Rethinking Discussions of Justice in Educational Research: Formative Justice, Educational Liberalism, and Beyond

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Winston C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Educational Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Educational Justice ◽  
General Shape ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Background Context

Background/Context Educational research tends to borrow accounts of justice from scholarship embedded within the structures and commitments of other disciplines or fields of study. This has created a body of educational research that largely responds to the “justice” goals of those disciplines rather than education qua education. Purpose/Focus of Study Responding to the context, this article questions whether educational research might be able to forward its own account of justice. This educational form of justice (formative justice) would allow educational researchers to pose questions that are primarily concerned with education on its own terms. Research Design This philosophical work provides a conceptual analysis of an account of justice within educational research. Conclusions/Recommendations This article finds that educational researchers can indeed pursue an educational account of justice. By detailing the benefits and general shape of a theory of educational justice (“justice as preservation”) embedded within educational liberalism, this article suggests that educational researchers can utilize their unique insights and expertise to pose educational questions within previously under-explored areas.

Writing Our Way into the Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mike Rose
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Graduate Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Scholarship ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Do So

Background/Context The article is a reflection of the importance of bringing educational research into the public sphere, with particular emphasis on writing for broader, nonacademic audiences. Purpose The purpose of the article is to argue for making educational research more accessible to a broader public and to present suggestions for graduate-level writing instruction to do so. Research Design This article is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations I conclude with some thoughts about the ways “public scholarship” benefits both public awareness and research itself and also offer several suggestions as to how the profession can encourage public scholarship.

Two Types of Interpersonal Listening

2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (11) ◽  
pp. 2743-2762
Author(s):  
Leonard J. Waks
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Education Society ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Objective Research

Background/Context Although the concept of listening had been neglected by philosophers of education, it has received focused attention since 2003, when Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon addressed it in her presidential address to the Philosophy of Education Society. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Haroutunian-Gordon offered a cognitive theory of listening, according to which an act of listening involves raising questions about both the speaker's utterance and the listener's own beliefs. Research Design This article draws on the methods of philosophical analysis to provide a competing account of listening. This account distinguishes between two types of listening, a cognitive (thinking) type and a noncognitive (empathic feeling) type. Findings/Results By considering a number of familiar classroom incidents, I show that both kinds of listening have important roles in teaching and learning. Conclusions/Recommendations I conclude by questioning whether the empathic type of listening can directly be taught. I conclude that it cannot be, but that teachers can provide three kinds of “helps” indirectly to foster its growth in learners.

Mapping Curricular Assemblages

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Paul William Eaton ◽  
Petra Munro Hendry
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Educative Process ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Relational Capacities ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Contemporary Schooling

Background/Context This article advances scholarship from curriculum theorists, educational philosophers, and educational researchers unpacking the dehumanizing aspects of education. Focus of Study The article maps the role of the tree as a measuring and organizing apparatus of curriculum and unpacks possibilities for utilizing rhizomes as a way to create movement in conceptualizing curriculum. Research Design In this article, we utilize Jackson and Mazzei's concept of thinking with theory. We bring into conversation Deleuze and Guattari's theoretical concepts of assemblage, arborescence, rhizomatics, and deterritorializing and Karen Barad's concepts of entanglement and intra-action. Conclusions The article proposes envisioning the tree and the rhizome as mutually constituted in contemporary curriculum discourses but asserts the continuing dominance of the tree as limiting the relational capacities of curriculum. Thinking curriculum arborescently dehumanizes contemporary schooling and education by reducing students, teachers, classrooms, and schools to data points. Rhizomatic thinking opens space for a relational, ethical, and ontological educative process of being∼becoming.

scholarly journals Fashion Window: A Conceptual Analysis Of Department Store Holiday Windows

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
McKenzie Bohn
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Fashion Industry ◽  
Art Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Window Displays ◽  
Three Dimensional Space

Window displays in the fashion industry are unique sites of meaning that combine advertising and artwork in a three-dimensional space. The current body of research surrounding window displays approaches the subject from a marketer’s position and attempts to evaluate performance. This project shifts the focus to the artistic qualities of window displays as they are used by fashion retailers. The primary theoretical lens is gestalt theory, which has applications in both psychology and design. The specific windows examined are the Christmas windows at retailer Saks Fifth Avenue Toronto in December of 2018. An autoethnographic research design is employed, resulting in an exploratory empirical analysis that serves as an entry into an under-represented area of study: the fashion window as an art object. The key findings of the project are the application of gestalt theory to the design of the windows and the researcher’s observations to suggest an explanation of the public’s response to the displays.

scholarly journals Vive la Différence? Comparing “Like with Like” in Studies of Learners’ Ideas in Diverse Educational Contexts

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith S. Taber
Keyword(s):  
Educational Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
International Research ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Active Area ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
The Status

This paper considers the status of educational research that looks to replicate previous findings in a novel educational context, taking as its focus an active area of research in a range of national contexts: studies into students’ ideas about scientific topics. The paper considers the circumstances under which a “replication” study should be considered to offer original new knowledge worthy of publication in international research journals. It is argued here that there are sound principled reasons to expect studies undertaken in different educational contexts to be able to contribute to a progressive research programme, and so researchers should be encouraged to undertake such work. However, technically competent papers submitted to prestigious journals will be rejected if they are considered to merely replicate previous work without offering novel empirical or theoretical content that is considered to make an original contribution. This paper explores the basis for welcoming research “testing-out” published findings in new contexts and considers the place of such studies within a progressive research programme. This analysis can inform research design for those looking to explore learners’ ideas in local educational contexts, by offering clear guidance on the forms of research likely to offer significant contributions to public knowledge.

