Educational Researcher

http://er.aera.net Border Crossings and Other Journeys: Re-envisioning the Doctoral Preparation of Education Researchers
Lauren Jones Young EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER 2001 30: 3 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X030005003 The online version of this article can be found at: http://edr.sagepub.com/content/30/5/3

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Theme Issue: Research for Doctoral Students in Education

Although the research preparation of doctoral students is a central issue in the current context of discussions about education and educational research, it is also an issue that is infrequently the focus of explicit examination or research. The articles in this theme issue are presented here to stimulate discussion and research on this important topic.

Border Crossings and Other Journeys: Re-envisioning the Doctoral Preparation of Education Researchers 1
by Lauren Jones Young
Can prospective scholars be prepared to appreciate and learn from the presence of epistemological controversy and diverse perspectives? How might graduate programs in education develop researchers who have the capacity to appreciate and perhaps use multiple perspectives and methodologies? Given the finite amount of time in graduate school, and students' needs to (a) become expert enough in a given domain/ method to say something new and different, and (b) be able to make a thoughtful match between research problem and perspective/ methodology, how should we organize research preparation in doctoral study, and to what end? Is it even realistic to consider preparing researchers to use multiple methodologies and to work from different perspectives?2 Three scholarsAaron M. Pallas, Mary Haywood Metz, and Reba N. Pagewere invited to think about the preparation of new generations of education researchers in light of these questions. Their observations, concerns, and proposals for change emerge during an era of unprecedented diversity in terms of the ways we study "our right to the beliefs we have"(Honderich, 1995) and during a time when there are few common sets of judgments about modes of inquiry. Moreover, education is afieldthat by definition is multidisciplinary. It draws on a widening array of disciplines for epistemologies, methodologies, and theoretical approaches to study education phenomena, resulting, according to Schoenfeld (1999), in a situation in which there is "no canon, there are no core methods" (p. 167). Questions such as those posed above underscore a fundamental uncertainty (as well as significant disagreement, discord, and dispute) in the field of education as a whole about not only what is and is not education research, but also about what knowledge counts, by what evidence, and accordEducational Researcher, Vol. 30, No. 5, pp. 3-5 ing to whom (Lagemann, 2000; Lagemann&Shulman, 1999; Miller, 1999; Tooley&Darby, 1998; Viadero, 1999). These concerns about the foundations and parameters of education research are not trivial and go far beyond the boundaries of any arcane discussion of epistemological diversity. The broader context in which we conduct education inquiry presents its own demands. First, education is a field riddled with consequences in everyday experience and politics, and our epistemologies are integrally linked to how we can best serve children. Both the popular culture and our own observations tell us that we need better approaches to solve the social problems that confront us. In a country in which there is widespread concern about the quality of education and about the utility of research for advancing that education (National Research Council, 1999), we must ask how our academic and cultural experiences, points of view, social commitments, traditional and nontraditional sources of knowledge improve learning and life chances for a diverse population. For example, how should children be taught to read or to engage with mathematical ideas? Should failing schools be reconstituted? How might the achievement gap be closed? Fundamentally, improvements in children's learning and development hinge on the richness of our understandings, which, in turn, depend considerably on the quality of our research. We faculty in education need to address these questions head on ourselves in order to strengthen the preparation (and future research) of our graduate students, who are uniquely positioned to do this work, and to do it better, in a pluralistic, global environment. Second, while education is a field characterized by diversity in its membership, particularly in comparison to other disciplines, it has been slow to embrace the deeper meaning of this diversity. Among the 6,559 doctorates in education granted in 1998, about 19 percent were awarded to people of color, up from 13 percent in 1978. 3 In addition, more than 62 percent of those

