Educational Research Need Not Be Irrelevant

Abstract

Do not let anyone fool you. In spite of the linguistic turn (Rorty, 1967), the diversity of epistemological and ontological assumptions, and the plethora of post-modern jargon, the bad news is that the social sciences — especially those associated with education — are still engaged in traditional quantitative research. What is surprising is that they have been involved in educational research for over fifty years now and that, in spite of their productivity regarding evaluation reports, enquiries into students’, teachers’, and parents’ attitudes and research-proven ways to improve school achievement or increase students’ performance, we all still worry about educational systems which are not doing well (Apple, 1999; Berliner, 2006; Cohen, 1995; Gordon and Rebell, 2007; Hirschland and Steinmo, 2003). Horace Mann’s promise, well over a century old, that education (understood as schooling) will be the great equalizer goes, as yet, unfulfilled.