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2. A SCHEMATIC HISTORY
OF THE
and tested through further actions (Schn, 1983, 1987). The research
methods and procedures developed to give practical expression to
this view of educational theory were the methods and procedures of
Action Research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986; Elliott, 1991).
Although this schematic history of the twentieth-century educational theory debate is inadequate and incomplete, it is nevertheless
sufficient to allow aspects of the debate that have remained invisible
from within the debate to become more transparent. For example,
what now clearly emerges are some of the assumptions governing
the way in which the question what is educational theory? has been
debated and discussed. These assumptions take as given that theory
is everything that practice is not: that whatever else it is, educational
theory is abstract rather than concrete, general rather than particular,
context-free rather than context-dependent. In other words, what
is now clear is how the educational theory debate has always been
predicated on the assumption that, however conceived, educational
theory is not itself a practice that has its source in history and culture
and always stands apart from the practice it aspires to affect.
With historical hindsight, it is now also transparently obvious that
although prevailing views about the epistemological foundations of
educational theory have changed from philosophy to science, then to
a collection of academic disciplines and finally to practitioners
own theories-in-use, the logically prior assumption that a practical
activity like education is, or should be, based on some kind of theory
has never been seriously debated or discussed. What is also apparent
is how the arguments used to vindicate these different views of
educational theorys epistemological foundations were always
intimately related to, and reinforced by, the particular intellectual
climate in which the debate occurred. Thus while the different
arguments that have dominated the twentieth-century educational
theory debate may, to their particular protagonists, have been widely
regarded as compelling and conclusive, it is now obvious that these
arguments were being advanced at a time in which what was to count
as a compelling and conclusive argument was itself always being
shaped by historically specific changes to the academic culture in
which the educational theory debate was embedded. Moreover, the
fact that these arguments did not occur in an historical vacuum,
should not conceal the extent to which the questions they addressed
also have their origins in a historical period that furnished the
intellectual and cultural conditions which allowed these questions
to be authentically expressed. Abstracted from this historical
context and transposed to a context in which these intellectual and
cultural conditions are no longer present, questions like What is
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FOUNDATIONALIST PROJECT
In the late nineteenth century, it was this Enlightenment aspiration to formulate universal standards of rationality that informed the
ways in which modern social and political theorists were to define
their intellectual ambitions and conduct their academic debates.
Henceforth, the principal purpose of their intellectual projects would
be to bring the methods and procedures of rational justification into
critical confrontation with the practices and institutions of all spheres
of social and political life. Similarly, academic debate would be conducted in accordance with universal principles of rational argument
that were undeniable to all rational persons and therefore immune
to the irrational influences of rhetorical persuasion or political
power. In the age of Enlightenment, reason would replace authority
and the conduct and organisation of social life would be based on
knowledge that was demonstrably rational and true. In the age of
Enlightenment, the role of the intellectual would be to speak truth
to power.
Thus it turns out that the educational theory project was essentially
a foundationalist project inspired by Enlightenment values and ideals
and rooted in the epistemological assumptions of late nineteenth
and early twentieth century modernity. As such, it was predicated on
the assumption that educational institutions and practices should be
governed by theoretical knowledge that rests on rational foundations
that are invariable across contexts and cultures, stand apart from all
partisan or political concerns and thus provide an external reference
point from which the rationality of educational beliefs and practices
can be independently adjudicated and assessed. Understood in this
way, the overriding purpose of the educational theory project was to
accomplish two related tasks. The first was essentially philosophical:
to identify epistemological foundations for educational theory that
would enable educational practice to be erected on rational principles
that are more objective and rational than mere belief of unexamined
practice. The second was essentially practical: to replace the contextually dependent, subjective beliefs of practitioners with the contextfree, objective knowledge generated by theory. It was only when
educational practitioners acted on the basis of such knowledge that
their practice would be governed by universal rational principles
that apply always and everywhere, rather than on their local and
parochial practical beliefs.
Once it is acknowledged that our present concept of educational
theory is deeply embedded in the foundationalist discourse of
modernity, some obvious questions begin to emerge. Has the historical period in which foundationalist beliefs could be unconsciously
assumed now come to an end? Do the cultural and intellectual
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POSTFOUNDATIONALIST CRITIQUE
so as to include the former as well as the latter. But just as clearly, the
consequence of so doing is to make the notion of theory trivial by
making it another name for ordinary everyday practical beliefs.
