POSSIBLE FUTURES FOR TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS:
A META-THEORY ORIENTATION
by
Jared C. Svendsen
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of
The College of Education
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida
August, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Jared C. Svendsen
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to express sincere gratitude to his committee members for all of their patience, guidance and support. The author also wishes to extend a special thanks to his co-advisors for their keen insights and wisdom, as well as their ability to bring out the very best in him, as a scholar, throughout this process.
iv ABSTRACT
Author: Jared C. Svendsen
Title: Possible Futures for Teacher Education Programs: Meta-Theory Orientation
Institution: Florida Atlantic University
Dissertation Advisors: Dr. Ira Bogotch and Dr. Dilys Schoorman
Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Year: 2016
This study problematizes teacher education, and its accreditation guidelines as set forth by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. The analysis herein conceptualizes teacher education as contextually contingent on sociocultural metanarratives, as functioning paradigmatically through consensus and gatekeeping mechanisms, and as a structure existing within a matrix of discipline and surveillance that is designed to perpetuate status quo power dynamics. This conceptualization grounds dominant teacher education modalities within a specific meta-theory orientation.
Through this analysis, the author also explores an alternative conceptualization of teacher education that appeals to the educative power of contextual awareness, ontological sensitivity, and democratically recursive pedagogical and relational processes. Such a conceptualization reflects an alternative meta-theory orientation.
v For the purposes of this analysis, the author employed textual analysis of sampled website literature from Teacher Education Programs in six geographic regions within the
United States. This textual analysis was grounded in the aforementioned conceptualizations and was intended to reveal meta-theory orientations as expressed in a program’s official text.
vi DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to Sarah, Emma and Caroline for their undying love and support throughout this process.
POSSIBLE FUTURES FOR TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS:
A META-THEORY ORIENTATION
LIST OF TABLES ...... xvii
LIST OF FIGURES ...... xviii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ...... 1
The Problem in Context ...... 1
Teacher Education Situated Theoretically and Methodologically ...... 5
Positivism via Scientism - The Quest for Certainty ...... 7
Positivism and Education ...... 13
Gender and Academic Bias ...... 15
Gender Bias - The Deskilling of the Profession ...... 16
Academic Bias - Conforming Standardization ...... 18
Social and Political Influences ...... 21
Social Influences - Economization of the Profession ...... 22
Political Influence - Playing the Numbers Game ...... 24
Significance of Study ...... 26
Research Questions ...... 27
Key Concepts ...... 28
Chapter 2 Overview ...... 29
Chapter 3 Overview ...... 31
viii CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 34
Introduction to Part I (Themisean Meta-Theory) ...... 34
Themisean Framework: Metanarratives ...... 38
Metanarratives ...... 42
Lyotard's Metanarratives and the Postmodern Condition ...... 43
Metanarrative 1: Scientism ...... 44
Scientism: The Problem of Legitimacy ...... 46
Scientism: Determinism ...... 48
Scientism: Philosophical Problems ...... 51
Metanarrative 2: The Technologization of Knowledge ...... 53
Technologization: Political and Moral Apathy, and Impoverished Reasoning ...... 54
Technologization: Power Implications ...... 56
Technologization: Historical and Contextual Considerations ...... 57
Technologization: Re-engineering Education ...... 58
Metanarrative 3: Performativity ...... 60
Performativity: Measured Outcomes and Acontextual Efficacy ...... 61
Performativity: Transfer of Educational Authority ...... 62
Metanarrative 4: Manageralism ...... 65
Manageralism: Accountability Redefined ...... 65
Manageralism: Social Relationships Redefined ...... 66
Conclusion ...... 68
Themisean Framework: Paradigms ...... 70
Kuhn: The Social Dimension of Scientific Research ...... 73
ix An Important Consideration ...... 73
Paradigms ...... 74
Paradigms, Scientism and the Social Sciences ...... 78
The Progressivism Paradigm ...... 85
Paradigm as an Analytic Tool ...... 86
Normal Science ...... 88
Paradigm Shifts ...... 92
Conclusion ...... 97
Themisean Framework: Epistemes ...... 98
Foucault's Episteme ...... 102
Technologies of Power ...... 107
Discipline Through Control ...... 112
Challenges to the Episteme ...... 115
Introduction to Part II (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 118
The Nature of Theory ...... 119
Theory as Language-based ...... 121
Theory as Historical and Evolutionary ...... 122
An Alternative Model for Teacher Education ...... 123
Erisean Richness: Awareness ...... 125
Erisean Recursion: Problematization and Reflexivity ...... 127
Genealogy and Archaeology ...... 129
Producing Genealogies ...... 130
Erisean Rigor: Appreciation of Perspective and the Power of Language ...... 131
x Discourse ...... 134
Erisean Relations: Growth and the Transformation of the Self ...... 135
Research and the Self ...... 138
Language and the Self ...... 139
Pedagogy and the Self ...... 140
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHOD ...... 142
Purpose of Study ...... 142
Conceptual Framework ...... 143
Lyotard’s Metanarrative ...... 144
Kuhn’s Paradigm ...... 144
Foucault’s Episteme ...... 145
Methodology and Procedures ...... 146
Critical Discourse Analysis ...... 146
Data Collection ...... 149
Data Analysis ...... 150
Limitations ...... 154
Delimitations ...... 154
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS ...... 156
The Study’s Trajectory and Goals ...... 156
Appreciating the Big Picture: Preliminary Findings ...... 158
Sociocultural Ideals ...... 158
The Meta-theory Spectrum ...... 160
Critical Textual Analysis of CAEP: Phase I Findings ...... 161
xi Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 162
Outcomes ...... 162
Manageralism ...... 163
Performativity ...... 164
Operationalism ...... 165
Technologization ...... 165
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 166
Consensus and Gatekeeping ...... 166
Prediction and Metric Standards ...... 169
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 171
Discipline ...... 171
Surveillance ...... 173
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-Theory) ...... 175
Family ...... 176
Being ...... 176
CAEP’s Presence in Teacher Education ...... 178
Summary ...... 178
Individual Program Analysis: Phase II Findings ...... 179
Program 1: University of California Irvine ...... 179
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 179
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 180
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 180
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 181
xii Program 2: Boise State University ...... 181
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 182
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 184
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 185
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 185
Program 3: Arizona State University ...... 187
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 188
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 190
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 191
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 191
Program 4: Miami University of Ohio ...... 193
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 194
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 196
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 197
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 198
Program 5: Montclair State University ...... 201
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 201
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 203
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 204
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 204
Program 6: North Carolina State University at Raleigh ...... 208
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives ...... 209
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms ...... 212
xiii Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme ...... 213
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-theory) ...... 214
Sampled EPPs and Their Commitments ...... 217
Summary ...... 217
Recognizable Patterns and Emerging Themes ...... 218
Themisean Themes Related to Metanarratives ...... 221
High Quality Effectiveness ...... 221
Innovative Technology Integration ...... 222
Themisean Themes Related to Paradigms ...... 225
Consensus ...... 225
Themisean Themes Related to the Episteme ...... 228
Disciplining Surveillance ...... 229
In Summary ...... 229
Erisean Themes ...... 230
Being ...... 232
Community Service ...... 233
Contextual Diversity ...... 234
In Summary ...... 235
Interpreting the Themes: Discerning Meaning from the Patterns ...... 236
Synthesis ...... 236
The Normalizing and Standardizing Roles of Consensus ...... 237
A Shift in Consensus is Possible: There Is Hope ...... 239
CHAPTER 5: IMPLICATIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION META-THEORY ..... 242
xiv Purpose of the Study ...... 242
The Text Speaks Volumes: Continued Analysis of the Findings ...... 242
A Closer Look at Metanarratives as Sociocultural Ideals ...... 244
Changing The Teacher Education Landscape ...... 248
Research Implications: Systemic, Professional and Personal Links ...... 250
Richness ...... 250
Multiplicities of Textual Meaning ...... 251
Education as a Complex, Chaotic System ...... 253
Curriculum as a Complex, Chaotic Intellectual Artifact ...... 256
The Evolution of Ideas as a Complex, Chaotic Process ...... 257
Recursion ...... 259
A Speculative Third Level of Change ...... 260
Recursion Through Future Research ...... 262
Recursion Through Feedback ...... 263
Recursion Through Reflection ...... 265
Rigor ...... 266
Rigor Through Disequilibrium ...... 267
Rigor Through Conversation ...... 268
Rigor Through Trial and Error ...... 269
Rigor Through Shared Accountability ...... 270
Relations ...... 271
Curriculum Relations ...... 272
Pedagogical Relations ...... 273
xv Final Thoughts ...... 275
The Implications of Disciplinary Surveillance ...... 279
The Reality of Erisean Commitments ...... 280
APPENDICES ...... 284
Appendix A. Critique of Positivism ...... 285
Appendix B. Erisean Meta-Theory in Practice ...... 290
REFERENCES ...... 307
xvi TABLES
Table 1. Summary of EPP Codes ...... 218
Table 2. Emerging Themes from Phase I and II Analysis ...... 231
xvii FIGURES
Figure 1. Function Model of Contemporary Education Science or Themisean Meta-theory Model (as manifested at the University, Research and Policy Levels) ...... 36
Figure 2. Erisean meta-theory: Awareness approach ...... 120
Figure 3. Findings related to the Themisean Model ...... 243
Figure 4. Findings Related to the Erisean Model ...... 244
Figure 5. Erisean Paradigm ...... 279
xviii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
The Problem in Context
Teacher Education is inescapably a social, cultural and political act. While many professionals in the field may not readily identify their work as such, it is hard to deny the highly contextual nature of scholarly endeavors within the field of education. All too often, educators fail to acknowledge the sociocultural and historical forces as well as the non-empirical presuppositions that form the basis of scholarly work within the field, including teacher training. As these dimensions of education continue to go unrecognized, theoretical “blind” and “blank” spots (Wagner, 1993) emerge that may ultimately reduce education’s power to affect positive change for the student, the school and society in at least three different ways. First, these “blind” and “blank” spots may serve to perpetuate the status quo as it relates to the lack of equal opportunities for academic success within the school (Biesta, 2010). Secondly, they may contribute to the reinforcement of existing sociocultural structures of power (external to the school) according to the degree to which social justice concerns manifest in education (St. Pierre,
2012). Lastly, “blind” and “blank” spots may serve to inveigle educators away from adequately addressing the art, the spirit, and the fundamental aims of the education process.
Phelan (2014) observed problematic assumptions at the foundation of contemporary teacher education. First, current education research, as it relates to teacher education and the futile search for trans-contextual “best practices,” is primarily utilized
1
to provide “instrumental or technical knowledge that can inform and transform teacher education as a productive process” (Phelan, 2014, p. 165). Similarly, Gallagher (2014) described the powerful “allure of scientific (or better said, scientistic) educational theory aimed at achieving prediction and control over educational processes” (p. 89). This allure arises from the mistaken perception (as I will attempt to show in Chapter 2) that such an orientation is neutral and objective. However, as Gallagher argued, scientifically-oriented education theory is fundamentally unable to control and predict desired educational outcomes, across contexts, through prescribed education procedures or best practices.
According to Gallagher, teacher education that promotes pedagogy based on instrumental control will lead to decontextualized education--education that will ultimately fail in a real world classroom. Paradoxically, as universities attempt to make teacher education more scientific, it becomes less relevant. For, as Gallagher observed, when instrumentalist methods set out to make education phenomena neat, tidy and fully explainable/predictable, education phenomena becomes radically transformed, through idealization and reification, into something that it is not.
Secondly, Phelan (2014) posited a contemporary exclusionary focus on outcomes and effectiveness. Historically, this shift in focus occurred when technological models of education research and teacher education replaced a moral model that was committed to axiological concerns and considerations of aims and goals—a shift precipitated by greater government involvement in teacher education that required empirical, generalizable evidence to support policy. Additionally, Gallagher (2014) asserted that the search for short-term procedural fixes simply does not address the systemic problems and underlying failures associated with contemporary education. Gallagher argued that
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technological models of education research and policy treat fundamental education problems with a “superficial instrumentalism severed from any acknowledgement or consideration of its consequences” (p. 89)
Lastly, Phelan (2014) agued that contemporary models of teacher education ignore issues such as the desirability of policy, curricular and pedagogical ends, and the fundamentally hermeneutic nature of the education process—what Phelan describes as “a process of mutual interpretation participants” (p. 165). Education is a much more complex phenomenon than science-based models will allow for. According to several observers (Gallagher, 2014; Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007; Smedslund, 1979), despite tremendous effort over the past several decades, educational psychologists have been unable to discover any generalizable laws or establish any fundamental causal theory in education, and what has been touted as such in the literature are simply nothing more than truisms. Gallagher (2014) summed up the modus operandi of the technical/instrumental theoretical framework within education by suggesting that its overall failure to come up with a compelling instrumentalist foundation is understood “as yet another technical problem to be remedied by more technical fixes rather than a fundamental problem with their methodology” (p. 89).
The purpose of this study is to engage in a critique of teacher education. In doing so, I embrace Foster’s (1986) notion of “problematization” (p. 166). Accordingly, I hope to encourage teacher educators to “develop a reflective consciousness about prevailing conditions” (Foster, 1986, p. 166) as a means by which to generate alternative theoretical and practical approaches that directly address these conditions. Furthermore, I intend for this problematization of teacher education to occur within the context of a community of
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scholars who, according to Foster (1986), “can engage in continuing and unrepressed communication about existent school conditions and possibilities for change” (p. 167).
Ultimately this study is about action and awareness. Regarding action, there are two crucial components to the specific type of action that I endorse. First, action must be informed by theory and molded by democratic and communicative processes (Biesta,
2010). Secondly, action must have practical objectives that guide its trajectory (Foster,
1986). For example, such action can result in positive societal change through “a raising of consciousness about possibilities by penetrating the dominating ideas of total ideologies and analyzing the possible forms of life” (Foster, 1986, p. 167). Additionally, action, as the practical means of challenging the status quo, is strengthened through an awareness of the philosophical, historical, social and cultural forces that permeate the context within which education research and practice take place. This awareness is reminiscent of Kincheloe’s (2004) meta-epistemological perspective—a perspective through which education students become exposed to issues of context at both the macro
(sociocultural, historical, political) and micro (district, school, classroom, student) levels, as well as values, ontology and self, theory, and the philosophical underpinnings of methodology. Awareness is also related to multiculturalism and issues of diversity. For example, I associate awareness as a direct response to the problem of “whiteness” as posited by Sleeter (2001). According to Sleeter, “whiteness” is the presence of a predominantly white perspective in curriculum, pedagogy and administration that often results in neglecting the perspectival richness of other cultures and races. Teacher education that recognizes “whiteness,” or systemic white supremacy, as a problem will embrace awareness and provide opportunities for students to connect with and relate to
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the other. Ultimately, I assert that the systemic malignancies within education today such as positivist reductionism, political xenophobia, and pedagogical acontextualism, stem directly from a fundamental lack of awareness. When we, as educators, become more aware, we will not only be equipped to combat gender bias, racial discrimination, and ethno-cultural ignorance and marginalization, we will also desire to meet each student where he or she is by building relationships through shared humanness. Such awareness- driven action can lead to the restoration of education as a process of liberation through mutual love and respect (Freire, 2000). This path of restoration is a bottom to top endeavor. It is up to each individual teacher to make a difference, through action informed by awareness, one classroom at a time.
So what should educators be aware of? What aspects of contemporary education ought to be problematized within teacher education? The next several sections will address the philosophical, historical, sociocultural and political problems affecting education in general as well as teacher education in particular.
Teacher Education Situated Theoretically and Methodologically
Foster (1986), in his Paradigms and Promises: New Approaches to Educational
Administration, alluded to the potential emergence of “blind” and “blank” spots when he discusses the power of “unconsidered beliefs [in forming] the basis for how schools are organized and conducted” (p. 165). Moreover, Foster argued that all scholarly endeavors are inextricably linked to conceptual frameworks, or contexts that give meaning to data.
