Researching Education: Data, Methods and Theory in Educational Enquiry

Abstract

In this book, we suggest, through close examination of the various issues surrounding research, that this viewpoint neglects, indeed acts to conceal, those epistemological and ontological frameworks that underpin all types of research activity. What this implies is that power is central to the research act and that we simply cannot dismiss it from our epistemological endeavours but must try to understand its effects. This involves a reflexive understanding of the way in which we are positioned as knowers, and it suggests that the scientific paradigm of a singular, convergent and static reality that can be known by researchers who act independently from the subjects of their research and who produce generalizations and nomothetic statements is not sustainable. In part, this is because objects in the real world have emergent prop erties, and in part, this reflects the possibility of a disjuncture between knowledge and its referents.