IDLE RESEARCH, FUTILE THEORY, AND THE RISK FOR EDUCATION: REMINDERS OF IRONY AND COMMITMENT

摘要

To judge on the basis of the thousands of presentations at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, educational research is a thriving business. Surely, there has never been so much of it as there is nowadays. While the approaches to educational research (whether qualitative or quantitative) are increasingly diverse, most of it is in a broad sense empirical; we want to know whether and how things work in the daily educational context and why that is so. A lot is expected from this kind of research to optimize the educational process and its outcomes. Of course, almost no practitioner believes that it is possible to deduce from research or theory specific prescriptions for the conduct of his or her practice. Yet, empirical research activity is nevertheless seen as the way forward. Less favored are the insights offered by what is traditionally labeled educational theory, or philosophy of education. Not only is there a widespread feeling that this scholarship is largely irrelevant to educational practice; philosophy of education is not faring substantially better in many academic circles either. (Incidentally, the same goes for history or sociology of education, to the extent that these are reflective in character.) One can think of many reasons why practitioners and many academics hold such negative estimations, but I will note just two: first, there is a perceived hierarchy of the sciences and indeed of human endeavors at work here; second, there is a general distrust of any theory's ability to change society.