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1 Introduction
This book is about the various types of theories we find in the field of education and their nature. The world of education is full of theories: theories of reading, upbringing, motivation, Bildung, instruction, and so on. Appeals to theory in education scholarship are ubiquitous: education scholars, whatever their specialties, routinely construct, critique, and/or apply theories in their research. But what is an educational theory, exactly? Different answers to that question have been proposed by different scholars over the years. The answer I provide in this book will in significant respects differ from the others. In order to identify different kinds of theories we need a meta-theoretical framework to guide our search. In that regard this book is also a meta-theoretical book: it presents and compares two major meta-theories. Armed with my preferred meta-theory – the Semantic Conception (SC) of theories – I offer a classification scheme that allows us to discriminate distinct types of educational theory, discuss a number of specific theories and their theoretical strengths and weaknesses, offer an account of how educational practice relates to theory, and provide general insights into the uses (and misuses) of theory. Thus, while the topic of this book is highly abstract, it does have important practical implications. Theorizing that is unreflective about theory itself – its nature, its good-making features, and its presumed tasks – will likely lead to many misunderstandings about what theories say, how they say it, what they can and cannot do for us, and what it is reasonable and unreasonable to critique them for. A suitable meta-theory will add to our understanding and representation of educational phenomena, and may, by improving these, enhance our ability to change those phenomena for the better.
My unpublished doctoral dissertation, In search of the nature of educational theories (Kvernbekk, 1994), will provide much of the backbone for this book; but updated, extended, deepened, repackaged and critically discussed. In a sense I am borrowing from myself, but it is a transformative form of borrowing, not a merely derivative one. Working on this book has given me a welcome opportunity to revisit my own dissertation and how it came about. Even at the university I could not let go of the question of theory and practice. But the question took on philosophical rather than practical overtones. Textbooks would typically define education (pedagogy) as an intentional discipline, with theories that aim at modifying and improving the world in some way. Such theories were described as “practical” or as “applied”, as opposed to “theoretical” or “pure”, as described by, for example Reidar Myhre (1980) and Hans Skjervheim (1992). Pure theories are supposed to be about some phenomenon, practical theories are supposed to be for it (in the sense of guiding actions). Hence, the distinction between practical educational theories and theoretical scientific theories got firmly ingrained in my mind during my student years, and clearly came to the fore in my master’s thesis. My master’s thesis in the philosophy of education was about the basic educational metaphors “influence” and “development” and how they played out in educational theory. For this I needed a concept of theory and I found it in Carl Hempel’s writings (Hempel, 1966). I did not know then what I know now about Hempel, namely that he adhered to a certain meta-theory, the so-called Received View of theories (RV), which is the logical-empiricist view of theories. So I tried my best to adapt his view of theories to the practical theories of education, connecting Hempel’s axiomatic calculus to basic views of human nature and his bridge principles to a didactical “superstructure” consisting of aims, content and methods of instruction. Human nature supposedly served as a basis from which aims, content and method were derived or deduced.
I recall being rather dissatisfied with this rendering of educational theory, for two reasons. First, I worried about the coherence of such theories, since authors with the same view of human nature demonstrably advocated different aims, content and methods. Second, most of the theories I encountered in textbooks simply could not be called “practical”, despite clearly belonging to the domain of education. The intellectual restlessness thus experienced led me to my dissertation. My dissertation proposal directly attacked the notion of an educational theory, but still with the understanding that all educational theories were supposed to be for education; that is, practical and action-guiding in nature. I proposed to find out what characteristics and elements a theory would need to possess, on the assumption that they should not only tell you what to do but should also incorporate empirical facts and metaphysical presuppositions concerning what is possible. I had only been a doctoral student for a couple of months when I came across Frederick Suppe’s writings on meta-theory (Suppe, 1989). Reading Suppe completely overturned my original proposal. His book alerted me to the centrality of meta-theory and supplied tools for me to come to grips with my general dissatisfaction with educational theory as action-guiding as well as with my own Hempelian rendering of it. Reading Suppe sent me searching not for the nature of educational theory, but for the nature of educational theories. The assumption that all educational theories are by their nature practical and action-guiding could be discarded. And with that assumption safely done away with, another assumption could follow suit: the assumption that there is a difference in kind between educational theories and scientific theories. There is not.