These frameworks can arbitrarily shift over time due to the inherently limited power of theory to provide a one to one correspondence with reality (Foster, 1986, p. 54). Even the ostensibly neutral or objective domain of scientific inquiry is, itself, a complex human
5
endeavor guided by the lexicon that exists within a given conceptual framework.
Sometimes this human element transmogrifies science into ideology that can be used to propagate and defend ideas that arguably rest outside the purview of science. To illustrate the role of a conceptual framework, Foster offered the example of the theoretical nature of curriculum (p. 25). According to one framework, curriculum is received public knowledge that is archived in textbooks. Therefore, a student can learn the curriculum by simply listening to the teacher teach from these textbooks. According to a different framework, curriculum is private, individualized knowledge that can only be achieved through discovery and experiment. Obviously the adopted framework greatly influences how teachers will be taught to conceptualize education and practice their profession within the classroom. I intend to investigate the presence and influence of a dominant framework, as suggested by and described in the literature, that defines teacher education today. Additionally, if such a dominant framework is detected, I wish to examine its ramifications on the theoretical and practical orientations of our future teachers. Driving this study is the conclusion drawn by many scholars critical of contemporary teacher education and education research that there is a real problem in teacher education resulting from a pervasive affinity to a framework that tends to neglect or dismiss issues of context and the self. This results in a lack of awareness. Indeed, this lack of awareness is the central problem of the study. In tackling this problem, I will problematize the philosophy, history, sociology and politics of the field to determine some of the factors that have thwarted an appreciation for context in teacher education today. These factors can be categorized as those related to the quest for certainty (positivism via scientism), those related to the deskilling of the profession (gender bias), those related to the
6
conforming standardization of the profession (academic bias and scientism), those related to the economization of the profession (neo-liberal sociocultural context), and those related to playing the numbers game (contemporary policy).
Positivism via Scientism - The Quest for Certainty
Positivism, with its quest for certainty, has arguably been the greatest philosophical influence on education scholarship over the past century. Scientism, an ideological manifestation of this epistemological orientation, is the forced, seemingly blind, application of positivist modes and methods without respect to a field’s investigatory subjects. Many contemporary researchers (Bellman, 2014; Biesta, 2010;
Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007; Popkewitz, 2014; St. Pierre, 2012) argue that scientism has permeated education research and practice. Accordingly, its presence and influence has led to diminished awareness in education. Of most concern to this study are its explicit endorsement of exclusionary methodologies and its proclivity towards reductive conceptualization for the sake of predictability and generalizability.
The roots of positivism, as the foundation of scientism, can be traced back to the ideas of 17th Century mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes integrated “the clear logic of mathematics, with its ideal of objectivity and its ability to represent truth in numbers” into his philosophy (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 486). As it developed, his philosophy rejected contingency and mathematized science (St. Pierre,
2012, p. 486). This philosophical approach contributed to the modern re-organization of knowledge as science. Moreover, Descartes conceptualized the individual’s rational mind as “unified, conscious, coherent, stable, rational […that] exists ahead of knowledge and culture” (St. Pierre, 2012 p. 487). Consequently, the investigatory mind (i.e., researcher
7
or practitioner), through rational and empirical modes and methodologies, was perceived as culturally and historically transcendent and capable of producing true knowledge outside the realm of values and ethics (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 487). Through Descartes’ influential ideas, epistemology became more closely associated with mathematic and scientific inquiry, and it became increasingly disassociated with the contingencies of context.
As Descartes’ philosophical ideas paved the way for greater precision and rigor in scientific inquiry of the natural world, social scientist Auguste Comte began applying them to the social sciences. As a forerunner of scientism, Comte rejected all metaphysical or non-empirical knowledge because he claimed such knowledge was characterized by
“the imagination, sophistry, and illusion and also by absolute principals that cannot be proven by observations” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 487). Comte believed rational, scientific understanding to be the culmination of humanity’s intellectual development and thus posited its primacy over axiological and metaphysical modes of reasoning (St. Pierre,
2012, p. 487). Furthermore, Comte asserted the existence of a universal social order that is analogous to the orderly, law-like behavior of phenomena in the natural world. As such, this universal social order would be on equal footing with the surety and determinism inherent in natural laws such as gravity (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 488). Such ideas paved the way for scientism’s reductive, predictive and deterministic conceptualizations of social phenomena—particularly, educational interests such as pedagogy and curriculum.
Like Descartes, Comte argued that this science-based, empirical, philosophical orientation rests outside the sphere of human values, ethics and subjectivity. Thus, the
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ostensibly scientific laws governing the social world exist independent of human discourse (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 488). Historically, Comte’s ideas emerged from within the contexts of the great social unrest and upheaval that occurred during the French and
Industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, Comte “proposed a positive spirit that would counteract the critical spirit and the critical reason he believed had produced social unrest” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 487). Comte implored the governing classes to employ his science-centric sociology so that the existing social order could be preserved. Comte argued that if fixed and transcendental laws govern society, then the status quo is a natural, determined consequence that should not be challenged. Within this theoretical framework, any challenges to the social order would be a direct challenge to unbreakable universal laws and could therefore be relegated to the realm of the irrational—“the realm of speculation, imagination and the unreal” (St. Pierre, 2012, p.
488).
In Comte’s sociology, science serves as the means by which to engineer society according to a set of unimpeachable, universal laws. Accordingly, inquiry into social phenomena becomes “a social physics that uses a mathematical analysis of the social and natural worlds” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 488) and that eschews ethical speculation.
Ultimately, Comte redefined knowledge by constraining it to expressions of certainty, precision and utility (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 488). This reductive approach to knowledge and knowledge acquisition would later manifest as scientism—a dominating force in education research and practice during the 20th century. Moreover, Comte’s conception of social science left no room for critical examination and reflection within its various
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fields. Once formulated on this positivistic foundation, scientism dictates that a field’s modes of inquiry are fixed and absolute.
The Logical Positivism philosophical movement can be viewed as the next historical step towards scientism. It developed in the early 20th century through the philosophical collaborations among members of the Vienna Circle. These men were greatly influenced by the thoughts of Descartes and Comte and “believed the rationality of science was the cure for the world’s problems” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 489). In fact, the logical positivists posited a unified theory of science suggesting that all fields of inquiry, in order to be considered a true science, must embrace the same epistemology as well as the same modes and methods of inquiry (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 490). According to St. Pierre
(2012), this proposed unification of the sciences endorsed “a single scientific method
[that] can adequately identify and describe the covering laws that exist in both the social and natural worlds and produce a unified, coherent body of knowledge” (p. 490). This view is a logical extension to Comte’s foundational ideas.
In many ways, logical positivism contributed to the clarity and transparency of intellectual inquiry. According to Foster (1986), “To its credit, logical positivism aimed at eliminating mystic and metaphysical thought that concealed the structure of human relations” (p. 35). Indeed, its influential philosophical precepts did, in fact, contribute to the removal of metaphysical speculation so pervasive in the sciences during the 19th century (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 489). However, in many ways, logical positivism greatly restricted what can count as knowledge. First, the logical positivists equated true knowledge with scientific knowledge that can be both verified and expressed as a formal, logical argument (Foster, 1986, p. 35). Accordingly, only phenomena that can be
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experienced physically and quantified through measurement rightfully belong to the domain of true knowledge. Everything else is dismissed as speculative and metaphysical
(St. Pierre, 2012, p. 490). This verifiability manifests today within experimental education research driven to produce “uncontaminated, unbiased, value-free data” (St.
Pierre, 2012, p. 490) through scientific and statistical methodologies. Valid data results only from precise empirical measurements and exists independent of any theoretical or conceptual framework (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 491). This restrictive definition of valid knowledge is one of the hallmarks of scientism in contemporary education research. It prohibits potentially relevant knowledge and insight from receiving serious consideration within policy circles and funding institutes.
Secondly, the logical positivists heralded the predictive capacity of science as essential to any knowledge-seeking endeavor. According to St. Pierre (2012), this predictive capacity uses “causal relations and context-free theories […to enable] control, what some call social engineering” (p. 490). This is of particular interest to the present study because I assert that such generalizable, context free predictions contribute to the problematized, systemic lack of awareness that permeates education research and practice as well as teacher education programs due to scientism’s dominant presence.
Lastly, the logical positivists embraced the notion of incrementalism and its implications on the pursuit of knowledge. This notion is also a central perspective within scientism. As such, incrementalism posits “the idea that knowledge steadily accumulates, an idea found in the Enlightenment metanarrative of progress“ (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 492).
According to the dictates of scientism, as knowledge accumulates over time and builds on earlier discoveries, errors get corrected and we move ever closer to the truth. This process
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of accumulation and error removal, ostensibly paves the way toward an infallible and
“solid foundation of scientific truth” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 492) regardless of the phenomena, the subject and the context. Such a perspective neglects the contingency of human discourse, culture and history.
According to St. Pierre (2012), the central tenets of logical positivism, as manifested in scientism, include the following philosophical and methodological modalities. First, scientism rejects all non-observable, non-measurable, speculative and critical ideas. Observability is central to all modes of investigation due to its supposed high degree of objectivity and because it is the link between past, present and future experimentation. Secondly, those operating within scientism embrace the use of exact, formal, mathematical methods of inquiry. Within scientism, such methods are of fundamental importance in that they provide for the formulation of universal laws that enable researchers to make new predictions. Lastly, those within scientism reject any epistemological division between the social and natural sciences, and they believe in a unified theory of science that allows for a common methodology within both.
Logical positivism emerged as a philosophical orientation “designed to free man
[sic] from a world of contradiction and contingency” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 484) and is currently thriving under the guise of scientism to quantify and generalize phenomena in education that are simply incommensurable to such pursuits. Those operating under scientism share the belief that sense experience is the only means by which to pursue knowledge or validate truth claims, thus rendering meaningless any attempt to advance a correspondence with reality that is not founded on such experiences (Peters & Burbules,
2004). According to St. Pierre (2012), logical positivism developed as part of “an age-old
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desire to get below the messy, contingent surface of human existence to a pristine, originary foundation, the bedrock of certitude” (p. 493). Foster (1986) argued that this desire for certainty and order has led to instrumental and bureaucratic rationality, decontextualized models, and new positivistic and behaviorist conceptual frameworks
(pp. 29-30)—all of which are the ramifications of unfettered scientism within the field of education. See Appendix A for a more thorough critique of positivism.
Positivism and education. During the 20th century, scholars within the nascent fields of Education Administration and Curriculum and Instruction grounded their theories on the foundation of positivism. Bellman (2014) argued that the rise of evidence- based, positivist education research models stemmed from the practices of evidence- based medicine and the ideas driving the unified science paradigm. Similarly, Popkewitz
(2014) noted the powerful influence of Skinner’s behaviorist psychology in which only that which can be observed directly can lead to true knowledge. Lastly, Ball (2013) observed “The classroom becomes a ‘natural history’ of learners, who are laid out
Linneaus-like on their tables in their biological natural order—visible, classified, each defined by its essential ‘character’” (p. 83). Accordingly, Ball argued that the mode of contemporary education “serves as a precision instrument in which to locate educational bodies/subjects or to exclude them [by normalizing and capitalizing] on the division and breaks between the categories in the classification system” (p. 96). Ultimately, positivist- based education theory and research purged the discipline of any nonscientific dimensions. As a result, educationists began rejecting value and speculative statements as incapable of scientific proof and therefore meaningless within a scientific system that requires verifiable knowledge (Foster, 1986, p. 35).
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During the early stages of education theory development, researchers and administrators embraced the ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor, considered the
Father of Scientific Management, helped usher in an era in which creativity and intuition were excluded from educational practices in favor of a reliance on empirical data (Foster, p. 1986, 37). Consequently, education research focused on standardizing the work place, effective and efficient use of time and motion, establishing routines, itemizing daily tasks, and the promotion of functional supervision that will “guarantee adherence to principles of scientific management in daily practice” (Foster, 1986, pp. 37-38). This scientific management approach to education became firmly embedded in scholarship and practice due, in large part, to influential thinkers such as Franklin Bobbit at the
University of Chicago and Ellwood Cubberly at Stanford University--both of whom
“stressed the importance of focusing on the ‘products’ of the system that would be needed later in life as the students become working professionals as adults” (Foster,
1986, p. 39). Ultimately, this focus on product led, in part, to the gradual deskilling of the education profession. According to Foster (1986), this process included:
The development of standardized curricula with little or no relevance for the
tapestry of local conditions through mandated competencies that disregard the
professional knowledge of the teacher; through behaviorally oriented objectives
that reduce teacher autonomy; and through countless other devices designed to
somehow scientize the profession. (p. 191)
In order to expedite the scientification of education, researchers began to focus on the empirically observable and quantifiable phenomena of behavior. According to Foster
(1986), the dominant research paradigm for education administration over several
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decades centered on several tidy and discreet research units that included the organizational task, leader behavior, variables linked to that behavior, and criteria that can be used to measure the effectiveness of that behavior (p. 49). Foster argued that such a reductive approach to studying dynamic, social systems failed simply because it could not account for the richness and extreme complexities of humanity (p. 50). Similarly, this reductive orientation has led to a narrowing of acceptable methodologies. According to
Lundahl (2014), “Only technical-instrumental research and a few accompanying methodologies are accepted as valid” (p. 38). Lundahl observed that this has led to the exclusion of potentially rich methodologies--methodologies suited to answering research questions pertaining to various education phenomena. Ultimately, contemporary education theory models rely on highly controlled, cumulative research that is readily digestible--yet not always contextually relevant--for policymakers and other end-users such as classroom teachers. For the sake of this digestibility, research clearinghouses now provide research maps to various fields within education.
Gender and Academic Bias
Gender and academic biases have shaped university models of higher education for teachers and have guided the trajectories of its scholarly endeavors. These biases have led to the prominence of a dominant theoretical framework in teacher education programs. Historically, gender bias has led to the deskilling of the profession through the removal of contextual authority, the development of highly controllable, scripted curricula, and an acontextual pedagogy of best practices. Academic bias has contributed to the conforming standardization of the education profession so that it resembles purely scientific disciplines. Evidence of this includes the practice of separating theory from
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fact, the focus on observable behavior at the expense of contextual considerations, and the relinquishing of professional authority to science experts. Ultimately, these biases have resulted in a model of education that pursues quantifiability, generalizability and predictability in order to gain for the field of education greater respect relative to other academic disciplines.
Gender bias – the deskilling of the profession. As far back as the early 19th century, gender bias has existed within the field of education. According to Lagemann
(2000) in her An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of American Research, the pervasive mindset concerning education roles embraced the idea that “Women’s natural talents ideally fitted them for elementary instruction but not for advanced instruction”
(pp. 6-7). Historically, there was a deeply ingrained association of teaching with
“woman’s work” which led to “longstanding patterns of disdain and discount”
(Lagemann, 2000, p. 16) by academics from other fields. As a result, teachers tended to be female while their supervisors tended to be male. Over time, this dichotomy became normalized, thus systematically crystallizing gender roles in the education professional hierarchy.
Due to these gender associations, the act of teaching was initially stigmatized as a technical, subordinate task. The marginalized status of pedagogy has persisted throughout the 20th century and arguably into the 21st century. This notion of teaching as a subordinate task normalized, in part, through the influential writings of Taylor in which the physical act of teaching was further devalued. According to Foster (1986), late 20th century education management and education research “continue the Tayloristic distinction between the manual and mental labor: some of us do physical work; others tell
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us what physical work to do” (p. 42). Similarly, Lagemann (2000) described the popular view in which the education researcher pursues truth at some absolute level, while the practitioner is merely concerned with application of this truth (p. 61). Ultimately, the lack of respect afforded to pedagogy, in part because of gender bias, has gradually led to the deskilling of professional practice. Evidence of this deskilling can be found in the influential ideas of several leading education scholars throughout the 20th century.
