Rethinking and Redesigning Social Justice Research Theories and Methods

• In Event: 30.080 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 30.080-19 - We Are Clearly Not Asking the Right Questions: Rethinking "Knowledge to Action" as Social Justice

Abstract

Are our theories and approaches to scholarship adequate to understand and affect positive and socially just change? It is important to consider if knowledge in the field should be generated from within scholarly traditions, from practice or via some form of negotiated co-construction. Similarly, the field needs to consider whether we can extend ourselves beyond the notion of a dichotomous theory-practice gap and what that praxis might look like (Furman, 2012). That is, what is the value (or lack thereof) of having a working knowledge of theories to understand practice? This also raises the core issue of whether or not educational leadership should have a signature research methodology, much like anthropology has ethnography. Our tradition of borrowing research methods from other social sciences, specifically psychology, anthropology, sociology and political science, has it helped or hindered our understanding of educational leadership? Finally, we want to consider whether critical theories (CRT, LatCRIT, Critical feminism, etc.), have made meaningful and substantive contributions to the field of educational leadership? Our journals are filled with the naming of problems. What are the next steps in terms of advocacy to direct action, to engagement and learning to be more communications to wider publics? How do we rethink knowledge to action?

Author

• Sonya Douglass Horsford, Teachers College, Columbia University