Reframing Educational Research

Resisting the 'what works' agenda

Valerie Farnsworth, Yvette Solomon, Valerie Farnsworth, Yvette Solomon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135069650
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Possibilities for the use of research in educational practice are often written off due to the history, politics and interests of the ostensibly separate worlds that researchers and practitioners occupy. However, a more optimistic account highlights the ways these communities share a common need for practice-based theories, which enable them to make sense of a wide range of issues in education, including pedagogy, learning, and educational equity.

In applying theory to situated accounts of various educational practices and learning contexts, this book explores mistaken assumptions about the ways that research can 'inform' or otherwise impact practice. It problematises a 'what works' agenda but also points to potentially more productive research-practice relationships in education. Experienced contributors describe how they have used a variety of context-sensitive theoretical approaches in the socio-cultural and discursive traditions to both understand practice and address a wide range of practical issues in education.

At its core Reframing Educational Research challenges two commonly held assumptions:

• that "best practice" is readily identifiable in a way that is then transferrable to new contexts for use by practitioners more widely, and

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• that theory will not help with what to do on Monday morning in the classroom or in developing policies with direct and visible impact.

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Drawing on the experience of a number of highly respected expert contributors, including Mel Ainscow, Harry Daniels, Anna Sfard and Etienne Wenger-Trayner, the book discusses a range of issues that must be explicitly addressed if we are to make headway in developing a sustainable and productive relationship between research, policy and practice. The authors make it clear that the politics, policies, institutional practices, market systems and social dynamics currently at play in education have a tendency to derail the idealised pathway from research to reform. This book aims to move the discussion towards alternative, and potentially more fruitful, ways of linking research with practice.

Reframing Educational Research is an invitation to all researchers to identify new opportunities for advancing theory and practice in education. It is a must-read for all practitioners and researchers in education.

Dialogue III

Developing a practice-based research agenda in education

Having addressed a number of problematic assumptions about the ‘what works’ research agenda that have been unpacked through practice-based, theoretically informed research across a range of contexts, we now move to consider the possibilities of an alternative research agenda. Rather than ‘evidence-based practice’, we have identified a need for practice-based evidence and theoretical perspectives that account for the complex historical, institutional and political contexts that mediate the practices and decisions of those engaged in teaching and learning. This shift in the dialogue places the spotlight on researchers rather than on educational practitioners expected to implement ‘best practice’.

The chapters in this dialogue consider a range of theoretical perspectives, methods and researcher orientations in an effort to drive home the idea that diversity is a valuable commodity when it comes to addressing the complexities of educational problems and the multiplicity of personal and professional investments and objectives. Etienne Wenger-Trayner addresses this opportunity from the perspective of a theorist, reminding us of the rich theoretical field at our disposal. His ‘confession’ comes from over ten years of consulting with practitioners interested in developing practice within their organisations, using the ‘communities of practice’ framework. Although he does not identify as an ‘educationalist’, his reflections have wide-reaching applications for educational research, not least because they relate to a question asked by all researchers at some point: which theory is most appropriate given my data, my research methodology and the story I am telling? A common follow-up question would query whether we may choose more than one theory. Etienne outlines a ‘plug-and-play’ approach that says you can. He offers a set of principles and guidelines for this approach to running one theory through another, using his own theory as an example. Tim Deignan continues the theme of respecting diversity in perspectives by describing a unique combination of theory and method which he proposes can be used to develop systems that are multi-voiced and values-respecting. Using the example of dyslexia support in a UK university to demonstrate his approach to modelling the interplay of activity and subjectivity at a range of levels, his theorisation offers a way towards more effective and more democratic policy and practice – a conceptual tool for a variety of contexts.

Anna Sfard moves then to discuss the strengths and challenges of discursive methodologies, arguing that these provide a worthy alternative to the politician’s demand for ‘scientific evidence’ produced through randomised experiments. A particular challenge of staying true to this methodology, in its radical form, is avoiding claims and interpretations that slip into dualistic and deterministic epistemological frames. Using a study in mathematics teaching and learning as an illustrative example, she elaborates upon a number of principles that discursivists must follow when employing the radical approach she describes. Her account reminds us that, regardless of our methodological approaches, all methods are underpinned by theories that, in turn, are contingent upon particular epistemologies. If we are to develop a theoretically informed, practice-based research agenda as an alternative to ‘what works’, we will need to keep this at the forefront of our discussions.