Edward Thorndike, a prominent scholar at the Teachers College during the early 20th
Century, essentially argued that teachers should be stripped of the authority to make context-based decisions—an idea emerging from his faith in the existence of transcendent and absolute, science-based education knowledge that could only be gleaned outside the classroom (Lagemann, 2000, p. 62). Accordingly, he asserted that that type of authority should be left to those in positions of power, i.e., male administrators. Similarly, John
Franklin Bobbitt, another leading scholar during the early 20th century, provided strict curricular prescriptions that “were precise and detailed with nothing left to chance and little left to the teacher’s discretion” (Lagemann, 2000, p. 109). Others such as Charles
Judd, Paul Hanna, Hollis Caswell and Max Beberman extolled the primacy of scientific authority to supervise teachers, develop curriculum and establish best practices
(Lagemann, 2000). In summary, education theorizing (research, management, training) and education practice (pedagogy) have been split conceptually as two distinct professional endeavors since the 19th century. Such thinking ultimately stripped teachers of their contextual authority and replaced it with an ostensibly incorruptible and infallible scientific authority that generalized the notion of context to the point of obsolescence.
Initially this separation was a direct result of the inherent gender bias of the field--a
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product of an earlier socio-historical context. Over time, gender bias has had a lesser direct impact on the marginalized status of pedagogy. But the damage had already been done. A power dynamic had been established and capitalized on by those who sought to scientifically control practice. The ramifications of this inferior status include the morphing of teacher education into a process of skills acquisition through science-based training. Such training is often void of any theoretical understanding. Furthermore, the aforementioned observations also support my contention that teacher training may tend to neglect theoretical considerations, particularly those that relate to context, power and the self. In fact, this neglect may simply arise from compliance with program certification requirements. The extent to whether or not this is true is something that will be revealed during the subsequent analysis.
Academic bias – conforming standardization. Along with gender bias, strong academic bias at the university level has influenced the trajectory of teacher training, as well as the degree to which educationists control their own profession. The University, as the center of advanced academic training and knowledge production, emerged in the
United States during the middle of the 19th century. From the beginning, the university was a powerful force in the academic landscape in that it controlled field-specific knowledge. This control affected the nascent field of education where leadership and scholarship became highly regulated by university structures. Stricter requirements for education professors as well as more stringent curriculum guidelines at the university level eventually led to the professionalization of education (Lagemann, 2000, p. 15).
Additionally, the university acquired oversight of high school curriculum.
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Status and respect became increasingly important to educationists working at the university level during the late 19th and early 20th century. Lagemann (2000) asserted that in order to gain prestige, the field began to rely increasingly on education research that “emerged as an empirical, professional science, built primarily around behaviorist psychology and the techniques and ideology of quantitative measurements” (p. 16). As this education science emerged, educators adopted a theoretical orientation rooted in positivism--a movement concurrently reshaping modes of research in other fields. By problematizing the field through the issue of academic bias, it is apparent that this scientism orientation played an important role in the conceptual separation of theory and facts as well as the neglect of contextual (historical, social, cultural, and issues of self) considerations in teacher education.
Over time, the field continued to become more quantitative in its modes of inquiry—a trend set into motion by the powerful influence of educational psychology and its associated methodology: educational testing. This trend can be linked to the historical pressure for education to conform to modes of inquiry within the more scientifically rigorous and academically respected fields. Accordingly, educationists, in order to bolster their academic status, strove to standardize and establish order within a discipline that had heretofore been contextually sensitive and methodologically decentralized
(Lagemann, 2000, p. 20). As part of this push towards standardization, educationists began to emphasize the importance of quantification as a means of establishing invariable certainties and absolute laws of learning that would guarantee consensus among education scholars—a move that would concurrently gain the respect of their peers in scientific fields (Lagemann, 2000, p. 20). It was within this emerging paradigm that
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research model variables became increasingly reductive. For example, educationists began applying Fredrick Taylor’s piecework factory management system to education administration models. In these models, education phenomena were reduced to simple input-output studies. Educators like Charles Hubbard Judd and Paul Hanus called for education to be built on a science foundation and to dismiss philosophical speculation
(Lagemann, 2000). In light of the previous discussion, it might be instructive to view this era in history as education’s attempt to find itself as an academic discipline. In order to establish education as a rigorous and well-defined field and garner respect at the university level, the educationists of that day jumped on the positivist, scientism bandwagon.
With education situated on a science foundation, new trends, such as Tyler’s theory movement (a blending of behavior theory and the social sciences), Coleman’s methodological and mathematical sociology, and Keppel’s standardized national assessments, rose to prominence because they promised to preserve neutral and objective conceptualizations, to separate empirical fact from ethical considerations, and to avoid prescriptive statements (Lagemann, 2000). In striving to mimic the modes of inquiry in other disciplines, educationists failed to acknowledge the raison d’etre of their own field.
Consequently, the new, scientized, specialized and professionalized field of education endorsed ideas and methodologies incommensurable to its original, fundamental purposes.
Lastly, an historical third wave of scientized education occurred during the latter decades of the 20th century when education embraced the cognitive sciences—a move that conceptualized the learning process, not according to observed behavior, but through
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an amalgamated lens that borrowed heavily from the fields of computer science, artificial intelligence, physiology and neurology (Lagemann, 2000). It was this new focus on mental processes that marked the conceptual shift away from behaviorism. This effort to integrate the cognitive sciences into education research is part of the historical tendency, on the part of educationists, to bolster the field’s prestige through the seemingly indiscriminant application of ideas promulgated in purely scientific fields.
In summary, the gender and academic biases present throughout the 19th and 20th centuries placed education into a position of low academic standing relative to other university disciplines. This was due, in part, to widely accepted gender associations and the applied nature of the field. To combat this prejudice, educationists embraced a science-oriented approach that resulted in excessive quantification, narrow behaviorist conceptualizations, the myopic instrumentality of testing and tracking, and the simplification of complex ideas into formulaic principles. Ultimately, in an effort to conform to positivism, educationists forsook the political, ethical and axiological dimensions of education. They willingly turned a blind eye to holistic approaches and contextual considerations. While the tides may have begun to turn in the 21st Century, it is my contention that teacher education is still following a path paved by the philosophical, cultural and historical forces of the past two centuries.
Social and Political Influences
In this section, I address the social influences and political pressures from the previous century that have affected and continue to affect teacher education. The contemporary sociocultural context has led to the economization of the profession in which education has become inextricably linked to the economy. As such, education has
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become a means of responding to global economic competition and it has succumbed to the marketization and commercialization of its fundamental goals. In this context, the student is conceptualized as an input for the national economic machine; thus the student is imbued with a new ontology.
Political pressures have forced educators to play the numbers game as it relates to quantifiable data and standardized test scores. In the current context, educators have passively relinquished control of the field to politicians thus leading to a new political construct: student test performance as a function of teacher education. Furthermore, quantitative data has become the all-important means by which to validate top to bottom education policy that has forsaken the value of context. Educators are now focused on a new professional goal—raising student standardized test scores.
Social influences – economization of the profession. When examining the historical development of teacher education, it is important to pay close attention to the sociocultural context within which it has evolved. According to Foster (1986), “[social] structures have a certain duality: they are both created by interactions and are also the context for interactions” (p. 96). Thus there are at least two layers of social influence. At the macro level, society is the context in which social structures emerge. Since these structures are sociocultural products, they necessarily embody the characteristics of the sites (spatial and temporal) of their origination. Once established, these social structures
“reflect relations of power in which some agents attempt to get other agents to accept their definitions of the situation” (Foster, 1986, p. 96). As a social structure becomes normalized, its participants often fail to take a critical look at some of its essential characteristics that have been taken for granted as necessary. Often this normalization
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process is expedited by sociocultural metanarratives that drive action and provide meaning. I assert that the historical development of teacher education programs as sociocultural structures, has been in sync with the ebb and flow of these various metanarratives. Accordingly, the thrust of the subsequent research and analysis is to problematize these metanarratives. St. Pierre (2012) asserted the magnitude of their power--particularly within a neoliberal context:
The state, even a democracy, creates and perpetuates inequality in the name of
economic growth as progress, mathematical rationalism, technocratic efficiency,
and social planning and engineering applied on a mass scale to predict and control
human behavior, and with neopositivism, to create human beings as economic
subjects. (p. 96)
Popkewitz (2014) described neoliberalism as a cultural thesis, based on marketing principles, about how society works. Ball (2013) argued that neoliberalism completely transforms “social relations and practices into calculabilities and exchanges” or the market form, and it “is made possible by a new type of individual formed within the logic of competition” (p. 108). Lundahl (2014) asserted, that within this context, education and research are inextricably linked to the economy. Subsequently, critical theories clash with the theories deemed valid within the neoliberal episteme (Lundahl, 2014).
Moreover, education is a vital process within a neoliberal context due to globalization and the demand for better goods and services. This results in the marketization and commercialization of education. Today’s teacher, through greater theoretical awareness and positioning in teacher education, would be able to demystify the neoliberal framework that shapes research agendas, drives the academy, and controls
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and exploits knowledge products. Thus, it is time for us, as education researchers and university instructors, to embrace a spirit of criticality and various modes of reflexivity in order to reclaim our field and profession. Educators must strive to reposition education as a democratic, highly contextualized, highly individualized, non-linear process that cannot be reduced to simplistic quantifiable cause and effect relationships under the guise of a universally applicable science of education.
In light of the impact that sociocultural forces continue to have on education, it is clear that one can conceptualize the current state of teacher education as a product of its socio-historical context. Consequently, it is important for educators to be aware of the history of their profession as well as the contextual dynamics occurring at the micro (site of employment) and macro (district, state, nation) levels. This awareness will enable us to problematize the familiar, challenge what has been taken for granted, and demystify normalizing forces.
Political influence – playing the numbers game. A brief historical survey will illustrate the direct link between politics and the trajectory of education goals. Several events in the 1950’s and 1960’s rapidly escalated the federal government’s influence on education policy directly and teacher education indirectly. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the level of federal funding of education increased in the hopes that better training in math and the sciences would help lead our nation to victory in the Cold
War. Similarly, after the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, the federal government “assumed an unprecedented activist role in the formulation of education policy” (Lagemann, 2000, p. 182). Additionally, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society positioned the federal government as the greatest driving force in education research and
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policy because of the view that education was the primary means of achieving greater equality (Lagemann, 2000, p.185). The challenges of the Cold War, the Civil Rights
Movement and the War on Poverty collectively prompted the creation of a massive federal education research infrastructure that included research centers and the National
Assessment of Education Progress (Lagemann, 2000, p. 185). This trend continued in conjunction with Title I funding due to the ever-increasing need for objective quantifiable data that could be used to measure outcomes for the purposes of evaluating federally funded programs. Through the collection of precise numerical data, policymakers thought that they could determine the efficacy of a given policy. Consequently as the connection between education and politics became even more direct, there was a seismic shift in educational expertise and authority away from professional educators to politicians. This orientation towards measurement and quantification has had a lasting, powerful effect on the teaching profession and teacher education.
Evidence of this effect can be seen in the policy reforms that now target teacher education. These reforms are due to the fact that teacher education is perceived as a vulnerable link in the chain of education that has contributed to the inadequate preparation of our students to compete at a global level and to successfully meet the challenges of educating students from a highly diverse population (Cochran-Smith.
Piazza, & Power, 2013). Policy-makers are currently so intently focused on teacher education because of the twin assumptions that there is a direct, measurable correlation between teacher quality and student achievement, and that this contributing effect requires an authority that can guarantee high levels of teacher quality (Bales, 2006).
Current teacher preparation/education policy dictates the need for “clear signals about
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program quality that policymakers can understand and program faculty and institutional leaders can use” (Crowe, 2010, p. 3). Consequently, teachers now feel the pressure of the numbers game and their professional goals have also shifted: away from reaching the individual student to reaching some pre-defined level of success as measured by a context-independent standardized test.
Some scholars now acknowledge that despite the massive influx of Federal funding and government control of public education, the systemic improvements once thought imminent have not come to fruition (Biesta, Allan, & Edwards, 2014;
Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011; Hylsop-Margison & Naseem, 2007; Lagemann, 2000).
Lagemann (2000) posited three factors that have contributed to policy impotence in correcting systemic education problems: 1) the impossibility of a direct, linear relationship between research findings and policy implementation; 2) policy interpretation at the state, district and school levels powerfully affect contextual policy implementation; 3) education, in practice, is a decentralized, context-specific endeavor that does not yield to top-down research designs or policies. In other words, educators have become more aware of the fundamental humanness of their field. Education, conceptualized as a value-free, purely empirical, objectively neutral and generalizable phenomenon, has become blind to many of the realities intrinsic to it.
Significance of Study
This study will contribute to the growing body of scholarly literature that critiques contemporary, science-driven education research, policy, curriculum development and pedagogy. Through textual analysis of documents found on the websites of selected undergraduate teacher education programs, I will be looking for evidence revealing the
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extent to which these programs demonstrate awareness of the aforementioned philosophical, sociocultural and historical problems. Are these programs aligned, in lock step, with external pressures, or are they designed to enable their students to problematize them? I believe that the implications of this analysis may serve to promote greater awareness of the politically and socioculturally contingent nature of the field—an awareness that could help break down the theoretical and methodological barriers that promote myopic practices in teacher education.
Research Questions
In this study, I will address the following research questions through analysis of the descriptive literature, provided on the websites of six prominent (based on undergraduate enrollment) teacher education programs:
1. How are selected teacher preparation programs affected by external
philosophical, sociocultural, historical and political influences?
a. To what extent do such programs recognize these influences?
b. To what extent have they provided the necessary pedagogical and
curricular support to enable their students to problematize the field?
2. What concepts/theories related to teacher education are being ignored or
subjugated?
a. How might the “blank” and “blind” spots created by ignoring
concepts/theories lead to an alternative teacher education landscape?
b. How might the inclusion of alternative concepts/theories change
teacher education nationally?
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c. What are the implications for such an alternative teacher education
landscape?
d. What are the possibilities for a paradigm shift in teacher education in
the United States?
Since this study is about the degree to which education programs in the United
States reflect theoretical and contextual awareness, I intend for the findings to promote reflexive conversations in which educators become more engaged in critiquing their own pedagogical practices within the classroom and, more broadly, their chosen field of study.
I developed the research questions in order to explore the presence of a dominant mode of education research and pedagogical practice driving contemporary teacher education programs. Speculatively, this dominant mode would reflect the metanarrative, paradigmatic and epistemal modalities presented in scholarly literature that is critical of current trends in teacher education and teacher education policy. If such a dominant mode does indeed exist, I also wish to explore its manifestations in teacher education program design and descriptive literature. This involves examining not only that which has become normalized in teacher education as revealed by program design, but also that which has been ignored theoretically. Furthermore, through these research questions, I want to investigate the implications of teacher education programs oriented towards greater theoretical and contextual awareness on education research and pedagogical practice. I wish to examine the degree to which these orientations have been embraced or left out of contemporary teacher education.
Key Concepts
In order to fully appreciate the subsequent analysis, it is important for the reader
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to understand what I mean by the notion of meta-theory. Simply put, meta-theory is a theory governing theories. Meta-theory is an orientation of theory construction that affects a theory’s goals and practical application, its embedded conceptualizations, and its normal methods and modes of programmatic research. Accordingly, a meta-theory generates a family of theories with a common set of commitments, methodologies and pursuits. In this study, my analysis will reveal the extent to which teacher education in the U.S. operates according to the presuppositions, modes and methodologies of a single meta-theory or multiple meta-theories.
Chapter 2 Overview
In chapter 2, I will develop, through review of the literature, my two theoretical models. The first model is what I call the Themisian meta-theory model. Named after
Themis, the Titan goddess of order, laws, and proclamations, this meta-theory model is related to the “proclamations” of metanarratives, the “order” of paradigms and the “law” of the episteme (the contemporary, sociocultural, knowledge-power context). This meta- theory model is currently situated within a neoliberal context and, as such, is driven by its powerful metanarratives. In developing this component of the model, I worked with the ideas of Lyotard (1984), Marcuse (1991), Habermas (1971), and Biesta (2010).
