This paper starts from the point in the early 1970s at which educational theory and research was temporarily structured under the ‘foundation’ disciplines of psychology, sociology, philosophy and history of education. It observes the way the intellectual resources of educational research have become enlarged and enriched and these disciplines themselves fragmented and hybridised to a degree that prompts talk not just of interdisciplinarity but of ‘postdisciplinarity’. The paper argues, however, that without discipline, in the sense of a shared language, a (...) rule governed structure of enquiry—something ‘systematic’—we lose the conditions that make a community of arguers possible. Further, we lose the basis for the special claim which research might otherwise make on our attention and on our belief. (shrink)

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which posits the existence of two (or more) equally legitimate epistemological paradigms—positivism and constructivism—and offer an alternative that places a priority in educational research on understanding the purposes and meanings humans attribute to educational practices. (...) Only within the context of what I call a transcendent view from somewhere—higher ideals that govern human activities—can we make sense of quantitative as well as qualitative research findings. (shrink)