Working on this book has also given me a welcome opportunity to revisit some (by no means all) of the literature that I read for my dissertation. Some of this literature now counts as old, I suppose. In a day and age when research is supposed to be recent, one might well ask what the point is of rehearsing old literature, for example Carl Hempel, D. J. O’Connor, Paul Hirst and Erich Weniger – authors who figure prominently in my discussions. Revisiting old literature is a pleasure! It generally provides an opportunity to track how the viewpoints of various authors have changed or remained constant, and in this case it also provided me with an opportunity to reassess not only the literature but my own old viewpoints in the light of things I have learned since I defended my dissertation. Old texts are not invalid just because they are old – on the contrary, they provide insights and information, and, not least, they make good, clear examples of viewpoints in the extensive debates over the nature of educational theory. That is by and large how I use them in this book: as examples of viewpoints, not necessarily attributable to the authors in question now. And of course – philosophical problems, such as the nature of theory, do not grow old. That is one of the best things about them.
I entertained many implicit and at the time only vaguely understood assumptions concerning the nature of theory while I was working on my dissertation. Some of them have since taken explicit shape and can no longer be said to be “mere” assumptions for me but rather convictions. While I was able to formulate them only toward the end of my dissertation work, I list them here at the beginning of this book, as basic presuppositions underlying the chapters to follow. First, while Hirst, Myhre, Skjervheim and Weniger (and others) all take a certain view of the field of education as their point of departure for their discussions about the nature of educational theory, I hold that the concept of theory is an equally if not more adequate point of departure. The mentioned authors all assume a tight coupling between the presumed nature of a given discipline and the presumed nature of its theories. This coupling leads to the distinction between scientific/pure and educational/practical theories (an intentional discipline “must” have practical theories) and presupposes that education is a unified discipline with a single type of theory. I have already claimed that the distinction between scientific/pure and educational/practical theories is unfortunate and should not be upheld. A meta-theoretical approach, given a sound meta-theory, will regard the unity of the domain as an open question, and a plurality of theories can be identified. I share the meta-theoretical approach with O’Connor. He too took his point of departure in the concept of theory, but – as will become apparent in chapters to come – we employ different meta-theories.
Second, I think that all articulated theories, regardless of which discipline or domain they belong to, share certain central features. Third, and following from the two previous assumptions, these shared features straddle the distinction between scientific/pure and educational/practical theories. Education does not have a unique type of theory. Fourth, I assume that there are bodies of knowledge that beyond doubt can be called “educational theories”. In passing, it is worth noting that the field is also full of borderline cases: bodies of knowledge that are theoretical in character, invoke theoretical (unobservable) entities, are structured to some degree and in some way, and yet their status as theory is unclear or ambiguous, as seen from a meta-theoretical point of view. Didactic models, for example – theories or not? Regrettably, I have not found space in this book to inquire into such cases, so for now they remain uncharted territory. All these presuppositions are substantiated throughout the book, especially in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, where I analyze different types of educational theory.
Fifth, I simply presuppose that education as a discipline, and so its theories, answers to the same kind of criteria for evaluation as do other disciplines: consistency, argument, evidential support, clarity, and so on. This presupposition underlies my discussion about the good-making features of theories in Chapter 7, and for my overall concern with the tenability of educational beliefs in general. All people form beliefs about the world and its many aspects, and in some cases tenability is of no great concern. But when educational researchers and professional practitioners construct theories and form beliefs, their theories and beliefs are potentially of great significance to a wide audience, and tenability becomes a major concern.
Finally, some comments about meta-theories are in order. First, a terminological remark. I use the term “meta-theory” to mean “theory about theory” – a second-order theory, if you like, that takes the nature of scientific theories as its object. Others use the term to mean something like “overall perspectives on science”, for example Philip Higgs, editor of the volume Metatheories in the Philosophy of Education, takes meta-theory to address issues of what is and is not scientifically possible (Higgs, 1995). Thus, in Higgs’ edited volume, empiricism, constructivism, hermeneutics, and so on, are presented as meta-theories. Second, both meta-theories that I discuss and employ in this book have received much attention by philosophers of science in the years since I submitted my dissertation. The literature now is burgeoning and it has been a delight to catch up and, again, reassess my own old viewpoints and revise them (e.g. concerning the role of language in theory individuation and counterfactuality as the nature of the relation between theory and phenomena, see Chapter 3). Third, importantly, both meta-theories to be discussed here originally grew out of the natural sciences. That requires caution and care in their application to a different field. Nevertheless, I shall argue that my meta-theory of choice, the SC, is eminently generalizable – one just has to proceed cautiously. As said above, I have come to hold that theories from all disciplines share certain features. That does not mean that the phenomena treated by those theories share the same nature – social and natural phenomena have distinctive features to be represented. Fourth, different features of the SC might come into play when it is applied to the natural sciences than when it is applied to education. For example, mathematical substructures and formalization might be more apt in, say, biology and physics than in education. I envision a feedback loop here. On the one hand, the SC, as I shall show in subsequent chapters, helps identify theories in education, their constituent elements and the various relations between those elements, and draws out the thoroughgoing effects of theory structure on issues of truth and application. On the other hand, education provides a challenge for the SC and may contribute to its development and expansion in ways not anticipated by its developers. Fifth, there is a trade-off to be made between the discussion of meta-theories and their employment. Paradoxically, given my interest in abstract entities and things, I tip the scales in favor of the applied aspect. Perhaps this is a legacy from my years in teacher training. It means that I am leaving out a number of details and finer points concerning the two meta-theories in the interest of applying them to the field of education to see what we find there. However, I also think that showing what a meta-theory can do is important when it comes to judging its adequacy. After all, just like theories are supposed to do a job for us, meta-theories are also supposed to do a job for us. Roughly, I suggest, the job of meta-theories is to help us understand better what theories say about their phenomena and how they say it, as well as help us understand better what we should consider when constructing, evaluating and using theories.
The chapters
Chapter 2 attempts to describe and circumscribe the field of education. It will serve as a background to the types of theory that I discuss in subsequent chapters: the field is such that it has theories of this kind. A definition of education will not suffice for this purpose. A better approach is to look at what research in and on education looks like. The picture I draw will hardly come as a surprise, I presume: education nowadays is a pluralistic, hybrid domain with rather fluid boundaries and an unstable and contested nature. This picture does not separate education from other disciplines or domains. All scientific disciplines have grown immensely in recent years (e.g. Keiner, 2002, Terhart, 2016). The professionally oriented part of education is, to be sure, a part of the domain, but does by no means constitute the entire domain – hence, it is reasonable that such a field should have some theories that are practical and action-guiding, but it is not reasonable that all theories should be so. The state of the domain by itself strongly suggests that education encompasses a plurality of theory types. This chapter also includes a discussion of the traditional view of educational theory. The philosophy of education has witnessed longstanding discussions about the nature of educational theories. A good many authors argue that scientific and educational theories need to be firmly separated, being fundamentally different in kind (e.g. Carr, 1986, Hirst, 1966, Weniger, 1990). Typically, these writings take educational practice (or assumptions about its nature) as their point of departure, practice supposedly being the object of educational theory. They all seem to rely on the tacit premise that educational theories are of the same kind and that we are justified in talking about the nature of educational theory. I discussed these views in my dissertation, and here I revisit, update and expand on my selection of sources, but I by no means assume I have exhausted all possible sources. It transpires that the view of educational theory as practical is remarkably similar across the Anglo-American and the Nordic-Continental traditions. Basically, the traditional view has it that educational theories are theories for education, that they are normative in character and largely prescriptive, aiming to tell an educator how to proceed and act so that aims can be achieved. This understanding of the nature of theory naturally is connected to a certain understanding of the nature of the domain. This, I shall argue, unduly narrows the scope of educational theorizing.
My own preferred approach to the problem of the nature of educational theory is meta-theoretical. Thus, in Chapter 3 I look to the philosophy of science to find a suitable analytical toolkit. There are several different meta-theories to choose from. I will confine discussion to two of them: the Received View of theories (RV) and the Semantic Conception of theories (SC). RV is the logical-empiricist conception of theories, and SC is in many ways its successor. While SC is my meta-theory of choice, it is important to include a discussion of RV, for two reasons. First, it was highly influential in its day and remnants of it can still be discerned in various utterances about theory (e.g. that a theory consists of sentences and their logical connections). Second, later meta-theories tend to take their point of departure in what they view as inadequate and untenable in RV, which naturally influences what characteristics one believes an adequate meta-theory should have. SC, I shall argue, is philosophically superior to RV, and it is also the conception most able to shed light on this book’s target, educational theories. SC is my chief analytical tool, the lens through which I view the domain o...