Additionally, the Themisean meta-theory model is governed by paradigmatic structures that not only dictate the acceptable modes of inquiry and theoretical frameworks, but also serve to perpetuate its status and power. This model component is based on the ideas of
Kuhn (1996). Lastly, the Themisean meta-theory model is part of a systemic feedback loop within the episteme. The episteme is the context within which knowledge is used and is related to issues of power, discipline and normalization. I drew upon the ideas of
29
Foucault (2002) to develop this dimension of the model. Ultimately, research and practice operating in accordance with this meta-theory conform to the external, regulatory, normalizing pressures of the existing sociocultural and political milieu without understanding (ignorance) or by purposely neglecting (blind adherence) the origins and implications of these pressures. Based on my understanding of the critical literature, this meta-theory has been operational in the shaping of teacher education for the past century.
The focus of my research is the extent to which this is true amongst several of the leading teacher education programs in the U.S.
In Part II of Chapter 2, I develop a second theoretical model: the “awareness” or
Erisean meta-theory model. Named after Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and disorder,
Erisean meta-theory is related to problematization and disrupting the status quo through action based on a keen awareness of historical, political and cultural forces. Additionally,
Erisean meta-theory emphasizes the notion of self—an emphasis that can upset orderly, generalizable models that tend to dismiss individual human agency within the classroom.
This model is fundamentally different in that its focus is inward--on the development, goals and pursuits of the profession, and on the self as educator and student—as opposed to having an outward commitment to external factors and influences. I constructed this model using Doll’s (1993) 4 R’s of the Postmodern Curriculum as the basic template.
Like Doll’s curriculum theory, the Erisean meta-theory model is situated within the
Postmodern context and posits the importance of Rigor, Relations, Recursion and
Richness. Ultimately, this meta-theory enables educators to become more aware of the forces that have shaped the profession and the associated power implications of what has been taken for granted, accepted as normal, and dismissed as anomalous. Moreover, this
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model will serve to increase our awareness of “self” as it applies to educator, student, and curriculum and instruction.
While the two models are, indeed, dichotomous as ideal conceptual constructs and analytic tools, when applied to the selected programs in this study, the findings, or the extent to which the programs embody the characteristics of these two meta-theories, will most certainly exist as a continuous spectrum with the models serving as the two extreme endpoints. In other words, it is possible, and indeed anticipated, that the selected programs will have qualities associated with both meta-theories.
Chapter 3 Overview
As political, historical and sociocultural structures, undergraduate teacher education programs exist in a context with external influences that have the potential to shape them into the context’s own normalizing image. Those responsible for creating these programs can blindly or willingly acquiesce to the influences, or they can problematize the influences so that the students become aware of their origins, consequent conceptual limitations and power implications. For the purposes of this study, program websites will be used to determine the degree to which programs acquiesce or problematize these external influences. Program websites often serve as the initial contact between the program and the prospective student. Program websites also act as the official text that establishes program objectives as well as the structures and methods used in achieving these objectives. Lastly, program websites provide glimpses of foundational philosophical orientations and meta-theoretical frameworks. Accordingly, I will use textual analysis to examine the program website literature used by six undergraduate teacher education programs in the United States in order to determine the
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degree to which each program is situated within Themisian meta-theory or embraces the key notions expressed within Erisean meta-theory.
In addition to analyzing teacher education programs as political, historical, and sociocultural structures, I also wish to examine an official artifact of the aforementioned contextual pressures surrounding these structures. Deconstruction of such an artifact can reveal the grand narratives, regulatory machinations and epistemal expectations behind it, thus providing a more direct path to problematizing the context within which teacher education programs reside. Accordingly, I will analyze the official text of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP, 2015) accreditation guidelines in order to ascertain the degree to which it embodies the characteristics described by the
Themisian meta-theory.
The research process will involve textual analysis of the CAEP accreditation guidelines as an instantiation of this phenomenon. Through these preliminary measures, I will generate a set of emerging codes that will provide insight into the political and sociocultural context within which teacher education is currently situated. I will conceptualize these accreditation guidelines as the standard by which policymakers and university administrators--key players in the episteme—measure the quality of teacher education programs. Once collected, these codes will serve as a priori codes for the analysis of the official text found on the websites of the selected teacher education programs. Through these codes, I will hopefully be able to assess the degree to which the selected programs exist simply as system products that reflect the values of the sociocultural and political context or as challenging, radicalizing forces that provide
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students with the theoretical means to problematize, through keen awareness, the contextual structures.
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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction to Part I (Themisean Meta-Theory)
The purpose of the literature review is to present scholarly support for the two conceptual frameworks that I will apply to this study in order to answer the following research questions:
1. How are selected teacher preparation programs affected by external
philosophical, sociocultural, historical and political influences?
a. To what extent do such programs recognize these influences?
b. To what extent have they provided the necessary pedagogical and
curricular support to enable their students to problematize the field?
2. What concepts/theories related to teacher education are being ignored or
subjugated?
a. How might the “blank” and “blind” spots created by ignoring
concepts/theories lead to an alternative teacher education landscape?
b. How might the inclusion of alternative concepts/theories change
teacher education nationally?
c. What are the implications for such an alternative teacher education
landscape?
d. What are the possibilities for a paradigm shift in teacher education in
the United States?
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There are three theoretical constructs central to the first conceptual framework (Figure 1) that I will employ in this study. These constructs, collectively, will serve as a lens through which to analyze the discourses that powerfully influence and shape the dominant teacher education paradigm. In this review, I will thoroughly discuss each construct beginning with a presentation of Lyotard’s (1984) metanarratives and the postmodern crisis on knowledge. For the purposes of this discussion, metanarratives will serve as the input that drives the teacher education function in the first conceptual model.
Next, I will discuss Kuhn’s (1996) notions of paradigm and normal science. I will use
Kuhn’s ideas as a lens through which to analyze the internal procedures, methodologies, discourses, and gatekeeping strategies occurring within the dominant teacher education paradigm. Lastly, I will discuss Foucault’s (2002) notion of the episteme and its power- knowledge implications. I will use Foucault’s ideas, including genealogy, as a lens through which to analyze how the knowledge produced by teacher education research, within the dominant paradigm, is valued, disseminated and implemented by powerful sociocultural forces in order to perpetuate the status quo and shape teacher education at the policy and accreditation levels. In addition to the work of these system thinkers, this literature review will also include the work of critical scholars that have recently applied the aforementioned conceptual constructs to the analysis of both the education research context and teacher education. This first conceptual framework will be referred to as the
Themisean model.
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Input Function Output Paradigms Episteme/ Metanarratives Discourse (accountability, ( ield socialization, performativity) dogmatic adherence (power-knowledge relations, Neo-liberal to theory assumptions, permeation and context methodological perpetuation of (competition, commitments, power, globalism, careful selection of classifcations based measurability, lexicon and on research, evidence) taxonomy) prodution of the subject)
Figure 1. Function Model of Contemporary Education Science or Themisean Meta- theory Model (as manifested at the University, Research and Policy Levels). This is an illustration of three principle components in the first conceptual framework.
In part 2 of this review, I review the literature that serves as a foundation to my second conceptual model—the Erisean model. This model describes an alternative approach to teacher education and its related research and theoretical foundation.
In summary, the scope of this literature review includes: 1) The ideas directly supporting the first conceptual model, 2) The scholarly work critiquing dominant teacher education trends and related research tendencies through use of the analytic constructs within the first conceptual model, and 3) The research that supports an alternative model of teacher education and its research. In chapter three, I provide a discussion of the literature directly pertaining to the methodologies that I will employ for this study.
In this study, the dominant teacher education paradigm is the contemporary model that is: 1) Driven by neoliberal concerns and commitments (metanarratives), 2)
Researched reductively to predict, control and generalize through the use of quantifiable data sets, and 3) Codified and systematized at the university accreditation level as well as
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the state and federal policy levels. Within this model, teacher education primarily relies on quantitative research with statistically significant empirical evidence. This is usually at the exclusion of other research because those working within this paradigm seek to enhance academic performance, increase skill levels, and bolster pedagogical and learning efficiencies through the use of generalizable, context-free interventions.
Ultimately, the dominant teacher education paradigm rests squarely on, what is perceived to be, fundamental, generalizable principles that are to be universally implemented, regardless of context.
Though these types of critiques have been made over the past couple of decades, this study is unique in that it combines three seemingly disparate theoretical constructs into one powerful conceptual framework. Furthermore, I will use this unique conceptual framework to analyze teacher education programs in light of their programs of study, their methodological and theoretical commitments, and the nature of research that they produce and rely on. I assert that the future of teacher education and any hope for a paradigm shift rests in the emergence of research and program design that is grounded in an education awareness meta-theory, or what I refer to as Erisean meta-theory. This meta-theory is oriented towards awareness of self, historical context, sociocultural context, power-knowledge concerns, and the power of language/discourse. This meta- theory also enables the researcher and practitioner to problematize both research and pedagogical acts so that the he or she can see past norms and standardizations. This assertion is of vital significance to the study since our future educators are currently trained within teacher education programs that may or may not be promoting this type of profound awareness. One of the central concerns in this study centers on what today’s
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teacher education students are being taught about the nature of self, and its connection to context, language and power? Hopefully a shift towards greater awareness through
Erisean meta-theory will enable future educators to recognize the potential blank and blind spots inherent in the dominant teacher education paradigm.
Themisean Framework: Metanarratives
Throughout this study, I will make the case that education research and teacher education are inescapably linked to the metanarratives that legitimize knowledge in an technologically advanced, socioeconomic context and a neoliberal political context.
Education theorists that share this view offer various ways to challenge the limiting influence of these metanarratives. Biesta (2010) argued that “Dewey would not object to a technological view of professional action, as long as we do not expect too much or the wrong thing from research and as long as we keep in mind that professional judgment is always about situations that are in some respect unique” (p. 16). Thus, according to
Biesta, knowledge about educational action and its consequences can enhance pedagogy only by making the day-to-day problem solving of the profession a more intelligent or better informed endeavor.
Along the same lines, Humes and Bryce (2003) described a “disruptive process”
(p. 10) that should be integrated within contemporary education research and teacher education so that “expectations of a straightforward application of research findings to school settings will be challenged” (p. 182). Potentially, through this counter-narrative, research consumers (i.e., those that create teacher education programs and those enrolled in teacher education programs) “will be offered conceptual tools which will enrich their capacity to interpret and respond to the demands of practice” (Humes & Bryce, 2003, p.
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182), instead of being given recipes and lesson plan scripts that purportedly guarantee greater success and heightened efficiency. They called for “a pluralist and eclectic approach to the study of education, as opposed to the notion of a unitary and autonomous field of knowledge represented as ‘educational research’” (Humes & Bryce, 2003, p.
185). Similarly, Green (2010) argued that other types of knowledge, such as those originating from the arts and humanities, should be welcomed and supported in education research and teacher education.
Lastly, St. Pierre (2012) discussed the importance of reflexivity in working within restrictive metanarratives. She suggested that through reflexivity, “social scientists acknowledge that they are deeply embedded in what they study and, therefore, answerable for what they see and know” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 496). Furthermore, she described the task of postmodern critiques as the critical study of “structures, which are necessarily exclusionary, to examine them so seriously that they deconstruct themselves, reveal their disciplinary goals and lose their innocence” (St. Pierre, 2012, pp. 496-497).
Additionally, St. Pierre posited the potentially powerful role of paralogy for education research and teacher education within this contemporary context. She defined paralogy as
“the open access to and a willingness to engage knowledge outside the paradigm, knowledge that can produce compelling breakthroughs in thinking about old problems in new ways” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 498). According to St. Pierre, paralogy relies on thinkers with different knowledges and who are able to disturb the dominant metanarratives, destabilize the status quo and create new rules and norms for intellectual inquiry within the present metanarrative-driven research and teacher education contexts (p. 498). While metanarratives are a real force in shaping research questions and research modalities,
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researchers can pursue alternative counter-narratives that can challenge, disrupt, and ultimately provide new knowledge, thus making our understanding of education more robust.
The postmodern legacy left behind by Lyotard (1984) continues to be an influential theoretical perspective particularly amongst contemporary critical theorists within the field of education. According to Maclure (2006), “postmodernism’s dubious gift to educational research, and in particular to methodology [is to] unsettle the still core of habit and order in the uncertain hope of shaking things up, asking new questions, estranging the familiar” (p. 224). Postmodern critique can be a powerful change agent in that it allows us to recognize existing metanarratives as a means by which to alter research agendas and education policy. Popkewitz (1998) argued that over the past century, education research and teacher education have been driven by the ideas of progress and the salvation of the child and society—ideas articulated by the metanarratives of technologization and performativity.
Accordingly, education researchers and teacher educators are unavoidably influenced by metanarratives as their work is legitimized or de-legitimized by research communities and government bodies operating in accordance with contemporary sociocultural values (Humes & Bryce, 2003). As Biesta (2012) argued, the specific role of research does not depend solely on researcher intention, “but is influenced in a significant way by the environment in which researchers operate” (p. 20). This contention can be applied to the context of teacher education. Humes and Bryce (2003) asserted that these powerful metanarratives potentially limit methodological diversity in education research. For example, this potential diversity “might be subordinated to the demands of
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strategic direction in educational research” implemented to establish a performativity context wherein there must be a “productive interaction between research, policy and practice” (Humes & Bryce, 2003, p. 178). Theorists (Biesta, 2012; Humes & Bryce,
2003; Maclure, 2006;) have focused on the complex relationships between educational research and metanarratives—”how educational research might be subject to powerful political forces which limit both the kinds of questions it may be allowed to ask and the forms of discourse within which its insights may be expressed” (Humes & Bryce, 2003, p. 179). In addition to the political forces, theorists also recognized “the putative extension of certain forms of science [emphasis added] theory and knowledge to the whole world, along with the criteria for deciding what counts and how it is to be valued”
(Green, 2010, p. 53). Indeed, at the epistemological level, metanarratives such as scientism, technologization and performativity guarantee that research:
will be able to give us ‘the truth,’ that ‘the truth’ can be translated into rules for
action, and that the only thing practitioners need to do is follow these rules
without any further reflection on or consideration of the concrete situation they
are in (Biesta, 2012, p. 11).
Consequently, Biesta (2012) suggested that the role of research influenced by prevailing metanarratives reduces to one that is purely technical; it ignores the aims of research and simply produces “means, strategies, and techniques to achieve given ends”
(p. 18). Since the knowledge produced through research plays an important role in teacher education, pedagogy and curriculum, the ramifications of this discussion are highly relevant to this study.
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Historically, 20th century metanarratives, as described by Popkewitz (1998), have fundamentally altered the social sciences in general, and education research in particular, by replacing the speculative and philosophical approaches to understanding social systems with exclusive methodologies that are firmly grounded in factual knowledge (p.
6). These methodologies include “artificially designed experimental situations to understand the universal rules for internalizing skills, attitudes and knowledge”
(Popkewitz, 1998, p. 7). According to Popkewitz, policymakers and administrators, through these universal rules, construct “universal notions of the citizen that describe norms of learning” (p. 7). Ultimately, Popkewitz contends that 20th century metanarratives “turned the social sciences into the bearers of a ‘truth’ that projected the past and present into the planning of the future” (p. 9).
Metanarratives. By using metanarratives as part of a critique of contemporary teacher education and its associated research and practices, the purported neutrality and objectivity of its knowledge production can be justifiably called into question.