Rounding off this discussion of the intersections of theory and method, Valerie Farnsworth combines different perspectives on identity to explore the relationship between learning and curriculum, and between the learner and cultural models. Her chapter suggests that useful concepts and conceptualisations can emerge from an analysis that brings different theoretical perspectives in dialogue with each other. This suggests that one way in which research can inform practice, as an alternative to identifying ‘what works’ or defining ‘best practice’, is to offer conceptual tools that can support theoretically informed decision making in education.

However, as Seth Chaiklin argues in his chapter, it is not enough to ‘offer’ new ways of thinking if our goal is for the knowledge we produce to be useful and relevant for policy and practice in education. Seth addresses this issue by starting with the fundamental question: What is the relation between educational research and educational practice? He draws on a theory of activity to examine this relationship, and so proposes a research pathway that holds possibilities for strengthening the relationship between research and practice. The onus is placed on the researcher to be strategic from the beginning to the end of their research projects.

Chapter 8

The practice of theory

Confessions of a social learning theorist

Etienne Wenger-Trayner

This is an essay on the craft of producing and using social theory. I argue that social theory contributes to knowledge by producing perspectives that can be used to make sense of the world. This sense-making purpose entails a complex relation between theory and practice. The two can inform each other, change each other, but do not determine each other. Moreover, because perspectives can coexist, social theory does not progress in a linear fashion, with one theory replacing another, but by assembling a puzzle of interacting pieces. I propose that theories contribute to this progress by clarifying their location in this puzzle and thus enabling a ‘plug-and-play’ approach to the combination of related theories.

I like to think of myself as a practitioner in social learning theory in the sense that I produce theory. I am also a practitioner in the sense that I often act as a learning consultant in various settings where my theory has relevance. This essay is a personal reflection anchored in this experience. I will use my own theorising as a basis for these reflections and relate my theory to those of a few other theorists.¹ I will assume familiarity with my work and the work of these authors.

The nature of theorising in social theory

Let me start with a reflection of the nature of theorising in the social sciences. Social theory aims to organise a perspective on the world rather than generate statements that can be true or false. This focus on perspective making produces more complex relations between theories, and between theory and practice, than in disciplines where the purpose of theory is to create and debate empirically verifiable statements about the world.

Two ways to create knowledge

To reflect productively on the nature of theorising in social theory it is useful to distinguish between two ways of producing knowledge.

New knowledge through methodology

One way to generate knowledge is to produce statements about the world that are not possible to make through daily experience, that is, telling people something they do not know. For instance, saying that the universe is 15 billion years old is not something we can induce from personal experience. Scientific communities have methodologies and instrumentation that allow them to produce such statements and claim a high degree of reliability for them. In the social domain too, statisticians can make pronouncements about the world that are not achievable through experience, such as the number of students who graduate from college in various countries around the world or the probability that a person with a given profile will have a car accident. Such methodological claims to knowledge are achieved within communities where they are contestable and under scrutiny. These communities can enforce adherence to practices that have become established as reliable (through processes such as peer reviews or doctoral supervision). This allows people to build on each other’s work in a process of accumulation of knowledge. Once a theory has become established others can build on it to create new statements about the world. If a theory proves inadequate, people can replace it. My characterisation is a seriously oversimplified view of the process,² but the point is that this social and methodological apparatus allows members of these communities to produce statements about the world that can be considered reliable even though such statements usually cannot be verified through personal experience.³

New knowledge through perspective

I remember being at a meeting to talk about my theoretical work and a graduate student remarked: ‘Is there something I am missing here? This all seems completely commonsense to me.’ His assumption was that if I was contributing to knowledge, I should provide him with some information he did not have. My response was that he had not missed anything. My work is commonsense in that I produce knowledge not by telling people things they do not know, but by providing tools to make sense of what they already know through personal experience – and hence know it anew. I would say that the characteristic of a good social theory is this ability to experience the familiar in a new way or to articulate our experience in a new way. A theory in the social sciences is not a statement of truth that can be verified or falsified. The notion of community of practice, for instance, is not true or false. It is a way of thinking about the social nature of the negotiation of competence. A theory in this sense is a framework that provides more or less useful ways of seeing the world. It allows one to tell certain stories. It enables one to know the world anew by focusing on new aspects, asking new questions, and seeking new observations and interpretations. Whether this counts as producing knowledge is a matter of definition; but it certainly contributes to our ability to make sense of the world.

Creating technical languages

Social theory is not the only endeavour that can result in new ways of looking at the world. A good novel or a moving speech can do this. The difference between social theory and literature or oratory lies in the systematic creation of a technical language.

