"That Ain't Research": The Empiricist Takeover in Teacher Education

• In Event: "What Would Freire Do?" Pursuing Critical Theoretical Scholarship's Radical Possibilities at AERA's 100-Year Mark

Abstract

Teacher education promulgates commitment to cultural relevance (Ladson-Billings, 2001), multicultural education (Nieto & Bode, 1996,) and social justice (Freire, 1993) in the training of teachers. Yet, amidst these proclamations is a limited understanding or lack of acknowledgement for the theoretical precursors that undergird such concepts (Abdal-Haqq, 1998). Instead, teacher education has moved to promote constructivist, positivistic, and/or empiricist research (Canella & Reiff, 1994), which overlook the theoretical contributions to teacher training and education. At Acme University’s School of Education (pseudonym), for example, administrators rewrote the tenure and promotion rubric claiming that only “empirical” publications will count towards tenure and promotion. They defined empirical as “based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory” (School’s rubric). This is done while the premier professional organization for educational research, American Educational Research Association (AERA)—calling theoretical research “humanities-oriented research”—demands recognition of theoretical research because it “continues to play a unique and indispensable role” (AERA, 2009, p. 481). The empiricist push to discount theoretical research while still promoting concepts that came from theoretical research becomes oddly hypocritical and exclusionary. Frankly, the field of teacher education is attempting to be the gatekeeper of what is and what ain’t research.

Yet, there is a deeper problem when discrediting the importance of theoretical research in teacher education. One, the push towards empiricism has led the field to assume that only studies adhering to it present proper findings (Abdal-Haqq, 1998), which impacts the careers of theoretical scholars and the field of theoretical research. Two, this biased, empiricist assumption regarding what is proper research in teacher education “could lead the researcher to conclusions that present an incomplete or partial picture of an environment” (Willis, Thompson, & Sadera, 1999, p. 32). Focusing on the latter, rendering empiricist research as the litmus test of what constitutes “proper” research may ignore the implicit bias already at play in society and language. AERA (2009) claims that theoretical studies work to “problematize unrecognized assumptions, implications, and consequences of various kinds of educational practice, policy, and research, as well as to challenge what these approaches take for granted as beyond questioning” (p. 482). Therefore, dismissing theoretical research may, in the end, recycle hegemonic power structures of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and language. Since U.S. teacher education is preoccupied with improving teacher training to address the needs of linguistically and racially diverse students, it would behoove the field to employ theoretical research to question implicit biases that undergird racial and linguistic achievement gaps.

This theoretical paper delves into a larger critique of the role theoretical research plays in teacher education and theorizes the reasons behind its resistance. It begins with an overview of the current constructivist approaches in the field and delineates between empirical research and empiricism. Then, by providing examples, it will illustrate how empiricist research picks up only half the story for which theoretical research can complete. Finally, I end with cautionary recommendations that teacher education should recognize in the futurity of teacher education.

Author

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of Colorado - Denver