Furthermore, this theoretical framework situates teacher education within a sociocultural and political context that is sensitive to certain dominant metanarratives. These metanarratives legitimize knowledge according to its ability to increase performativity, its readiness to be operationalized based on technology standards, its conformity to the dictates of scientific methodologies, and the expediency with which it can be commercialized. The metanarratives that currently legitimize knowledge tend to privilege information arising from investigatory modalities oriented towards generalizability and quantifiability while marginalizing the knowledge emerging from alternative discourses.
This attempt to deconstruct teacher education in light of metanarratives will show that
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knowledge, along with its application to both theory and practice, is inextricably linked to the metanarrative influences permeating the sociocultural and political contexts from which it is constructed. Consequently, this contingent knowledge often does not include the less generalizable and less measurable human dimensions vital to the education process. Ultimately, these exclusions can result in myopic research and practice within the field of teacher education.
Lyotard’s metanarratives and the postmodern condition. Commissioned by the Conseil des universities du Quebec in the late 1970s, Lyotard’s (1984) The
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge examines knowledge, its legitimation and the implications of its usage within the context of postindustrial society--a society characterized by its embrace of and reliance on science and technology. Ultimately,
Lyotard sought to discover through this analysis “who decides what knowledge is and who knows what needs to be decided” (p. 9).
Throughout this work, Lyotard (1984) argued that the condition of knowledge within the most highly developed societies in terms of economics, politics and technology, has entered a crisis of narratives. Fundamentally, this means that the big ideas that give meaning to a society’s intellectual discourse have crumbled under the weight of mounting legitimacy failures. Lyotard argued that this “incredulity of metanarratives” has ushered in the reactionary age of postmodernism (a reaction to the grand, sweeping, totalizing narratives of modernism) (p. 8). This postmodern condition reflects the link between the status of knowledge within a particular society and the societal context of that knowledge. The aforementioned incredulity inherent in this
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postmodern condition reveals that the determination of a knowledge expression’s value is contingent upon the sociocultural context within which it was generated.
Moreover, Lyotard (1984) posits the existence of two competing categories of knowledge: 1) positivist knowledge that is directly related to technology, control of resources and performativity; and 2) critical knowledge that is associated with reflexivity, hermeneutics, values and aims. He argues that within a highly developed, post-industrial society the scientist upholds positivist knowledge while dismissing critical knowledge because, as a body of knowledge, it is not subject to “proof.” Due to the widely influential and authoritative status of positivist knowledge in these types of societies, critical knowledge has become marginalized.
Metanarrative 1: Scientism. The critique of the authoritative status of positivist knowledge has continued into the 21st century. Scientism is the forced application of positivist, scientific knowledge to incommensurable domains of inquiry within a neo- liberal context. In their 2007 analysis of scientism and scientific methodologies in education research, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) defined the neo-liberal context as one in which market forces determine what is morally, socially and economically just.
Moreover, they argued that these same forces affect the trajectory of educational research as well as the policies that shape pedagogy and curriculum within the classroom. For the purpose of this study, this analysis will be applied to teacher education. Hyslop-Margison and Naseem defined scientism as part of the epistemological legacy of the logical positivist philosophical movement. Scientism restricts the body of legitimate social science theories by only accepting those theories that are empirically verifiable, experimentally reproducible, and universally applicable. Scientism prohibits social
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science endeavors, including education research, from considering the moral or normative dimensions of analysis on grounds that they cannot be evaluated through empirical evidence. This is especially relevant when considering the ramifications on teacher education. Within the neo-liberal context, scientism has become a form of fundamentalism that operates from an essential core of presuppositions and that requires dogmatic adherence to empiricism and the scientific method as the only correct theoretical and methodological frameworks. Hyslop-Margison and Naseem suggested that an important characteristic of scientism is the notion that science, as an analytic approach to research, is universally heralded regardless of how and to what domain it is applied. Furthermore, they asserted that scientism mandates the instrumental and operational application of knowledge and the predetermination of the social context that research pursuits generalize to. Within this study, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem’s notions of neo-liberalism and scientism can be situated within Lyotard’s metanarrative theoretical framework. Accordingly, they co-exist as a “global or totalizing cultural narrative that orders and explains knowledge and experience” according to positivist presuppositions (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 35). This power attributed to metanarratives is especially noteworthy when one considers that the processes and modalities stemming from them rely on forms of analysis generated within a specific socio-political system through metanarrative-dependent presuppositions. I hope to show, through the use of metanarratives as an analytic tool, that “the regime that defines truth is precisely the same administrative body that achieves institutional control over a specified population on the basis of that definition” (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 102).
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Scientism: The problem of legitimacy. Lyotard (1984) also presents a powerful critique of positivist knowledge and its orientation towards prediction and control in which he demonstrates its current crisis of legitimation. In the present postmodern condition, as defined by Lyotard, the knowledge-producing field of science is forced to legitimate the rules of its own game. In his critique, Lyotard pointed out the problem of transcendental authority inherent in the science mode of knowledge production. This problem centers on the questions “how do you prove proof?” and “who decides the conditions of truth?” For Lyotard, this means that determinations of proof and truth within science are based, in part, on the consensus of experts in the field, and that, in practice, there is no absolute, epistemological authority outside expert deliberation. This idea is remarkably similar to Kuhn’s (1996) social epistemology which will be deal with below. Likewise, St. Pierre (2012) argued, “Science always occurs in local contexts in which it is different each time it is accomplished” and its “validity shifts depending on local rules and descriptions of goodness and adequacy” (p. 498). Another implication of the transcendental authority problem is that scientific observations and their subsequent articulations rely on the language rules or “modalities of prescription” (Lyotard, 1984, p.
43) developed within science by its experts. Consequently, the experts are often able to insulate their particular field from attack through language games in which they marginalize the discourses that may undemine their authority, but that do not play by their rules.
Lyotard (1984) presented other problems associated with science’s attempt to legitimate itself. First, he called into question the assumption that scientific knowledge is cumulative and is progressing closer and closer to completion--a critique also made by
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Kuhn (1996) that will be addressed in a later section. Secondly, Lyotard (1984) asserted that science has become subservient to dominant political and economic forces. This calls into question the positivist assumption that science, as a mode of knowledge production, is inherently neutral and objectivity. Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) supported this line of attack by pointing out that the logical-positivist mandate for research to be entirely value-free is itself a value claim. Moreover, the operational definitions required by the ostensibly value-free, logical-positivist conceptualizations of model variables are
“embedded with contestable normative assumptions” (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem,
2007, p. 31) and generalizations. St. Pierre (2012) argued that the neoliberal and neopositivist metanarrative of scientism promotes education research programs that seek to produce knowledge “that is value-free, mathematized, ‘scientific,’ and used in the service of free markets values, economic rationalism, efficiency models, outsourcing, competitive individualism, entrepreneurship and privatization” (p. 484). Thirdly, to combat these critiques and reassert its legitimacy, science attempts to produce a discourse of legitimation with a direct appeal to a metanarrative (in this case, a philosophy or paradigm [in a non-Kuhnian sense] of science). According to Lyotard (1984), “scientific knowledge cannot know and make known that it is the true knowledge without resorting to the other, narrative, kind of knowledge, which from its point of view, is no knowledge at all” (p. 29). Thus science, in an effort to legitimize its status as a knowledge producer, must resort to utilizing knowledge that fails to comply with its own epistemological rules and standards. Likewise, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) attacked the logical positivist foundation of scientism by demonstrating that empirical verification, the epistemological orientation of logical positivism, is, itself, grounded on metaphysical
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presuppositions. For example, logical positivism proclaims that only empirically verifiable statements qualify as propositions. Ironically, this fundamental position cannot be empirically determined. This presents an unfortunate dilemma for the logical positivists as they are forced to embrace illegitimate (at least according to their epistemology) propositions to sustain their philosophy. Furthermore, St. Pierre (2012), like Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007), critiqued the positivist foundation of scientism by asserting “any theory of knowledge such as positivism, which, in its basic assumptions, rejects out of hand other theories of knowledge, must be carefully examined for the values that justify its limits” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 485). This harkens back to
Lyortard’s (1984) assertion that scientific knowledge necessarily relies on narrative knowledge to legitimize its own status as knowledge. Lyotard suggested that when historically and socioculturally contingent metanarratives are used to legitimize knowledge, then the legitimacy or validity of systems and structures built on this knowledge can be questioned.
Scientism: Determinism. Another line of attack against scientism focuses on the logical positivist notion of determinism. Scientism endorses the idea, originating from the
Vienna Circle group of positivist philosophers, that “a single scientific method can adequately identify and describe the covering laws that exist in both the social and natural worlds and produce a unified, coherent body of knowledge” (St. Pierre, 2012, p. 490).
According to St. Pierre (2012), “many of these ideas illustrate an age-old desire to get below the messy, contingent surface of human existence to a pristine, originary foundation, the bedrock of certitude” (p. 493). Furthermore, Hyslop-Margison and
Naseem (2007) argued that the assertion made by those within the determinism camp
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stating that linear cause and effect relations characterize the natural world is, itself, a metaphysical claim that exists outside the domain of empiricism. Scientism’s inherently deterministic approach to the social sciences in general, and education phenomena in particular, fails to account for human agency (spontaneous decision making that cannot be predicted by observed causes), social context, and normative cultural rules--all of which undermine the appropriateness of cause and effect analysis. According to St. Pierre
(2012) scientism fails to account for the “rich, complex, contradictory, and contingent panoply of man-made, socially-constructed interpretations that cannot be systematically and rationally ordered, predicted, managed, engineered, and controlled by a supposed value-free science” (p. 494) of the social world within which the field of education clearly resides.
Moreover, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) argued that once context and agency are taken into account, human behavior is no longer generalizable and its meaning is contextually contingent. This contingency necessitates the interpretive analysis of social dynamics. According to these researchers, hermeneutics produces additional meaning that does not deterministically emerge from raw data. They argue that human behavior is “outside the logic of simple verification as envisioned by the Vienna Circle and therefore beyond the realm of scientific explanation” (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem,
2007, p. 27). In similar fashion, St. Pierre (2012) discussed how critical theorist and interpretive social scientists claim “that humans are deeply entangled in the world and cannot detach themselves from it to discover value-free, brute facts out there” (p. 494).
Ultimately such researchers contend that scientism, as a metanarrative, fails to produce knowledge capable of correcting social or educational problems because there is a
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fundamental mismatch between its methodologies and its subjects. This has a direct bearing on the appropriateness of teacher education based on scientific precepts.
Additionally, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) asserted that a deterministic approach to social or educational problems completely misses the point. Questions related to the nature of social reality are not empirical but metaphysical “since society is constructed on the basis of human values unlike natural reality which is, value free”
(Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 34). Within the metanarrative of scientism, the foundational questions of education—those questions related to goals and purpose--are ignored while instrumental or operational questions that can be quantified, controlled and measured dominate research agendas. St. Pierre (2012) asserted that as a backlash to this,
“critical theorists [have] rejected the goal of a technically managed society efficiently governed by the systematic rationalization, mathematizing, scientizing, and commodification of all aspects of life” (p. 494). Moreover, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem
(2007) argued that there is a true incommensurability between education phenomena, including teacher education, and the methodologies used to conduct these studies. This incommensurability results from using empirical experimental methods and models to
“evaluate human behavior against a set of non-empirical normative concepts—many of which are subject to conceptual errors and problematic assumptions” (Hyslop-Margison
& Naseem, 2007, p. 94). The implication of the contextuality and contingency inherent in the experimental data (and its interpretation) generated through science-based education research and appropriated by teacher education, is that the notions of universality and transcendence, when applied to experimental outcomes, should be seriously questioned if not altogether abandoned. Biesta (2012) leveled this critique when he lamented the
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implications of the scientism metanarrative in education research and teacher education as clearly reflected in No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002), which stated its preference for research methodologies that employ randomized controlled field trials—”the gold standard” of scientism-based research (p. 3).
Scientism: Philosophical problems. Lastly, ideas originating from the philosophy of science have been used to critique scientism. For example, Hyslop-Margison and
Naseem (2007) argued that scientism’s dominance within education research is anachronistic due to its reliance on verificationism to legitimize its theories.
Verificationism is an inductive approach used to assess theoretical hypotheses in which every affirmative piece of experimental evidence is perceived to bolster the theory.
However, several decades ago, philosopher Karl Popper (1968) challenged verificationism when he argued that universal statements (such as the reductive, generalized empirical cause and effect claims in education models related to teacher education) are not verifiable, but are, in fact falsifiable. Popper recognized that the myriad instances implied by a universal claim could never be exhaustively tested.
Therefore, falsification, or theory testing through the search for counterexamples, would potentially offer a much more rigorous approach to establishing the legitimacy of truth claims. Thus within the Popperian paradigm of falsification, the experimental anomalies explained away in a non-empirical, ad-hoc manner by scientism in order to preserve the universal generalizations so important to the empirical education research supporting teacher education, are the anomalies that should falsify these theories and force researchers to formulate new hypotheses. Moreover, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem
(2007) asserted that the experimental anomalies rejected by logical positivist
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methodologies are actually the personal idiosyncrasies that characterize the richness of human behavior. These “anomalies” may eventually provide the key to a better understanding of human agency. Furthermore, these researchers argued that by removing the normative, value-laden components from human action, the meaning of the action becomes seriously distorted or at best, incomplete. They asserted that political, economic, cultural and ideological forces play a major role in determining human action, and these forces are often not taken into account by science-based education research models. As a result, scientism can only adequately address a very small piece of human experience as its reductionist methodologies fail to recognize profound contextual factors such as culture, individual personality, group dynamics, creativity and spontaneity. Hyslop-
Margison and Naseem posited that this is related to the marginalization of philosophical and ethical discussions within the scientism metanarrative. By dismissing discourse that focuses on values and aims, scientism is often used as an ideological shield to protect the status quo. According to the authors it is important that we understand the inherent limitations of the scientism metanarrative—a metanarrative that is firmly ensconced within the neo-liberal context--and seek a better understanding of the educational goals and purposes that could positively affect democracy. This is especially relevant given the present discussion of teacher education. Because teacher education is a contemporary sociocultural construct, it is embedded within a context affected by contemporary metanarratives. Therefore, those associated with teacher education (teachers, administrators, researchers and students) should be equipped to recognize the faulty premises, incommensurable applications, and highly restricted perspectives inherent in scientism.
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Metanarrative 2: The technologization of knowledge. As a Lyotardian metanarrative, technological rationality can be conceptualized as the emergent modes of knowledge and knowledge production that generate a systemic dependence on a technologically prescribed “objective” order of reality. Through this metanarrative, the resulting sociocultural system that is built on a foundation of technological progress and operationalism, can be defended as rational, neutral and objectively better than other systems. Lyotard’s (1984) analysis of metanarratives includes a description of how they are able to morph knowledge into their own image through legitimation. Accordingly,
Lyotard discussed the technologization of knowledge and the implications of this trend on post-industrial societies. The technologization of knowledge occurs when “the normativity of laws is replaced by the performativity of procedure” (Lyotard, 1984, p.
46). In other words, technologization reflects a systemic focus on the optimization of input/output parameters. Such a focus often trumps any other consideration. This technological transformation of knowledge has thus made it more operational. When this occurs, knowledge construction and application are driven by rules that optimize performance and increase efficiency. In fact, Lyotard argued that the technologization of knowledge has re-oriented science in such a way that it now pays less attention to the pursuit of truth while paying more attention to maximizing its own performativity. The ramifications of this technologization can be observed within post-industrial political and economic systems where the new goal has become the “optimization of the global relationship between input and output” (Lyotard, 1984, p. 11).