Locating the Problem Within: Race, Learning Disabilities, and Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Justin Freedman ◽  
Beth A. Ferri
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Biological Markers ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Background Context

Background/Context In this paper we draw on an intersectional critical framework to analyze and account for the simultaneous interworkings of race and dis/ability. Specifically, we draw on this framework to examine two aims of modern science: (a) to identify distinct biological markers of race and (b) to locate biological and neurological origins of Learning Disabilities (LD). These aims persist despite evidence that both race and LD are socially and politically constructed categories. Purpose/Objective By reviewing historical and contemporary attempts by researchers to locate race and LD as immutable features embodied by individuals, we reveal how the science behind these categories shares similar underlying systems of logic; both efforts attempt to locate social problems within bodies and illustrate what Samuels (2014) calls “fantasies of identification,” or culturally embedded desires to definitively identify and categorize bodies. Research Design This is a historical analysis Conclusions/Recommendations We assert the need to engage with intersectional analyses, not simply as demographic variables along the lines of identity categories, but as an analytical tool for uncovering underlying logics that undergird systems of oppression. Examining the shared scientific explanations of race and learning disabilities illuminates possibilities for rethinking key issues at the intersection of race and disability.

Postmodern Test Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 116 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Robert J. Mislevy
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Educational Measurement ◽  
Educational Assessment ◽  
Test Theory ◽  
Learning Sciences ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Aims Of Education ◽  
Background Context

Background/Context This article explains the idea of a neopragmatic postmodernist test theory and offers some thoughts about what changing notions concerning the nature of and meanings assigned to knowledge imply for educational assessment, present and future. Purpose Advances in the learning sciences—particularly situative and sociocognitive stances—call into question the adequacy of the trait and behaviorist psychological perspectives under which educational measurement evolved. This article argues nevertheless that its models and methods, appropriately reconceived and extended as necessary, can be useful in assessment framed in a contemporary view of learning. Research Design This is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations The model-based reasoning that characterizes test theory is useful not because it measures extant traits defined and evidenced in the same way for all students, but because it helps us organize our thinking, marshal and interpret evidence, and communicate our inferences and their grounding to others. A skeptical attitude about models in assessment makes our uses of them more flexible, more powerful, and, ultimately, more effective at meeting and fulfilling the aims of education than they would be if we believed that they accurately captured the totality of the phenomenon. Our understandings of students’ learning and programs’ effects are enriched by multiple perspectives and diverse sources of evidence, some new or previously neglected but others with familiar (albeit reconceived) forms.

scholarly journals Learning to Argue Through Dialogue: a Review of Instructional Approaches

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chrysi Rapanta ◽  
Mark K. Felton
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Instructional Approaches ◽  
Educational Levels ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
High Structure

AbstractOver the past 20 years, a broad and diverse research literature has emerged to address how students learn to argue through dialogue in educational contexts. However, the variety of approaches used to study this phenomenon makes it challenging to find coherence in what may otherwise seem to be disparate fields of study. In this integrative review, we propose looking at how learning to argue (LTA) has been operationalized thus far in educational research, focusing on how different scholars have framed and fostered argumentative dialogue, assessed its gains, and applied it in different learning contexts. In total, 143 studies from the broad literature on educational dialogue and argumentation were analysed, including all educational levels (from primary to university). The following patterns for studying how dialogue fosters LTA emerged: whole-class ‘low structure’ framing with a goal of dialogue, small-group ‘high structure’ framing with varied argumentative goals, and studies with one-to-one dialectic framing with a goal of persuasive deliberation. The affordances and limitations of these different instructional approaches to LTA research and practice are discussed. We conclude with a discussion of complementarity of the approaches that emerged from our analysis in terms of the pedagogical methods and conditions that promote productive and/or constructive classroom interactions.

Two Ideals of Educational Justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
James Stillwaggon
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Educational Justice ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Educational Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Injustice ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Educational Scholarship ◽  
Selection Of

Background/Context This essay takes up McClintock's (2004) critique of educational discourses as overly dependent upon a distributive model of justice and largely ignorant of the formative assumptions that ground educational policy and practice. Purpose/Objective The question that McClintock's analysis begs is how educational scholarship became attached to a theoretical model that seems to fail its own requirements. My aim is to identify some of the sources of our assumptions about educational justice in order to tether them to their origins and understand how these ideological influences continue to shape our contemporary purposes Research Design I analyze a selection of significant moments in the history of educational thought in terms of their respective contributions to one of two ideals of justice: the distributive and the formative. My aim is to show how these two long-standing ideals influence contemporary thought on educational justice and to question whether our adherence to these ideals as we have inherited them serves the needs of contemporary thinkers and the populations they seek to serve. Conclusions/Recommendations By drawing attention to the confused status of distributive and formative ideals in education in contemporary educational discourses, the principal conclusion of this essay is that educational research's narrow reliance upon a distributive model exacts a formative injustice upon disenfranchised populations. By indicating the confusion of these ideals, we may read back critically against the commonly accepted notion of education as a democratic tool against economic injustice.

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