To treat practitioners beliefs as synonymous with their theoretical
assumptions not only renders the notion of theory vacuous; it also
misrepresents postfoundationalism. For although the insight that
every practice is defined in terms of the intentions and beliefs of the
teacher is certainly a postfoundationalist insight, this does not mean
that one is committed in being practical to theoretical assumptions
of some sort (op. cit., p. 129). What practitioners are committed to
is not a theory but a set of beliefs and, in reflecting upon these
beliefs, what they are making explicit is not their theoretical assumptions but that cluster of related beliefs which provide them with their
interpretive understanding of their practice and the context within
which their practice takes place. In articulating their beliefs in this
way, practitioners are neither engaging in theoretical activity nor
articulating their theoretical position. What they are articulating
are the beliefs that underwrite their practice not their allegiance
to some theory.
But, even if we are persuaded by Prings argument to label the
activity of critically reflection a theoretical activity, difficulties still arise.
Far from being a neutral activity that can be undertaken from some
impartial standpoint, critical reflection is itself always conducted
within a set of assumptions, beliefs and practices in Prings case
concerning what is to count as evidence and what constitutes the
appropriate methods and procedures of conceptual clarification
that are peculiar to some particular and hence partial understanding
of what the activity of critical reflection involves. So although it is
undoubtedly true that there is a difference between those reflective
practitioners who critically examine their practices on the basis of
evidence and conceptual clarification and those who practice in a more
or less routine and uncritical way, this is not a difference between
practitioners whose practices are no longer constrained by contextually embedded and uncritically held beliefs and practitioners whose
practices still remain so constrained. Nor are practitioners who critically assess their practice in the light of evidence and conceptual
clarification acting in an impartial or disinterested way. They are
simply adopting a perspective on their practice that is constrained by
an unreflectively and uncritically held set of assumptions and beliefs
which constitute a partial, particular, and therefore always contestable,
understanding of what being reflective or being self-critical mean.
Prings postfoundationalist version of educational theory is not
unique and similar examples can readily be adduced (Carr, 1995;
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5. EDUCATION
WITHOUT
THEORY?
6. CONCLUSION
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, educational theory
has taken many different forms. But what has never changed is the
fundamental assumption that, by occupying an independent and
neutral position outside the field of educational practice, educational
theory can act as an arbiter for assessing the rationality of educational
beliefs and practices. Thus the prevailing image of educational theory
remains that of something that informs practice without itself being
a form of practice, as something that releases educational practice
from its dependence on contingent norms and constraints without
itself being dependent on contingent norms and constraints, as
something that can infuse educational practice with the rationality it
so patently lacks. This image is displayed in educational theorys
portrayal of itself as a unique source of rationally vindicated
educational knowledge. And it is continually being reinforced by
educational theorys claim to be the custodian of the intellectual
virtues of objectivity, validity and truth.
One of my purposes has been to show how this image derives from
the culture of modernity in which the twentieth-century educational
theory project was initially formulated. Another has been to show
how the foundationalist discourse endemic to this culture continues
to set the terms of the contemporary educational theory debate. But
my main aim has been to argue that this foundationalist discourse
has now been superseded by a postfoundationalist discourse in
which forms of theorising that continue to depend on foundationalist assumptions are deprived of any intellectual credibility. And the
general thesis I have pursued on the basis of this argument is that
the aspiration to create a body of educational theory that can inform
and guide educational practice was, and still remains, an essentially
foundationalist project that no longer has any place in the postfoundationalist culture in which we now live.
My strategy for pursuing this thesis has been to elaborate the
consequences for educational theory of some of the principal
insights of postfoundationlist thought: that we are all interpretively
situated; that educational theory is always the product of the educational theorists own interpretive assumptions; that educational
theory is just one more discursive practice; that educational theory
does not cause educational change but may be appropriated in the
cause of educational change. The conclusion I have drawn from these
insights is that educational theorys aspiration to escape the world of
practice in order to justify it from without is futile, that practical
justification is the only kind there is, that we should stop searching
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8. REFERENCES
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Correspondence
Professor Wilfred Carr
University of Sheffield
School of Education
388 Glossop Road
Sheffield S10 2JA
E-mail: w.carr@sheffield.ac.uk
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