Though he precedes Lyotard historically, Habermas, a proponent of the Frankfurt
School’s Critical Theory, had much to say about the roles that the technologization of
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knowledge plays in shaping the knowledge production within a post-industrial sociocultural context. Habermas (1971) asserted that “the logic of scientific-technical progress” is determining the development of modern society (p. 115). When this occurs, the society becomes technocratic. Within such a society, “the criteria for justifying the organization of social life” becomes severed “from any normative regulation of interaction” (Habermas, 1971, p. 123). This technologization of knowledge manifests itself as scientism--a concept that was fully explored in a previous section. Again, scientism is the forced application of the methodological and epistemological principles of the hard sciences onto the “social life-world through the technical exploitation of their information” (Habermas, 1971, p. 58). This move results in the power expansion of technological control. Habermas argued that the societal focus on technological progress ultimately promotes restrictive, non-democratic norms of individual behavior. Moreover, when matters of technical control become privileged above all else, problems of social conflict and humanitarian concerns can become neglected. This is a troubling implication if, as I propose, teacher education is non-reflectively operating according to the dictates of technical rationality.
Technologization: Political and moral apathy, and impoverished reasoning. In
One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse (1991) discussed at great length the nature of a highly technological society and its inherent rationality. This technological rationality, Marcuse argued, maintains its dominant status as the prevailing approach to governing society through a centralized system of production and politics that satisfies the needs of the population within that system. In other words, Marcuse maintained that, in such a society, the people have a tendency to become apathetic once their superficial needs, as defined
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by this technological rationality, have been satiated. Consequently, Marcuse argued that for many in this type of society, there is no longer a perceived need for independent thought, critical thought, or political opposition because the system in place has successfully done its job. As such, Marcuse questioned whether or not political freedom and democracy can truly exist in such a system.
Marcuse (1991) also focused on the nature of reason and how it is affected by values and commitments within an advanced technological society. Fundamentally, he argues that modes of thinking dedicated to technological progress have become the most valuable forms of reason. This perception is, in part, brought about by the success of technology in creating a superficially ideal environment for those within the system.
However, the systemic satisfaction-induced complacency that results is often accompanied by an impotent mode of reason in which much of the population simply submits to the way things are within their society. Subsequently, there is little transcendental (or critical) thought within this system since rationality is restricted to matters of technological progress. Thus many within the population tend to perceive the status quo as utopia. Marcuse argued that this technological rationality is part of a general trend in thinking that includes operationalism in the physical sciences and behaviorism in the social sciences; it is a wholly empirical approach to the treatment of all concepts—a phenomenon akin to scientism. From this technological rationality, there has been a seismic shift in societal values regarding the outcomes and goals of reasoning.
Rationality has morphed into a highly focused and narrowed approach to solving technical problems in modern society. Marcuse describes this new rationality as one- dimensional thought.
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The impressive technical achievements ushered in by scientism and the technologization of knowledge have served to insulate techno-rational empiricism from attack, thereby insuring its dominance socioculturally, and perpetuating its role in controlling society--or what Habermas (1971) called the life-world. Habermas predicted that the technical progress within a technocratic society could eventually lead to new research and productive methodologies with unforeseen destructive and exploitive effects on humanity because “technical potentialities command their own practical realization”
(p. 65). Simply put, societal goals will no longer be normatively established; instead, they will be driven by the material and ideological needs of unfettered technological progress.
In such a society, the metanarratives used to legitimize knowledge, such as technologization and commercialization, will also serve to replace the will of the people with the objective demands of technological production. Within the context of education, the technologization of knowledge mandates policies centered on optimization and efficiency while displacing the consideration of values and aims. These new modes of reasoning often go unchallenged due to the inherently non-transcendental or non-critical nature of technological rationalism. According to Marcuse (1991), alternative discourses often go unnoticed due to a systemic apathy or due to its incommensurability within the ideological context; thus, it is dismissed as propaganda before gaining any real support.
In such a sociocultural context, will those in the field of teacher education research what it values or value what it researches?
Technologization: Power implications. In addition to the transformation of reason, Marcuse (1991) asserted that technological rationality has other profound implications that permeate societal structure and functioning. Since societal well-being
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has been closely linked to technological progress, those individuals with humanitarian concerns, often lose considerable power in influencing the trajectory of society. Thus technical progress becomes an instrument of domination used to further certain ends at the expense of ignoring others. In a sense, both the day-to-day and long-term functioning of society is at the mercy of those dictates arising from technological rationality.
Furthermore, technical rationality relies on the quantification of nature--a commitment that positions scientific inquiry as a neutral, value-free endeavor. As a result, values and ethics become relegated to secondary concerns since they exist outside the sphere of objective neutrality. This goal of objective neutrality is a legacy of logical positivism—an influential philosophy that attempted to reduce the sphere of knowledge into a set of logical statements that correspond to a quantifiable, physical reality. Ultimately, the technical rationality metanarrative enables those operating through it to establish practical certainty in matters of scientific inquiry. This is due to the dominant perception of reality as that which can be operationalized and controlled. Physical reality becomes redefined in terms of how it can be controlled and manipulated thus further supporting Marcuse’s argument that operational rationality is eventually wielded as a weapon of domination over society.
Technologization: Historical and contextual considerations. Critical theorists, such as Marcuse and Habermas, offered critiques of technical rationality in order to delegitimize its status as privileged knowledge. Marcuse (1991) showed that science is fundamentally a historical process that necessarily occurs within a particular spatio- temporal context. His analysis revealed that acts of inquiry, including inquiry related to teacher education, are contextual and contingent and thus have the potential of either
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embracing or rejecting the metanarratives permeating society. Thus Marcuse argued that inquiry is not transcendental but confined to the context within which it is conducted. It cannot be conceptualized as a self-contained, objectively neutral body of thought.
Marcuse (1991) also argued that systems relying on technical rationality are inherently limited. He contends that they can only progress quantitatively by producing knowledge of a highly restrictive nature. In order to transcend this limitation, the system requires qualitatively new modes of perception and analysis--ways that enable us to recognize blind and blank spots. Such a critique can be applied to today’s teacher education models and their conceptualizations of education and its fundamental processes. Similarly, Marcuse contended that the positivist orientation of technical rationality can lead to an all-consuming focus on controlled experimentation as the sole means of validating an idea. This leads to the epistemological privileging of exactness and precision over meaning and historical context. For the sake of reducibility and generalizability--qualities essential to operationalism--the complexities and richness of education and other social phenomena have either been stripped down and translated into operational expressions or ignored altogether. Ultimately, the social context within which people act, cannot be adequately or appropriately analyzed through the purely operational and reductive metanarrative of technical rationalism. The prevailing discourse within this metanarrative dismisses issues of value, self and context—issues that I argue are vital dimensions of education.
Technologization: Re-engineering education. Perotta (2013) thoroughly discussed the technologization of knowledge as it relates directly to education in the 21st century. Perotta suggested that this technologization of knowledge is best understood “as
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the process of engineering institutional cultures in pursuit of technocratic ideals of performance and efficiency” (p. 116). As an illustration of this, he described “the technologization of education through assessment” which leads to “new approaches to the design and the use of technologies in education” (Perotta, 2013, p. 116). Perotta cited a “growing interest in technologies that allow the management of huge amounts of information produced by increasingly complex systems and processes” (p. 117). As an example, Perotta discussed the learning analytics approach to education research and practice; an approach that reduces student performance and behavior to large quantitative datasets perfectly suited to computer hardware and software. These computer systems are ostensibly engineered to provide better understanding of education phenomena through number crunching. Such an approach requires increased specialization and greater sophistication in the methods of data collection and analysis. As a result, Perotta argued that the commercialization of these techniques are resulting in increased competition amongst various firms, all promising “accurate predictions, personalized recommendations and dramatic increases in the efficiency and effectiveness of provision”
(p. 117). Perotta asserted that such highly sophisticated, specialized and technical methods will dramatically alter the education research and practice landscape because the only empirically valuable and expediently consumable data will be “data that is machine- readable (capable of being processed and modeled by computers)” or “readily quantifiable information: test scores, attendance rates, time on task and completion rates during exercises” (p. 117). Perotta stated that the danger in such a scenario is that “the need to rely on complex technologies and specialist (often non-educational) expertise
[…] may lead to a situation which replaces democratic accountability with a managerial
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and technocratic one” (p. 118). Ultimately, Perotta feared that the technologization of education will “reduce the possibility of building responsibility around social goals and democratic processes” (p. 118) and “work against the inclusion of more sophisticated forms of evidence, such as those that assume constructivist and collaborative epistemologies” (p. 119). The implications of technologization on teacher education are indeed profound. Technologization not only fundamentally alters pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, but also the very goals of education as a practice and field of inquiry.
Metanarrative 3: Performativity. As a corollary to the technologization of knowledge, performativity has become a principle concern within education research and teacher education. Lyotard (1984) suggested, “determinism is the hypothesis upon which the legitimation by performativity is based” (pp. 53-54). This statement reflects the idea that the origins of performativity are deeply rooted in behavioral psychology and positivism. However, this reliance on determinism presupposes the existence of a stable system that allows for constancy in the relationships between inputs and outputs. Over the past several decades, the fundamental stability and predictability of some natural systems have recently been called into question by the implications of quantum theory and chaos theory. However, the probabilistic and chaotic nature of these systems rarely affects phenomena at a macro level. On the other hand, the presuppositions of stability and predictability in social systems, such as a classroom, are demonstrably false given the importance of highly relevant variables such as context, human agency, interpretation and communication. Thus the performativity metanarrative, with its reliance on stability, determinism, and predictability, is seemingly incommensurable theoretically and practically to social domains to which it purports relevance. This insight is particularly
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important for the purpose of this study in that it calls into question the deterministic assumptions that form the basis of contemporary teacher education and its related research.
Performativity: Measured outcomes and acontextual efficacy. According to education philosopher and theorist, Gert Biesta (2010) in Good Education in an Age of
Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy, the performativity metanarrative gives rise to a culture within which the means become ends and the quality indicators become quality.
Stemming directly from the performativity metanarrative, the dominant models of outcome-based research and evidence-based educational practice emerge. The data that describes the performance of schools, districts, states and nations at a given moment in history is the primary focus of outcome-based research. It is the hope of such research that by raising standards, this data, over time, will reflect positive change. Evidence- based education practice seeks to deterministically correlate learning outcomes to educational inputs. Like Biesta, Green (2010) linked the performativity metanarrative to the neoliberal socio-economic context. Green alluded to “the general installation of a digital, binary logic into culture and economy alike [that] is conducive to a new social order of performativity” (p. 47) and the present shift from a curricular focus on knowing things to a performativity orientation of being able to do things.
Furthermore, Biesta (2010) argued that within this performativity metanarrative, the vast majority of funding goes to research that employs positivist methodologies in order to determine what works. In addition to his concerns about the marginalization of other types of research, Biesta pointed out two fundamental questions related to the validity of outcome-based research: (1) Are we measuring what we intend to measure?
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(2) And, are we measuring what we value or just measuring that which is easy to measure thus valuing what we measure? Biesta argued that within such a narrow conception of research, there is an inherent failure to acknowledge the true power of values in education research and practice. Biesta asserted that for the sake of determining effectiveness in education, outcome-based research driven by the performativity metanarrative, loses sight of what constitutes a good education. In focusing solely on the efficacy of different evidence-based interventions, such research fails to consider whether the motivations behind and the implications of these interventions are actually desirable. Consequently, the shortcomings of this model of education research eventually trickle down into teacher education where teachers are often not able to consider contextually sensitive strategies because they are not in line with what the research claims will work. Biesta suggested that frequently, such research prescriptions prevent the teacher from practicing autonomously according to the context-specific implications within his or her own classroom.
Performativity: Transfer of educational authority. Similarly, Perotta (2013) linked performativity to technologization and suggests that there is a real risk of educators losing control of their profession—an outcome that may result when education is researched, measured and evaluated through highly specialized, technologized methodologies in the name of greater efficiency. According to Perotta, the performativity metanarrative drives policymakers and school administrators to embrace research and evaluative techniques that cut costs and provide “the powerful tools to monitor and improve performance” (p. 118). This is despite the fact that by doing so, educators lose authority in educational matters as they become merely the end-users “of complex
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systems and procedures” (Perotta, 2013, p. 118), the algorithms and manipulations of which are conveniently out of sight and therefore out of mind.
Moreover, Biesta (2010) asserted that evidence-based research is not an objectively neutral approach, but an ideological framework that creates a particular view of professional practice within the sphere of education. It presupposes the existence of absolute, context-free effective interventions--interventions in which there are secure cause and effect relationships (Biesta, 2010). In light of this assumption, effectiveness becomes merely an instrumental value that reflects the quality of intervention processes with nothing to say about the motivations and implications of what the intervention is supposed to bring about. Lastly, Biesta argued that education is not a purely physical interactive process. It necessarily involves symbolically mediated interactions and processes of mutual interpretation between the teacher and student with respect to the curriculum (Biesta, 2010). These processes undermine the notion of universal and reproducible effective interventions. Teacher education operating under the principles of performativity reduce pedagogy to a prescribed script of best practices, the use of which is indiscriminate and void of contextual considerations and recognition of teacher-student dynamics.
The performativity metanarrative, as presented so far, is capable of ushering in a technological model of professional action in which the ends of pedagogical action are already pre-determined. This model, along with its prescribed modes of action and goals, is closely linked to the ideological context in which it is implemented and it has serious implications on teacher education occurring within that context. For Biesta (2010), the current state of education research in which policy makers demand that research play
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only a technical role, should be seen as a threat to democracy. This is due, in part, because of the subsequent impact that this research will have on teacher education and practice. Biesta lamented what he described as the double transformation of education research and education practice. This double transformation results from the control of education research by a centralized agenda dictated by policy makers on the one hand, and the control of teacher education and subsequent classroom pedagogy through research evidence that ignores the expertise of professional practitioners on the other. The centralized push for “causal analysis by means of experimental research in order to find out ‘what works’” simply does not account for the non-causal and normative nature of education in which the means and ends are internally related (Biesta, 2010, p. 30).
Likewise, Maclure (2006) argued that contemporary “[c]urriculum, assessment and inspection programmes, with their emphasis on uniformity of delivery and outcomes, attempt to repress the gaps and discontinuities out of which teaching, learning and research issue” (p. 224). This indicates capitulation to the performativity metanarrative for the purpose of preserving both the economic and education research/practice status quo. When education research capitulates to the discourse of performativity, there is the potential that “the decontextualized analysis of student data, and the powerful performativity arguments that underpin them, may subvert concerns for social equity and justice” (Perotta, 2013, p. 119). This potential for the neglect of social justice reflects the disconnect between effective education, as defined through the performativity metanarrative, and the careful consideration of the desirability of the means and ends of such education.
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Metanarrative 4: Managerialism. Managerialism, as a metanarrative, is closely related to performativity. Biesta (2010) discussed the shaping influences of managerialism and accountability on the social sciences in general and education research and teacher education in particular. Like performativity, the rise of managerialism as a guiding principle for the governance of social systems, can be traced directly to the neoliberal political context as well as to the global capitalism economic context within which these systems are situated. As a result, the notion of accountability has taken on a technical-managerial connotation that demands the use of auditable accounts for evaluation.
Managerialism: Accountability redefined. According to Biesta (2010), this meaning has trumped the traditional meaning of accountability that simply calls for responsibility for one’s actions. Consequently, we find ourselves within a culture of technical-managerial accountability in which social practices (teacher education, classroom pedagogy, etc.) blindly adopt the principles of the auditing process while policymakers myopically apply the logic of financial accounting to incommensurable domains. Moreover, within this culture of accountability, quality has been re-defined and equated with processes and procedures while it ignores content and aims. The focus is on assuring the quality of the processes at the expense of failing to consider the desirability of the outcomes. Similarly, Humes and Bryce (2003) suggested that managerialism is the approach to education research and teacher education in which “tasks are identified and allocated with a view to them being carried out in an efficient and systematic manner” (p.
177). Teacher education driven by the managerialism metanarrative makes “extensive use of the language of rational planning: ‘framework,’ ‘a set of structures and procedures,’
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‘coordinated actions,’ ‘foresight,’ and ‘objectives’” (Humes & Bryce, 2003, p. 177), and are “disciplined by audit and retreat to simplistic notions of science” (Maclure, 2006, p.
