Understanding Education and Educational Research

Educational research is widely believed to be essentially empirical, consisting mainly of collecting and analysing data, with randomised control trials as the 'gold standard'. This book argues that good educational research is often philosophical in nature. Offering a critical overview of the current state of educational research, the authors argue that there are two factors in particular that distort it. One is that throughout the world it is expected to serve the interests of the state in securing educational improvements, as measured by standardised examination results, and to demonstrate 'scientific' credentials sufficient to guarantee absence of ideological bias and carry conviction. The other is that learning to do educational research is generally seen as a matter of being trained in empirical 'research methods'. The authors demonstrate, by contrast, that good educational research needs the rigorous thinking characteristic of philosophy, and that philosophical treatments themselves sometimes constitute such research.

Paul Smeyers is Research Professor for Philosophy of Education at Ghent University and Extraordinary Professor at KU Leuven, both in Belgium, and Honorary Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He teaches philosophy of education and methodology of qualitative/interpretative research methods. He is President of the International Network of Philosophers of Education and link-convenor for Network 13, Philosophy of Education of the European Educational Research Association. Since January 2014 he has been the editor of Ethics and Education. Richard Smith is Professor of Education at the University of Durham, where he teaches philosophy of social science and philosophy of education. He has been editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Education and was founding editor of the journal Ethics and Education.

Advance praise: 'Smeyers and Smith have produced a coherent collection of papers that provide a healthy antidote to many of the cliche ridden discourses that are increasingly dominating the theory and practices of educational research - the inappropriate and uncritical aping of scientific method as a vehicle for educational inquiry and the assumption that only this will contribute to rigorous educational inquiry ('scientism'); the insistence on quantifying the unquantifiable ('metricophilia' is the new perversion) and the marginalising of modes of understanding, discernment and appreciation rooted in literature, history, social anthropology and philosophy. The critique of educational research is not directed against its uselessness but against its failure to grasp the stuff of humanity that it is dealing with and to acknowledge the sources that have a continuing capacity to illuminate this experience. It is an antidote that should be taken preventatively by all students and, if it is not too late, as curative