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receiving doctorates in education in 1998 were female compared to 40 percent who were female and earning education doctorates twenty years earlier (Sanderson, Dugoni, Hoffer,&Selfa, 1999). Yet, despite their growing presence in doctoral programs, people of color remain underrepresented among the contributors to knowledge production, with critical consequences for the nature and range of perspectives, understandings, and paradigms that inform this work (Gordon, Miller, Rollock, 1990). Just as Wilson observed in 1974, that the experiences of a minority scholar may be heuristically important in the development of suitable hypotheses and in the interpretation of data (even as he cautioned that a researcher's unique history cannot be substituted for knowledge gained through valid scientific inquiry), Kathleen Hall (1999) reminds us more recently that embracing those who have been "excluded, denigrated, or silenced" means much more than rewriting texts for inclusion of their voices, perspectives, and experiences. Rather, she writes, "new areas of inquiry have been created, and many of the age-old canonical master narratives produced at the center have been displaced, challenged by the often contradictory or incommensurable versions emerging from the increasingly powerful peripheries" (1999, p. 139). As the population of graduate students in education becomes increasingly heterogeneous, both the pressure and urgency to be truly inclusive grow. It is within this context, then, of diverse ideas, ways of knowing, perspectives, and participants in afieldwhose exigencies call for insight, and call for it now, that Pallas, Metz, and Page struggle tofigureout how to help doctoral students develop their own understandings and professional ethics. They slice into these questions and provoke us to think more carefully about our conceptions of what it means to know and learn in education. Not surprisingly, we learn that it is no easier to reform graduate education than it is to improve K-12 schooling, and we should applaud Pallas, Metz, and Page for articulate descriptions of the institutional, intellectual, and often personal difficulties encountered in the work of helping students to gain understanding of more than one epistemological perspective. Although the papers developed independently, these authors work together to tackle troublesome concerns posed about the substance and scope of doctoral preparation in education.4 They suggest different starting points, discuss different types of graduate students, and forward different goals, yet each explores a notion of epistemological diversity that holds promise for effective change. In "Preparing Education Doctoral Students for Epistemological Diversity," Pallas presses us with recommendations for organizing experiences in education schools intended to move students beyond a single epistemological perspective. Metz, in "Intellectual Border Crossing in Graduate Education: A Report From the Field," brings poignant insights to the important but taxing work of preparing novices to appreciate and learn from epistemological premises and perspectives different from the traditions of their own education scholarship. In the third paper, "Reshaping Graduate Preparation in Educational Research Methods: One School's Experience," Page takes us inside a story of curriculum change designed to help students develop multiple perspectives in their research. Born from experience and from mindful reflections, the papers that follow offer thoughtful, and at times provocative, commentary on issues important to the future of the field.
T | | EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER

And it is the future to which we must look if these discussions are to effect the transformative work that remains. As Pallas asks in the introduction to his paper, "Do we want to prepare novice researchers for the world of education research as it is, or do we want to prepare them for the world as it might become?" All three authors opt for the latter view and invite faculty to engage openly in a discussion about values, about purpose, and about vision. They argue especially for thoughtful, intentional, and reflexive consideration of systematic experiences that prepare novice researchers in education to deal with epistemological diversity. Each author calls for rich occasions where students have opportunities to learn multiple epistemological perspectives in order to be able to engage meaningfully with members of other communities of education practice. Metz, for example, writes of the importance of researchers learning to "read each others' work across different kinds of research" and of researchers learning "to build on work from traditions other than the one in which they find their intellectual home base." Yet significant caveats to constructing such opportunities remain. For example, how many epistemologies should students encounter, which ones, at what point in the doctoral experience should these be introduced, and to what level of expertise should students be prepared? Should this kind of curriculum be required of all who seek the doctorate in education or should alternative courses of study be developed for those with different career interests? Or, as Page asks, "Should all students, regardless of their career aspirations or talents, be competent in one or even several methodologies?" These issues demand their own kind of considerationcurriculum reform, in factif students are to be provided with opportunities to experience the practice and scholarship of research of the sort that the authors describe. Despite the fact that curriculum development is not business-as-usual in most research institutions, these authors urge us to look beyond individual course titles and create a course of study founded on faculty ideas about substance and an appropriate sequencing of ideas and experiences. Curricular change can be slow and messy. We learn from the experiences and reflections in these papers that the kind of hopedfor curricula will take time to develop and will need time for refinement. Agreeing to experiment along the lines introduced by Pallas, Metz, and Page will require hard and long discussion and will necessitate bridging deep differences among faculty about what students should know and be able to do. In a climate in which public discourse about the doctoral curriculum is largely absent and in which reward structures support individualistic pursuits more often than overall programmatic development (Gumport, 1997), moving this vision forward will require going against the grain. Pallas, Metz, and Page call for including in the discussion of epistemology a much wider group of faculty than those with primary responsibility for methodology courses. In fact, they call forallfaculty to assume responsibility for explicating the assumptions, goals, and epistemologies that undergird their research, their courses, and their initiation of doctoral students into professional life in thefieldof education. Students, too, urge us forward and ask to be part of this conversation. Education students bring a wide array of prior experience to their doctoral programs; many enter programs with several years of practice in K-12 schooling and other education contexts. They also bring with them their own cultural histories and ways of knowing and being in the world. In the same ways