224). Perotta (2013) contended that managerial accountability promotes reliance on the
“powerful techniques to manipulate data” in order “to serve the restrictive frameworks of competitive, hyper-controlling, managerial accountability” (p. 119). He argued that the mandated use of summative assessment instruments by education policymakers in many countries around the world reflects this managerial accountability.
Moreover, St. Pierre (2012) suggested that the state funding of universities based solely on “credit hour production” or the “number of credit hours generated by faculty for the courses they teach, often, with more credit hour production earned for graduate than undergraduate courses” (p. 484) is evidence of the performativity and managerial metanarratives in education. She argued that the reductive use of a single number to represent the totality of scholarship is irrational and indicative of a systemic problem stemming from restrictive, myopic metanarratives.
Managerialism: Social relationships redefined. In addition to the preceding critiques, Biesta (2010) argued that the culture of managerial accountability has fundamentally altered the relationships and identities of the people and institutions within it. First, Biesta argued that the relationship between the state and its citizens has been dramatically altered. This relationship has become less concerned with the common good and more concerned with production and consumption. This is due, in large part, to the neoliberal conceptualization of accountability. As such, managerialism has morphed the notion of accountability into “an apolitical and antidemocratic strategy that redefines all significant relationships in economic terms, and hence conceives of them as formal rather
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than substantial relationships” (Biesta, 2010, p. 59). The systems, institutes and people within this managerial accountability socio-cultural context are forced to adapt to the demands of accountability logic in which accountability becomes the end itself instead of the means by which we achieve other ends. Ultimately, the managerial-based approach to accountability “has eroded opportunities for educators to take responsibility for their actions and activities and, more specifically, for what their actions and activities are supposed to bring about” (Biesta, 2010, p. 50).
According to Maclure (2006), education research, teacher education and policies rooted in managerial accountability “attempt to suppress education’s ‘Other’—the pain, conflict, failure, chance, irrationality, desire, judgment, frailty, frivolity and singularity”
(p. 224). However, this ‘Other’ is an essential component to teaching, learning and research and as such, can never justifiably be explained away or ignored. Biesta (2010) noted other key problems that arise when managerialism drives teacher education. First, he argued that what ought to be done can never be logically determined from what is.
Therefore, educators must be allowed to make value judgments about what is desirable in education. However, these normative evaluations are not permitted within a technical- managerial paradigm. Biesta asserted that while the instrumental values of managerialism can sometimes guarantee outcomes and pre-determined ends, educators must carefully consider the costs of pursuing these ends and determine the ramifications of this pursuit on the students that they are trying to teach. Simply put, effectiveness considerations should not be the sole basis for the implementation of research-based teacher education.
Additionally, Biesta feared the “real risk that data, statistics, and league tables will do the decision making for us” (p. 27) within the metanarrative context of managerialism.
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In summary, it is within this context that factual judgments based on evidence and effectiveness trump the value judgments applied to the desirability of outcomes, aims and purposes. Consequently, while operating under this metanarrative, the educator is denied the power to reject interventions that he or she perceives to be undesirable for the given learning context. And, future educators learning in programs constructed according to managerialist guidelines are often not given the opportunity to consider context and issues of self when studying pedagogy strategies and curriculum theory.
Conclusion. Lyotard’s (1984) legacy can, in part, be expressed by the assertion that “knowledge has no final legitimacy outside of serving the goals envisioned by the practical subject, the autonomous collectivity” (p. 36). Put another way, the true value of knowledge is contingent upon the societal or cultural values and goals of the context within which it is situated. Throughout this study, I make the case that there is a privileged model of teacher education that has obtained this status through its conformity to the external influence of prevailing metanarratives. The alternative models and theories that run counter to contemporary metanarratives are often subjugated and left out of the official discourse. This subjugation of competing voices can result in myopic research and practice. As a result, policymakers, teacher education administrators and teacher education instructors utilize knowledge specific to the dominant, metanarrative-driven teacher education model—the Themisean meta-theory—in order to increase performance, maximize output and optimize efficiency.
Marcuse’s (1991) ideas regarding how a critical theoretical framework can provide keener insight into the context of thought and the influence of metanarratives on that context, are of tremendous importance to this study. He suggested that the
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application of critical theory is a worthy and rational endeavor because it takes into account the multi-dimensional layering of social contexts within which thought and discourse emerge and function. Critical theory, when applied to highly developed systems of knowledge, becomes a de-mystifying process that “free(s) thought from its enslavement by the established universe of discourse and behavior, [and] elucidate(s) the negativity of the Establishment and project(s) its alternatives” (Marcuse, 1991, p. 199). It enables researchers to deconstruct the dominant metanarratives that shape scholarly discourse and policy decisions particularly in regards to teacher education.
Biesta (2010), too, offered ways by which researchers and practitioners can resist the dominant metanarratives. First, Biesta called for “a model of professional action that is able to acknowledge the non-causal nature of educational interaction, [and that] the means and ends of education are internally rather than externally related” (Biesta, 2010, p. 36). Second, he argued that teacher educators and education researchers must continually re-interpret the problems that they address professionally and experiment with potential ends and means through this interpretive process. This is crucial because according to Biesta, “a democratic society is precisely one is which the purpose of education is not given but is a constant topic for discussion and deliberation” (p. 44). In addition to interpreting research problems and research outcomes, Biesta called for the on-going interpretation of the social and cultural realities within a particular educational context. Therefore, by applying hermeneutics to the educational context, teachers and education researchers are better able to recognize and understand problems obscured through the perspectives embedded in the discourses of the dominant metanarratives.
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Themisean Framework: Paradigms
In this section of the literature review, I make the case that education research and practice, particularly those manifested in contemporary models of teacher education have paradigmatic tendencies and operate as the function component within the dominant teacher education paradigm model, or Themisean meta-theory, described in the beginning of this chapter. Once the education research and practice complex receives its input— input shaped and governed by contemporary metanarratives—the input must then be processed, analyzed, and assimilated within existing education research and practice structures via existing education research protocols and proceedings. In order to conduct this part of the analysis, I rely on the work of Thomas Kuhn and other thinkers concerned with the sociocultural dimension of research in general and education research and practice in particular.
Several contemporary scholars (Bosi, 2012; Green, 2010; Hodgson & Standish,
2006; Lawson, 2009; St. Clair, 2005; Stone, 2006) observed the predominance of scientism within current teacher education models and the research that informs them.
Hodgson and Standish (2006) lamented the fact that there is a lack of attention, within education programs of study, to the founding disciplines of education and theory (p. 566).
Instead, as Stone (2006) argued, both students and education researchers have their attention fixed on “processes and products, actions and accomplishments” (p. 529).
According to Stone, preparation within the science-based education research paradigm results in the “valorization of methodology that becomes for many ‘methodolotry’
[…that] entails emphasis on standardization that turns methodology into an unnecessarily narrow conception of technology (p. 533). She asserted that this paradigmatic
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commitment to the standardization of methodology is linked to a technologization of method, in which method “constitutes a system of necessity that takes on a life of its own, is valued in and of itself” (Stone, 2006, p. 534). Furthermore, Stone added that this technologization is followed by a totalization within the paradigm that brings about “a conception of education itself that is limited, unduly bounded, and not inviting of alternatives and diversities” (p. 534). Stone asserted that, ultimately, “Technique has become autonomous, constituting a form of social reality independent of persons that nonetheless encompasses them” (p. 536), and that the new problems emerging from and pursued within the paradigm stem directly from paradigmatic methodologies and epistemological commitments.
Additionally, Green (2010) argued that research within the science-based education research paradigm embraces the notions of inductive reasoning, generalizability and transferability while frequently dismissing other approaches. St.
Clair (2005) critiqued the appropriateness of this orientation when applied to social domains, particularly education. To do this, St. Clair attacked the underlying principle of similarity within this context. St. Clair argued that the assumption of similarity between two different contexts (separated by space, time, and/or culture) is unwarranted and requires, in order to be truly scientific, the exhaustive testing of every theoretical proposition in every setting involved in the research as well as those settings to which research findings will be applied in the future (p. 444). Whether in quantitative research where similarity is based on sampling strategies, or in qualitative research where similarity is established through the principle of transferability, the goal of producing similarity necessarily relies on the reduction of complexity—a move that simultaneously
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reduces meaning (St. Clair, 2005, p. 444). According to St. Clair, the biggest obstacle for similarity within social contexts is the existence of “superunknowns” or the “factors of social relationships that cannot be defined, irrespective of advances in method or observation—they are fundamentally and categorically indefinable” (p. 446). St. Clair argued that these superunknowns render the prospects of experimentally replicating contexts and social interactions impossible (p. 446). Like St. Clair, Thomas (1998), too, asserted “the inappropriateness of assuming that the social world is reducible to the kind of laws which explain the physical world” (p. 143) as well as the faulty “assumption of order and structure which can be accessed via methods and techniques” (p. 144). Thomas argued that attempts to “superimpose a theory” or “lay some rational framework over the
‘raw data’” (p. 145) of human interactions, interview transcripts and survey responses will ultimately fail to illuminate any underlying generalizable or transferable truth.
In addition to the tendencies mentioned above, Bosi (2012) noted that within the current teacher education paradigm, there tends to be a general lack of consideration of the social relevance and the sociocultural implications of science-based inquiry (p. 454).
Other parameters, such as publishing in highly respected journals, often outweigh such considerations. Green (2010) observed a shift in curricular and pedagogical research from a focus on content and knowledge of that content to a focus on the ability to do things.
Likewise, Hodgson and Standish (2006) pointed to the impetus behind the current science-based education research paradigm: the notion of what works. This notion encapsulates generalizability, transferability, verificationism, similarity and the dismissal of superunknowns such as contextual variation.
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Kuhn: The social dimension of scientific research. In Kuhn’s (1996) The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the author challenged the notion that observation and experience alone can determine a particular body of belief. Through this challenge, Kuhn
(1996) questioned the long-standing, traditional belief in the objectivity and value- neutrality of scientific research. His argument appealed to the inescapable historical and sociocultural nature of research. Throughout his work, Kuhn employed the use of two key concepts: paradigms and normal science.
For the purposes of this study, Kuhn’s (1996) ideas regarding paradigms and normal science are important for three reasons. First, students who are learning according to a given paradigm are situated socially and historically within it, and as a result, they revere it as a model that possesses an ever-expanding knowledge base, the potential for growing levels of technological proficiency in its methodologies, and infallible epistemological and methodological foundations. Secondly, researchers within the paradigm’s professional community will work steadfastly to guarantee the continued production of data sets upon which paradigmatic concepts and methodological instruments can operate. These data sets are cherry picked so that they readily yield to the paradigm’s investigatory techniques in order to generate the desired and anticipated detailed descriptions of reality. Lastly, research within a paradigm can be viewed “as a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education” (Kuhn, 1996, p. 16) within the paradigm.
An important consideration. Since Kuhn’s (1996) ideas emerged from his experiences as a researcher in the physical sciences, can key notions such as paradigm and normal science be applied to social science inquiry? Lacey (1990) argued several
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decades ago that the social sciences, while pre-paradigmatic, may eventually evolve into paradigm-driven enterprises. He suggested that the potential is there for the social sciences to “become framed by a particular disciplinary matrix and structured lexicon from which theory is made intelligible, generated, maintained and reformed” (Lacey,
1990, p. 198). Moreover, Barnes (1982) asserted that “although there are themes in
Kuhn’s account of science which belong there, and there alone, Kuhn’s general sociological intuitions penetrate too deeply to be confined in their significance to one specific area” (p. 15). Thus, for the purposes of this study, Kuhn’s (1996) notions of paradigm and normal science, two socioculturally constructed phenomena, will be used in my analysis of Themisian meta-theory in teacher education. Based on a review of the literature, I am faced with compelling discourse suggesting that such an analysis is fully warranted.
Paradigms. According to Kuhn (1996), a paradigm is an accepted theoretical model of reality that gains its status through its ability to solve those problems deemed valuable by a certain group of influential scientific researchers (p. 30). In order for a research model to become a paradigm, it must be more adept at conceptualizing nature than competing models; but as Kuhn suggested, a paradigm will never be able to explain everything that it encounters. As the accepted model, a paradigm offers the criteria for creating a field’s research agenda. Consequently, some research questions are rejected as metaphysical, irrelevant or too problematic. Kuhn argued that a paradigm frequently dismisses useful or valuable problems because they do not conform to the “conceptual and instrumental tools that the paradigm supplies” (p. 46). Of particular concern to this study is Kuhn’s argument that a paradigm necessitates the use of a preferred type of
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instrumentation and methodology, as well as the ways in which they are implemented while doing research. Thus a research paradigm requires its members to be stalwart in their commitments to theory, concepts, instruments and methodologies. In regards to pedagogy and curriculum, study within a paradigm prepares students, as future researchers, for membership and future participation in a particular scientific community.
This community will share common methodological and epistemological commitments that have the potential to greatly restrict the researcher’s investigatory purview.
Furthermore, according to Kuhn, as a paradigm flourishes, its research agendas become more esoteric and demand greater precision, while its publications become more technical and thus are only understandable by those within the paradigm.
Barnes (1982), in general agreement with the spirit of Kuhn’s (1996) thesis, argued that the writer or producer of knowledge is necessarily a product of the cultural context within which he or she works. This cultural context shapes the explanatory factors used by the researcher. Barnes (1982) suggested that a paradigm in science is a set of culturally based interpretations of perceived reality. A paradigm, like a culture, is preserved through mechanisms of socialization and the production and consumption of knowledge—“procedures for displaying the range of accepted meanings and representations, methods of ratifying acceptable innovations and giving them the stamp of legitimacy” (Barnes, 1982, p. 9). Lacey (1990) contended that “we grasp the world against the background of an essentially historical disciplinary matrix, framed by an essentially historical lexicon” (p. 199), and that these value structures restrict the researcher’s ability to interpret and communicate across different paradigms. According to Barnes (1982), the procedural standards developed within a paradigm by members of
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that paradigm, act as gatekeeping devices deeply embedded within its culture of practice and research. Even the accepted usage of language by the paradigm’s professional community implies a tacit consensus regarding the research practices within that community.
Furthermore, Lacey (1990) contended that in order to deconstruct scientific activity, one must interpret science historically within its rightful context consisting of its
“disciplinary matrix and structured lexicon” (p. 197). In order to conduct such an analysis, Lacey closely examined what he described as the sociocultural acts of measuring and comparing. He argued that since measurement is a relation between the measured object and the instrument used to make the measurement, the meaning of any quantitatively constructed term or concept cannot be separated from or reduced to the measuring instrument.
Similarly, Barnes (1982) focused on the inherently sociocultural acts of grouping, sorting and organizing based on perceived differences and similarities within the paradigm’s theoretical framework. According to Barnes, a learned similarity relation is an ordering of nature based on relationships stemming from the working theoretical framework and not relationships inherent to the natural order. Barnes asserted that a similarity relation “is a resource which must be sustained and developed by collective human agency” (p. 84), and it involves a continuous modification of meaning that is neither fixed nor absolute but culturally and historically contingent. He argued that there is no universal scale for weighing, measuring, and classifying differences and similarities, and that the application of a classification to an object or instance of a phenomenon is a consensual, communal behavior that is contingent to the culture of that professional
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community. For Barnes, the subjective acts of decision-making and judgments maintain the conventional discourse, framework and power of a paradigm.
Additionally, Barnes (1982) had much to say regarding the implications of paradigm science and research. First, he argued that the conceptual framework and discourse embedded within a paradigm form a type of hermeneutic system, through which, those working within the paradigm interpret reality. According to Barnes, this system is very powerful in that it decides what counts as knowledge, dismisses anomalies, and as Kuhn (1996) pointed out, reinterprets anomalies through ad hoc theory adjustments in order to force the paradigm’s compatibility with nature. Sometimes, those directly involved in paradigm research work to explain away anomalies by demonstrating that they simply result from faulty equipment or the misuse of a particular methodology.