Technical terms and vernacular language

In forging a language of concepts and metaphors, a theory makes certain terms technical. These are often words borrowed from vernacular language (e.g. identity, boundary, trajectory) or phrases made up of common terms (e.g. community of practice, negotiation of meaning). Once a term has been technicised this way, it is lifted from vernacular language and given a formal role in the theory.

Note that it becomes tricky to use a technical term in a vernacular way when one uses the framework of a theory. For instance, if I use the term ‘identity’ in my writing, I usually have to restrict myself to the role of this term in my theory; or if I want to use the term in a more vernacular way, I have to give a caveat or make my use obvious.⁴

Conversely, accounts crafted on the basis of a theory will use lots of terms and concepts that are simply left as vernacular language. Let me illustrate this with an example. I am often asked where motivation is in my learning theory, on the reasonable assumption that a learning theory should address the issue of motivation. It is not in the theory as a technical term. But it can still be part of accounts based on the theory, as a vernacular term. When I write I can make use of the term motivation, I can say that strong identification with a community provides a motivation to learn its practice, but it is used here as a vernacular term (at least for now, as a theory evolves and new terms become appropriated by the theory). The theory has technical terms such as identification, trajectory, paradigmatic trajectory or non-participation, which can be used to do this work. This distinction between technical and vernacular terms requires discipline in using language.

Qualities of technical languages

Through technical language, a social theory reifies aspects of the world. This system of reification brings certain aspects and elements of the world into focus. It forces accounts to be organised around its technical terms, concepts, models and metaphors. The process can be more or less productive. The usefulness of a technical language depends on several qualities:

• Generative. The theory enables the creation of interesting stories, suggests probing questions and generates good insights.
• Evocative. The theory expands our perspective. It stimulates the imagination and encourages us to see things in new ways.
• Recognisable. The language resonates with our experience in ways that make it easy to appropriate. Because social theory is about us, the more we can ‘live’ it, the more we can ‘use’ it. A theory that allows personal identification with its perspective also allows appropriation of it for sense making.⁵
• Systematic. The system of concepts is rigorously constructed, with an economy of technical terms. Concepts do not overlap, but complement each other tightly. They form a systematic whole, which results in a coherent perspective.

There can be tensions between these qualities. Clarity and precision in definitions of terms are an important part of their transition to technical status in a system of concepts. Such formalisation is necessary to free terms from unwanted baggage of their vernacular origin. For instance, I always have to fight the connotations of harmony or homogeneity that come with the term community (which I only use in a technical sense in the expression ‘community of practice’). Yet overly restrictive definitions can reduce the evocative power provided by the vernacular origin of terms. A tightly systematic theory can sometimes lose evocative power. A theory needs to strike a balance. It can be more or less directive about the use of the language, with precise definitions or process templates that proceduralise the use of the language. For instance, the triangles of Engeström’s version of activity theory (1987) are rather directive in proposing a model of human activity and a tool for locating potential contradictions. This is one reason many people really like the theory while some others do not.

The art of theorising has to do with choosing a collection of technical terms that are both precise and evocative and form a coherent whole. I know I spend a lot of time sweating over the addition of a new technical term: Is it needed? What specific conceptual work will it do that a combination of existing terms would not do? Is it overlapping with or orthogonal to other concepts and dimensions of the theory and how does it articulate with them to enrich the potential accounts to be derived? What word or phrase would fit best to convey the idea?⁶ The value of a theory as a perspective is rooted in a systematic discipline of language.

The ‘plug-and-play’ principle

The nature of theorising I have just described creates a problem for the evolution of social theory. Social theories do not compete in terms of being true or false; they compete in terms of the usefulness of their perspective in enabling certain types of accounts about the human world: they are created for different purposes, from different perspectives and therefore with different languages. As a result, it is not easy for theorists to build on each other’s work. Competing on usefulness leads to a proliferation of theories without simple criteria to weed them out. As the saying goes, social theorists walk on each other’s toes rather than stand on each other’s shoulders.

Rather than lamenting this state of affairs or aspiring to imitate the natural sciences, I would like to propose a more constructive alternative, which celebrates the diversity of theories in light of the complexity of human experience, but without giving up on a discipline of progress. This is what I call the ‘plug-and-play’ principle.⁷

Again, I’ll start with my own work as an example. Its focus is to produce a social learning theory. It does not theorise what is being learned, or whether it is good for the learner. It just shines a social perspective on the process of learning. But the social context of learning is complex. For instance, I am often asked why there is no social class, gender, ethnicity, institutionalised power or similar key sociological concern in my theory. Surely those are important to a social view of learning i...