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that we acknowledge epistemological diversity across practices of research, we also see a diversity of epistemology among the practitioners, the community groups, and the family members that we and our students study. We need only look at our students to see how values and cultures influence the sense we make of our observations and the meanings that we give them. Scholars, too, are persons; thus we must acknowledge the relationship among the researcher, the research, and the researched (Neumann, Pallas, & Peterson, 1999; Siddle Walker, 1999), as well as the fact that diversity in one arena may necessitate diversity across arenas. It follows that the preparation that we construct for our students will need to foster deep cross-cultural understandings and a "multilingualism" that will enable them to cross borders in knowledgeable, ethical, and respectful ways. In conclusion, let us return to the ultimate purpose of preparing future researchers in the field: the improvement of education. As we rethink and expand our conceptions of ways of knowing and modes of inquiry, we rethink and shed new light on the problems of teaching and learning, including the teaching and learning that take place in graduate education programs. Pallas, Metz, and Page rather courageously set out some of the challenges of re-envisioning the preparation of education researchers. What they propose is very hard work, but comes at a promising time. The urgency of the need to improve the practice of education may well serve to strengthen the kinds of professional communities of inquiry that can make us (and our doctoral students) better researchers. In fact, the current climate of epistemological uncertainty in the field presses us into the collaborative activity encouraged by the authors of these papers. The process of scholars and students of education addressing issues of vision, making the implicit explicit, reflecting and critiquing work, honoring experience and culture in more intentional communities of inquiry may well advance knowledge and understanding in the field. The practice of researchers with diverse perspectives tangling with the warrants and claims of inquiry has traditionally served to transform knowledge and understanding within any field. What promise at this moment for this field, whose contributions can have significant consequences for learners of all ages.
NOTES
1 The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spencer Foundation. I gratefully acknowledge the constructive and invaluable insights and contributions of valued friends and colleagues, Catherine A. Lacey and Mary C. Visconti. I also acknowledge the helpful comments provided by Educational Researcher reviewers. 2 These questions were posed to Pallas, Metz, and Page at the April 2000 AERA symposium, "Educating a Next Generation of Educational Researchers: Possibilities and Challenges." 3 The percentages (19% and 13%, respectively) refer to doctorates in education awarded to U.S. citizens; in 1998, 11.5% of U.S.-based doctorate recipients in education were African American; 5% Latino; 2% Asian/Pacific Islander; and 1% American Indian/Alaskan Native. 4 Education faculty are not alone in this encouragement to embrace a spirit of experimentation in our graduate programs. The "Re-Envisioning the Ph.D." project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts has engaged in a national dialogue to answer the question, "How can we re-envision the Ph.D. to meet the needs of society of the 21st century?" The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has launched a new initiative, the Responsive Ph.D. project, intended to "provide a richer purpose and a richer population" for Ph.D. education in the humanities and social

sciences (Smallwood, 2001). And the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently announced a new program to study the Ph.D. and doctoral education.
REFERENCES

Gordon, E. W., Miller, F., & Rollock, D. (1990). Coping with communicentric bias in knowledge production in the social sciences. Educational Researcher, 19(3), 8-13. Gumport, P. J. (1997). Public universities as academic workplaces. Daedalus, 126(4), 113-136. Hall, K. (1999). Understanding educational processes in an era of globalization: The view from anthropology and cultural studies. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman (Eds.), Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 121-156. Honderich, T. (Ed.). (1995). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lagemann, E. C. (2000). An elusive science: The troubling history ofeducation research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lagemann, E. C , & Shulman, L. S. (1999). Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Miller, D. W. (1999). The black hole of education research. Chronicle of Higher Education, August 6: A17. Washington, DC. National Research Council. (1999). Improving student learning: A strategicplan for education research and its utilization. Committee on a Feasibility Study for a Strategic Education Research Program. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Neumann, A., Pallas, A. M.,&Peterson, P.L. (1999). Preparing education practitioners to practice education research. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman (Eds.), Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 247-288. Sanderson, A. R., Dugoni, B., HofFer,T., & Selfa, L. (1999). Doctorate recipientsfrom United States universities: Summary report 1998, Table 8. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Schoenfeld, A. H. (1999). The core, the canon, and the development of research skills: Issues in the preparation of education researchers. In E. C. Lagemann&L. S. Shulman (Eds.), Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 166-202. Siddle Walker, V. (1999). Culture and commitment: Challenges for the future training of education researchers. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman, Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 224-244. Smallwood, S. (2001). Wilson Foundation announces plan to increase the value of the Ph.D. Chronicle of Higher Education, January 17. Tooley, J., & Darby, D. (1998). Educational research, a critique: A survey ofpublished educational research. London, England: Office for Standards in Education. Viadero, D. (1999). What is (and isn't) research? Education Week, 18(41), 33-38. Washington, DC: Editorial Projects in Education. Wilson, W. J. (1974). The new black sociology: Reflections on the 'insiders' and 'outsiders' controversy. In J. E. Blackwell & M. Janowitz (Eds.), Black sociologists: Historical and contemporary perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 322-338.
AUTHOR

LAUREN JONES YOUNG is Senior Program Officer at the Spencer Foundation, 875 North Michigan Ave., Suite 3930, Chicago, IL 60611; lyoung@spencer.org.
Manuscript received December 7, 2000 Revision received February 21, 2001 Accepted March 8, 2001
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