Research and the Promise of Educational Improvement: International Perspectives on a Vexed Question

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This international symposium explores the theory, history and politics of the role of research in educational improvement. The five contributions discuss historical and contemporary cases – recent Swedish research policy; recent attempts to improve the quality and impact of UK educational research; the position of social science and humanities based educational research in Finland; the history of the idea of perfection in teaching; societal expectations about education and research – in order to shed light on underlying assumptions about research and improvement, trends in research policy, historical continuities and wider societal expectations. The discussant will focus on the question how educational researchers should formulate and legitimate their own ambitions in a policy context that increasingly pushes them into a very particular direction.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Section 1: Critical and Post-Foundationalist Perspectives and Practices

Chair

• Gert J. Biesta, Brunel University London

Papers

• Improving Education Through Research? From Effectiveness, Causality, and Technology to Purpose, Complexity, and Culture - Gert J. Biesta, Brunel University London

• Beyond Personality and Professionalism: Pestalozzi, Skinner, and the Infallibility of the Art of Teaching - Daniel Troehler, The University of Luxembourg

• Educational Restructuring and Educational Research in Tandem? On the Making of Relevance in Educational Research - Rita Foss Lindblad, University of Borås; Sverker S:son Lindblad, University of Gothenburg

• Discursive Fault Lines: A Social Cartography of Competing Interpretations of Educational Research - Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, The University of British Columbia

• Engaging the Future? Are the Educational Sciences Its Prophecy in Riding to Democracy? - Thomas S. Popkewitz, University of Wisconsin

Discussant

• Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill