educational transitions are connected and that meta-reflections on personal identity can help students to make decisions about the future.     

教育政策行动：解释与分析框架

教育政策研究的一个重要目的就是要解释国家为何采取特定的政策行动或计划而非其他方案。然而在公共政策研究以及社会科学研究领域内,解释社会行动不论在理论视域还是研究取向上,均存在着严重的分歧以至激烈的争论,其中以逻辑实证主义为基础的因果解释与由阐释理论而衍生的意图解释之间的对立最为明显。。即使在意图解释模型内,现象学派、理性选择理论与功能主义等视域的分歧亦颇为明显。。当教育政策研究者尝试解释国家对特定政策所采取的行动或计划背后的原因与理由时,对现存众多解释模型的分歧与争议往往无所适从。本文旨在对上述各种解释模型的理论与方法学基础加以梳理及评论,并尝试整理出一个较为综合的分析架构,供从事教育政策研究以及公共政策研究的工作者参考。 更多还原     

Social Network Analysis and Professional Practice: Exploring New Methods for Researching Technical Communication

This article provides background on social network analysis, an innovative research paradigm that focuses on the importance of social networks. The article begins by giving background on the development of social network analysis and different methods used by social network analysis researchers. The article then examines how these methods can be used in the field of technical communication by focusing on how technical communicators form social networks and connect diverse audiences.     

In Pursuit of Reciprocity: Researchers,Teachers, and School Reformers Engaged in Collaborative Analysis of Video Records

In the ideal, reciprocity in qualitative inquiry occurs when there is give-and-take between researchers and the researched; however, the demands of the academy and resource constraints often make the pursuit of reciprocity difficult. Drawing on two video-based, qualitative studies in which researchers utilized video records as resources to enhance reciprocity, this article explores how educators and researchers can negotiate relationships to make the research enterprise mutually beneficial. In particular, this article examines specific events where researchers and educators collaboratively analyzed video data, including video of the research team engaged in analytic conversations. The resulting conversations interrupted traditional boundaries between researchers and participants and yielded understandings that benefited both parties. The conclusion provides a set of questions educators can pose to researchers to help ensure reciprocity.     

Practice-based evidence – overcoming insecure attachments

This article examines educational psychologists’ (EPs’) engagement with evidence-based practice (EBP). In particular it considers the limitations of randomised controlled trials and the difficulties of obtaining sufficient evidence about the effectiveness of interventions. This means that there is a possibility that EPs continue to use psychological theories that have little or no evidence to support their use. The article then examines the implications of the paradigm shift from the EP as scientist to that of artist and the corresponding shift from EBP to practice-based evidence. The rationale for developing expertise through practitioner research rather than simply relying on experience is explored. Relying on experience becomes particularly difficult if the EP becomes attached cognitively, and emotionally, to particular perspectives and weaves, thread by thread, unfounded theories into their professional practice. Understanding how this tapestry is woven and how one clutches emotionally to it when one is stressed and challenged has fundamental implications for the general understanding and confidence of the public in the profession.     

The problem with international students' ‘experiences’ and the promise of their practices: Reanimating research about international students in higher education

The increasing number of people studying abroad has drawn significant scholarly attention to the experiences of international students. While these works have productively informed policy and practice regarding how international students may be better supported, they have not always considered the active ways international students contribute to higher education. This article suggests that adopting the notion of experience as a conceptual starting point is problematic because it only partially illuminates international students' agency and reproduces understandings of them as a vulnerable group. The more active notion of practice, by contrast, suggests a more agentive subject who is a pivotal actor in spaces of education. The main argument in this article is that the abiding focus on international students' experiences will be productively unsettled by orienting attention to their practices and theorising the notion of practice in more fluid and dynamic ways. After critically engaging with the existing literature, the article outlines four ways that a focus on international students' practices may reanimate debates. A focus on practice will: (1) show how international students actively contribute to spaces of higher education, including classrooms, campuses and other sites of sociality; (2) demand that researchers theorise agency in more expansive ways and consider the practices of a broader set of social groups; (3) encourage researchers to make use of a wider set of qualitative research methods; and (4) create a stronger political foundation from which to defend the interests of international students in a post-COVID-19 world.     

教育政策比较研究的价值及其限度

教育政策比较研究作为比较教育的分支领域,从单一国别的历时态纵向比较,发展为国别间就某一范畴具体内容的横向比较,进而上升到政策形成过程中的制度性探讨。教育政策比较研究这一议题在实践应用中,具有“硬币的两面性”：一方面,思维逻辑的重建、文本脉络的厘清、范式取向的调整这三个维度,彰显了政策比较研究的内在价值;而另一方面,“全球—地方化”、价值冲突、非理性修辞、文化偏见等因素,又是政策比较研究中无以超脱的局限。要实现教育政策在并置中比较,需要借助整体化立场、政策知识“、以证据为本”的研究,予以规范。     

A Methodological Conundrum: Comparing Schools in Scotland and England

This article considers a conundrum in research methodology; the fact that, in the main, you have to use a social science-based research methodology if you want to look at what goes on in a classroom. This article proposes an alternative arts-based research method instead based on the work of Eisner, and before him Dewey, where one can use the more traditional critical, close reading techniques that are usually associated with a degree in English. We look at a case study English lesson to illustrate and explore how this may be done.