Abstract
Under ‘post-truth’ conditions the generation, circulation and status of knowledge are being transformed, with significant implications for institutional trust, social cohesion and public safety. These conditions raise complex challenges and opportunities within education, which plays a potentially pivotal role in supporting communities to respond in an assertive and critical manner. However, little is currently understood about the way key stakeholders within education position themselves epistemically in relation to post-truth conditions. The purpose of this research was to analyse epistemic aspects of educators’ responses to post-truth conditions using a ‘social lab’ methodology, which is a qualitative, action-oriented approach to studying complex social problems. Analysis of data from the social lab, which involved a variety of education stakeholders, identified four epistemic aims (with associated ideals, processes and actions) to orient an educational response to post-truth conditions. However, overall, epistemic aims lacked precision and contextual specificity. Furthermore, aims were associated with divergent underpinning epistemological commitments, mirroring divergences in literature on the educational implications of post-truth conditions. Teachers may require additional training to enhance epistemic reflexivity and drive more productive and inclusive conversations about post-truth in classrooms, staffrooms and ITE programs. The findings are suggestive of the complex epistemological and institutional dynamics that need to be negotiated in educational responses to post-truth conditions.
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Data Availability
The full data set underlying this research cannot be made available in accordance with the ethical requirements to maintain participant confidentiality.
Notes
Due to the similarity in connotation between “ideals” and “aims”, we replace talk of epistemic ideals with “epistemic criteria” for clarity.
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The authors express their thanks to the Research Assistant for the project, who provided support with project administration and aspects of the analysis.
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This work was supported by a University of Melbourne Early Career Researcher Grant [grant number 2021ECR035].
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McCaw, C.T., Ryan, M. & Lunn Brownlee, J. Educators, epistemic reflexivity and post-truth conditions. J Educ Change (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-023-09499-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-023-09499-1