Although concepts from social theories have become commonplace in educational research over the past several decades, little attention has been paid to the challenges and opportunities these present and the problems novice educational researchers may encounter when using such concepts in their work. Accessible and illustrated with examples, Using Social Theory in Educational Research is essential reading for graduate students in the field of education and educational researchers with a limited background in social theory. Experienced researchers will also find the discussion of the changes in educational research and practice over the last two decades and arguments about the usefulness of social theory in educational research provocative.
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Published simultaneously in the US and Canada by Routledge. Fazal was also instrumental in developing the background of the fictional character Rick Chavez and his class, and provided invaluable support and advice on the social and cultural environment in which Rick and his students worked.
Introduction
The concluding sections of the chapter focus on a critical discussion of the limitations of the utility of social theory within current educational research practice. Chapters Three and Four provide a practical illustration of the use of social theory within the context of a single project. These two chapters alternate between expository discussions of the theoretical and practical challenges of designing, conducting, and writing up research with social theory, and the fictional account of a teacher researcher's use of social theory in the research process.
Chapter three, 'Theoretically framing research', focuses on the use of social theory in the conceptualization, design, and data collection phases of a research project. The explanatory sections in the chapter focus on using social theory in reflexive, critical ways, about how.
Reading social theory
Before turning to the main ideas of current theorists, I present a brief overview of the most influential ideas of these figures. The Industrial Revolution and the development of the political economic order known as capitalism marked, for Marx, a critical historical shift in the dialectical march of history. Another principle for understanding Saussure's linguistics and its contribution to social theory is his description of the sign.
Perhaps no nineteenth century philosopher has been more abused and misunderstood in the twentieth century than Friedrich Nietzsche. A second theory of discourse, and one that extends Gee's concept of discourse to its broadest sense, can be found in the work of the French philosopher of history and sociology, Michel Foucault (1980). Speech acts have power, or work in the world, because of the pragmatic, socially acquired aptitude that speakers should aspire to.
From Marx he drew on an economically determined view of social order based on two classes: the oppressors and the oppressed.
Social theory and the rhetoric of educational
Then, in the 1980s, a new line of experimental research seemed to provide significant evidence in support of the phonetic method. Most of the original studies did not speculate on the causes of their findings. It was the inadequate conceptualization and definition of one of the basic elements of the studies.
The model of argumentation proposed by Stephen Toulmin in The Uses of Argument (1958) offers one way of framing an analysis of the various ways in which social theories contribute to the creation of arguments in educational research. The presentation of data from the 5thD program and the case of Roger provide evidence to support Ito's arguments about the capitalist trajectory and ideology of the children's software industry. Student Construction of Meaning from One Textbook Description of the Israeli-Arab Conflict,” Dan A.
A third and even more complex example of the use of social theory is “They Won't Let Us Play.” It aligns with Butler's theory and provides a vivid portrait of the hegemonic complexity of a ubiquitous heterosexual matrix. Reading the transcribed remarks of the children's interactions with each other and the adult interviewers brought a level of authenticity to the discussion that would otherwise have been lacking.
The answer to this question brings us back to the book's second axiom, about the inherently rhetorical nature of research as an activity. The effectiveness of a more extensive use of social theory, as in the examples of the articles by Renold and Cook-Sather, can also be evaluated in this way. Discussion of the tensions that inadequate treatment of these axioms has caused in educational research has led to a proposal for a different approach in educational studies.
Framing research theoretically
His parents emigrated from Central America during the turmoil of the early 1980s when he was a baby. He tried out some of the magazine's ideas and even attended one of the annual conferences. Rick put himself in the perspective of his students and suddenly realized that for more than half of the class, his presentation of a.
His students responded, but he still sensed that much of the time they were just "going through the motions," and that their engagement ultimately depended largely on the point they needed or hoped to receive. . A critical examination of the study's arguments can easily lead to the conclusion that instead of "sweeping up". 4 What differences will be seen between groups in the content and style of the students' final video products.
He sent the members of the Public Opinion group to the computer lab to search for websites on. In the opening scene of the tape, the camera moved down the hall, paused at the boy's toilet, and then entered. At the end of three weeks, Rick was very concerned that any of the group's video segments would be finished on time.
Rick hoped this would take some of the pressure off the students, but when he announced the plan, the students refused. But Rick's instructor and peers in his Youth Cultures course had a very different reading of the videos when he showed them for his final presentation. And, what about the conversations students had with each other, concurrently with the teacher's talk.
Writing with social theory
In contrast, imagine a study of classroom interactions adapted from, for example, a reading of the work of (and earlier research based on) Russian literary and language theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1981). Bakhtin would also give direction and focus to the interpretation of findings from the study. He also noted Curtis' strong defense of the moon incident and his argument, in principle.
Are strict conventions followed for organization (introduction; literature review; methods; findings; discussion; conclusion) or is there more freedom in the organization of the writing. In the literature review that follows, provide a brief but more detailed discussion of social and cultural production and the recent literature on multiliteracies. He decided on a chronological review of the history of literature on social and cultural production and reproduction.
Remember, you will have a chance to return to this literature and discuss some of it in greater depth in later sections of the chapter.”. Any involvement of the researcher in the research process itself will have to be reported, but only as a limitation that qualified claims of generalizability and repeatability. In the fourth pattern identified, social theory functioned as a dialectical scaffold – a framework that was itself somewhat modified and refined by its encounter with the experience of the research.
Rick then answered his third research question, which concerned the content of the video fragments. He documented the students' ingenuity in drawing stylistically for music videos and television programs. In the concluding section of the chapter, Rick repeated his findings in summary form and called for three issues that needed further attention.
Social theory and the production of general
This is a daunting task, not so much because of the intellectual and theoretical challenges it poses, but because it runs counter to history and much of what is written and taught today in graduate courses on social theory and qualitative and ethnographic research. Qualitative and ethnographic research, which has always been somewhat marginalized as a social science practice, was put to work in the service of this project, but not before its traditional alignment with the discursive demands of the center was deconstructed and its inherent contradictions were revealed. As with social science research, the purpose of doing educational research has changed dramatically, from contributing to bodies of general knowledge to contributing to the subversion of the idea of the existence of general, objective knowledge, and in some cases to showing social injustice caused by claims of objectivity.
I published an impressionistic and partly confessional account of contradictions within the discourses of the Whole Language Movement, which was the dominant approach to early literacy instruction in the US in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Dressman 1995). In their embrace of the subjective and the critique of objective ways of knowing, the recent practices of qualitative and ethnographic research are fraught with contradictions which, upon reflection, also lead to their deconstruction. A second and perhaps more telling indicator of the search for general meaning within recent qualitative and ethnographic research is the use by many studies of social theory as a framework at the various stages of a research project.
I suspect that the answer lies, in part, in the recent discourses of social sciences and educational research, in which questions of what constitutes general knowledge are contained within criteria of statistical generalizability, such as randomized sampling of populations and the use of control groups. as well as by the qualitative and ethnographic research community's distance from the objectivity of research claims and its embrace of local meanings and subjective understanding. 1994) Scientific literacy and the myth of the scientific method, Champaign:. 2004) Race, Racism and American Law, 4thedn, Gaithersburg: Aspen Law and Business. 1962) Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Shaped Public School Administration, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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