Conversations with Five Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Patricia Alexander,Carol Dweck,Jacquelynne Eccles,Mareike Kunter,and Tamara van Gog

Educational Psychology Review - Previous studies have investigated the characteristics, influencing factors, and working strategies of highly successful educational psychologists. These studies,...     

Conversations with Four Highly Productive German Educational Psychologists: Frank Fischer,Hans Gruber,Heinz Mandl,and Alexander Renkl

Previous research (Kiewra & Creswell, Educational Psychology Review 12(1):135–161, 2000; Patterson-Hazley & Kiewra, Educational Psychology Review 25(1):19–45, 2013) has investigated the characteristics and work habits of highly productive educational psychologists. These investigations have focused exclusively on American scholars who were trained and employed at various universities and have ignored international scholars and scholars with a shared academic lineage. The present study sought to fill these gaps by investigating, through qualitative methods, how a cohort of four German educational psychologists (Heinz Mandl, Alexander Renkl, Hans Gruber, and Frank Fischer) with a shared academic background became productive scholars. Interview responses suggested that the German scholars’ shared experiences during the early years of their careers shaped their career paths and productivity. Additionally, interviews with each scholar revealed several commonalities (i.e., long and focused research career, trademark characteristic, scholarly influencers, effective time-management practices, and research-management strategies) between this contingent of productive German scholars and their productive American counterparts. Finally, the present study also identified several differences (e.g., educational training, funding opportunities, sabbaticals, administrative responsibilities, and research traditions) between the American and German research environments that influence productivity. Practical implications from this investigation include advice for emerging scholars.     

Politics,knowledge and objectivity in sociology of education: a response to the case for ‘ethical reflexivity’ by Gewirtz and Cribb

The present article examines the relationship between political values and social research, with particular reference to the case for ethical reflexivity in sociology of education put forward by Gewirtz and Cribb. It is argued that their case for such reflexivity is flawed by conceptual imprecision and over‐determination of the links between value commitments, knowledge and the political implications of research. Drawing on a case study of a controversy in sociology of education, combined with a more discriminating conceptual analysis of political values in social research, it is suggested that the Gewirtz–Cribb ‘manifesto’ for routine ethical reflexivity may be inefficient and impractical. An alternative way of thinking about political reflexivity in sociology of education is offered, as are some possible avenues of philosophical resolution between the main protagonists of the longstanding debate on ‘what to do about values’ in sociology of education.