Secondly, Barnes (1982) contended that no articulation of a paradigm concept can ever be assessed in isolation because it is inherently contextual and embedded within the professional community’s hermeneutic system. Data that reaffirms a theoretical model in one paradigm may be perceived as a challenging anomaly in a competing paradigm—the evaluation of data outside of a paradigm is problematic. Lastly, Barnes asserted that
“science is a typical form of culture” (p. 94) and thus can be analyzed as such. He offered ethnomethodology as a way “to explore for any term, the methods of accounting people employ to make things visible as instances of the term” (p. 97). Barnes took the rather extreme position that truth is ultimately relative to the sociocultural goals and interests originating from the paradigm. According to Barnes, any thorough analysis of a paradigm judgment must address the normal science activity behind it, the nature of the resources
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used for that activity, and the goals of the paradigm community whose agenda drives the activity.
For the purpose of this study, I will show that there is a paradigm-like nature to teacher education programs operating according to Themisean meta-theory. Because it closely resembles a Kuhnian paradigm, this meta-theory is highly resistant to change and is able to ward off the challenges of competing teacher education models due to the powerful gatekeeping structures and procedures inherent in the model. It will remain the primary paradigm of teacher education until its foundations begin to crumble by way of mounting anomalies that ultimately precipitate a paradigm shift. I argue that such a paradigm shift is not beyond the realm of possibilities particularly when more researchers become aware of the blank and blind spots in the current model’s purview.
Paradigms, scientism and the social sciences. Throughout this study, I assert that Themisian meta-theory, which dominates contemporary teacher education, has been thoroughly permeated by scientism. As discussed earlier, scientism is the forced, incommensurable application of scientific analysis to social contexts. In the previous section, I discussed scientism within the context of metanarratives or the big ideas that influence a society’s rationality or knowledge production. In this section, scientism will be treated as an internal governance mechanism affecting research and practice within the education community—internal action processes as opposed to external influencing ideas. Here, I treat scientism as a cultural mode of education activities.
Lacey (1990) argued that due to its success over the past few centuries, “modern natural science has gained a kind of authority, where many view it as the exemplary cognitive practice, the paradigm of rationality, thence legitimating its imperialistic thrust
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into other domains including human phenomena” (p.197). However, Feyerabend, as discussed by Agassi (2014), cautioned that this imperialistic claim of superiority must be perceived in light of the fact that humans drive science and, as such, science is a culture.
Lacey (1990) critiqued scientism by suggesting that while theory may empirically capture behavioral regularities within a particular social context, it fails to capture the full range of potential human activity. According to Lacey, social science theory suppresses the truly human activities of collaboration and communication, and deliberation and agency through the reductive theoretical spaces within which they operate. Research paradigms defined by scientism possess epistemic values that promote accuracy, simplicity and predictive power. These values potentially promote societal hegemony and control because they reduce social phenomena to purely physical and quantitative terms and concepts. Lacey argued that paradigmatic theory, driven by the precepts of scientism, provides the medium for technological control. He defined this type of control as the domination of the social world by technology objects, or those constructs derived from theory developed by theorists that seek to understand in order to control. Lacey argued that social theory (I extrapolate this to include teacher education) within a paradigm of scientism “often neglects the conditions that give life to the spaces it sheds light on and the effects of the activity within those spaces on natural, human and social environments”
(p. 209). Lacey contended that the inherent danger in scientism is that it is driven by the same ideology and methodology used to control nature, and thus, could contribute to theoretical knowledge that would lead to control over humans. According to Lacey, there is a reciprocal relation between the natural and human sciences in that “they mutually inform each other through the mediation of the social conditions that maintain both their
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practice and the spaces of which they characteristically provide understanding” (p. 209).
This is a particularly problematic observation, for within the context of scientism, the progress of technology and technological control is inevitable and is seldom, if ever, questioned. This type of progress transcends value considerations and is driven only by potentialities. As such, it neglects questions of whether or not these potentialities are desirable. The implications of this tendency on teacher education are highly relevant to this study. Values and aims should be on the forefront of teacher education program design. Furthermore, without considering the social conditions specific to a particular educational context, there is no constructive feedback loop present to promote the primacy of the student over a generalized set of best practices. Lacey asserted that such a theory cannot be neutral or value free when it is conducive to technologies that could potentially control society. He calls for an interpretive, non-scientific approach to the social sciences in order to fully grasp the richness and depth of the social phenomenon under investigation.
Hyslop-Margison (2010) suggested that the scientism metanarrative has transformed contemporary education research by the increased “demands from various funding sources and government agencies that education research adopt what are being described as scientifically based methods” (p. 815). This is reflected by the observation that the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) deems scientific research to be the only truly legitimate means by which to conduct education research that will ultimately improve education. Within this context, scientific research is defined as research that is empirical, evidence-based and verifiable. Additionally, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) observed that there is tremendous pressure placed on universities to hire faculty that are
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experts in empirical research, thus resulting in a particularly skewed composition of faculty across colleges and departments. Moreover, professional scholars within a university environment often capitulate to academic pressures that require them to adopt the dominant research methodologies of their particular fields. Consequently, these pressures help to preserve the current paradigm by discouraging the investigation of anomalies that arise from paradigmatic research agendas. Furthermore, as the paradigm is sustained at the university level, its future is protected by the “systematic indoctrination of future researchers into the theories, methods, and beliefs that dominate [the] particular area of inquiry” (Hyslop-Margison, 2010, p. 827). According to Hyslop-Margison and
Naseem (2007), the aforementioned professional and funding gatekeeping devices protect the current education research paradigm by pre-determining what counts as true research.
Once the paradigm is securely in place it, as Hyslop-Margison and Naseem
(2007) suggested, diverts the educator’s attention away from the important considerations of educational purpose and aims. This is due, in large part, to the observation that “all epistemic stances are mediated because they are unavoidably grounded in certain nonempirically verifiable assumptions, and their corresponding claims about the structure of experience remain open to dispute” (Hyslop-Margison, 2010, p. 820). In addition to the epistemological critiques offered in the first part of the literature review (i.e., the use of verificationism instead of Popper’s falsificationism), Hyslop-Margison and Naseem argued that education research and practice within the paradigm of scientism ultimately fail because their methodologies are incommensurable with the complexities of sociocultural context—a context rife with subjectivity and normativity, human agency and deliberation, and highly complex classroom variables. As they further suggested, the
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context within which educative processes occur is radically different than the context within which natural phenomena occur. For example, Egan (2002) asserted that those educationists working within scientism aim to discover the purely psychological processes that they deem to be the sole determining factors of cognitive development and learning. However, he claimed that the resulting pedagogies are accompanied by practices that simply do not address the root educational problems that need to be solved.
Hyslop-Margison (2010) offered another critique of the prevailing education research paradigm by suggesting that while the natural sciences are prone to paradigm shifts resulting when mounting anomalies force the adoption of a new theory, such shifts seldom occur in the social sciences in general, and education in particular, due to the fact that such anomalous findings are usually dismissed as instrument failure, misuse of theory or are explained away in an ad hoc manner. Similarly, Kuhn’s (1996) idea of convergent thinking is brought to the fore by Hyslop-Margison (2010) to further explain the staying power of a paradigm--in this case, the paradigm of science-based education research and practice. According to Hyslop-Margison, convergent thinking entails a
“sweeping, often unquestioned, acceptance of an existing theory and the corresponding attempt to make sure one’s research fits into that prevailing hypothesis both in terms of its conceptual framework as well as its observed outcomes” (p. 826). He asserted that convergent thinking is manifested by the “numerous slogans disguised as practices that dominate the field” (Hyslop-Margison, 2010, p. 826). Within the paradigm of science- based education research and practice, convergent thinking has as its foundation the
“flawed theoretical commitments adopted by researchers” (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem,
2007, p. 57), and it sustains itself by insulating it from challenges through pedagogical
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and curricular commitments. He called for divergent thinking in contemporary education research or thinking that “challenges preconceived notions about the necessary appropriateness of prevailing theoretical frameworks” (Hyslop-Margison, 2010, p. 826).
Lastly, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) critiqued paradigm thinking, in general, and science-based education research and practice, in particular, when they argued that there is inherent bias and subjectivity within the purported objectivity of empirical research programs. They claimed that this subjectivity “occurs at the level of operational definitions, selection of investigative context, or at the level of final analysis, interpretation and inference” (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 35). Accordingly, statements of fact and paradigmatic theory are intrinsically related since facts are interpreted in light of the theoretical frameworks within which they emerge.
Likewise, Egan (2002) asserted that there are deep presuppositions driving current, science-based education research and practice and that most knowledge claims in education are “mixture[s] of analytic truth and empirical generalization” meaning that a given “principle is true because people define its terms to mean something that can’t be other than true” (p. 64). This particular mix of analytic speculation and empirical analysis is echoed by Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) in their observation that, within any research paradigm, “some conjecture always precedes observation” (p. 61). Conjectures often emerge from the adopted theoretical framework applied to a particular research problem. This framework also shapes the researcher’s interpretation of the data.
Consequently, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem argued that when applied to the same data, different theoretical models or paradigms can result in different analytical conclusions.
Ultimately, it is the normative biases of researchers that determine the selection of
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methodology and theory. Thus, theoretical and methodological commitments as well as sociocultural forces often require the educationist to embrace a non-objective position with respect to career concerns and the professional pressures to conform.
Furthermore, Egan (2002) posited that, in general, contemporary, science-based education research and practice does not work towards any single, clearly defined aim.
He suggests that the dominant paradigm ignores such value-laden considerations because it is “easier and more attractive to engage in technical work under an accepted paradigm than do hard thinking about the value-saturated idea of education” (Egan, 2002, p. 181).
Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) asserted that there is a general confusion within science-based education research and practice between empirical claims and normative claims, and that most education research questions deal with normative and philosophical matters that require analysis and interpretation. Consequently, they suggested that education researchers try in vain to empirically research and explore concepts that are pure educational constructs and have no concrete reality in the real world. Moreover,
Egan (2002) posited that human behavior and culture are simply not analogous to the natural world—they are wholly complex and irreducible domains. Egan articulated this incommensurability between the natural and the social by stating “human behavior simply has a nature that cannot be uncovered by application of scientific research” (p.
177).
Lastly, Egan (2002) and Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) argued that contemporary education research faces problems of the analytic and the arbitrary. The analytic is defined as related to the conceptual connections that are absolutely generalizable, while the arbitrary is related to highly contextual considerations that
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cannot be generalized beyond the context. They asserted that most of the research conducted within the dominant, science-based model of education research is either analytic or arbitrary and therefore cannot be used to fix the bigger problems that face educators in a modern, western context.
The progressivism paradigm. Egan (2002) discussed at great length the highly influential research, pedagogical, and curricular paradigm of progressivism. His critique began with the progressivist notion that humans have a universally expressed mode of learning that can be observed in the natural way that children learn language in an informal setting. Egan argued that such notions, like Piaget’s developmental theories, have become presuppositions or the guiding principles used to conduct research and they are rarely ever questioned or critiqued. Ideas that form the core of progressivism, like
Piaget’s theories, are attractive to researchers working within a science-oriented paradigm because they can be easily tested and measured, they sound technical and scientific, and they are thought to fill current knowledge gaps. This can be clearly observed in progressive education research programs that control for cultural effects, that conceptualize the mind as a fully describable body part (both physically and genetically), and that assert psychological development can be easily located and tracked through student performance on assessments. Egan argued that this reductive treatment of the mind is operationalized through paradigmatic presuppositions and methodologies. In its neglect of cultural and contextual influences, Egan argued, that Progressivism dismisses the vital sociocultural artifacts, such as signs, texts and graphic-symbolic devices that help produce meaning for the individual learner and promote development of his or her meta-cognitive skills. He stated, “The tools we use when learning shape and very largely
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determine what and how we can learn” (Egan, 2002, p. 70). Therefore in order to truly understand human learning, educators must understand the cognitive tools used by the learner during the learning process. Egan argued that such cognitive tools are culturally contingent and are thus missed by empirically oriented approaches to education research and practice.
Paradigm as an analytic tool. Other educational researchers (Bosi, 2012; Green,
2010; Hodgson & Standish, 2006; Lawson, 2009; St. Clair, 2005; Stone, 2006) strongly suggested the presence of several characteristics associated with Kuhnian paradigms in contemporary education research and practice. According to Lawson (2009),
“Researchers’ social-cultural organization influences the scope, quality, quantity, coherence, dissemination and utilization of research-based, theoretically sound knowledge” (p. 97). Lawson argued that this same organization ultimately effects how policy makers and schools will use the knowledge that it produces; and it determines the future of the organization by shaping “the recruitment, selection, preparation, orientations and career patterns of succeeding generations of researchers” (p. 98). In regard to the modalities and methodologies of contemporary science-based education research,
Hodgson and Standish (2006) asserted, “The natural sciences serve as the model for research; the quantitative tradition predominates; efficiency is paramount and held as part of what science is” (p. 565). This observation echoes Hyslop-Margison and Naseem’s
(2007) claim that scientism has permeated education research today. Lastly, critical researchers like Bosi (2012) and Lawson (2009) argued that it is important to explore the implications of paradigmatic research. Bosi (2012) called for the investigation of the political dimension of research so that we can have a clearer “understanding [of] its
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‘inner economy’ and the disputes expressed in conceptual or methodological debates” (p.
452). Additionally, in order to adequately grapple with the “process of knowledge production,” one must “dialectically consider both subject and structure, therefore including the actors who act in the process” (Bosi, 2012, p. 453). Similarly, Lawson
(2009) called for the field of education to research its own researchers.
Furthermore, Stone (2006) and Hodgson & Standish (2006) discussed the role that induction processes play in guaranteeing the future of the paradigm—a consideration that is of utmost importance to this study. Stone (2006) argued that the curricular content delivered to the student ultimately determines what and how that student will practice as a future member of the field. Stone asserted, “They [students] are mentored into particular practices founded on particular belief systems” and that “[i]n contemporary education research, at least in a US context, […] they learn principally and often exclusively about methodology” (p. 528). Stone continued by stating, “[This] methodological emphasis in research training turns process into narrowly construed preoccupation with technology that in turn portends limited research results” (p. 528).
This focus on methodology is often accompanied by a lack of program coverage related to the historical and philosophical foundations of education and education research. Stone argued that while highly regarded education programs teach their students how to critique studies according to flaws in methodological implementation, “what they seldom learn, however, is to question the entire science-research-methodology enterprise or to criticize its implicitly technological character” (p. 530). As such, Stone asserted, “Research domains develop definition largely through accretion and refinement; methodological tinkering is emphasized” (p. 532). This is done often at the expense of serious critical
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reflection. Hodgson and Standish (2006) argued, “[This] predominant concern with informing practice delimits the way in which the questions of the field are posed and maintains a belief in the irrelevance of philosophical and theoretical thought” (p. 570).
Consequently, this promotes a paradigmatic insularity through induction that insures the perpetuation of paradigm preferences and assumptions by future practitioners.
Additionally, Hodgson and Standish (2006) discussed paradigm induction through social processes. They asserted the importance of social and professional practices “such as attending and speaking at conferences, and social and professional talk at such events, often in relation to seeking collaboration and publication” (Hodgson & Standish, 2006, p.
569); these social acts perpetuate paradigm discourse and orthodoxy. Lawson (2009), too, asserted the importance of social induction when he observed, “This new generation of
‘genuine researchers’ is instrumental in the social construction and constitution of what counts as research and, in turn, what matters as research-based, theoretically sound knowledge” (p. 101). This sound knowledge is then appropriated and utilized as the foundational content of teacher education programs.
Normal science. Once established as a paradigm, the theoretical model must continually sustain itself by requiring its adherents to participate in what Kuhn (1996) called normal science. According to Wray (2011), the paradigm perseveres through normal science, during which there is “the suppression of alternative lexicons, [and] the suppression of alternative ways of dividing the phenomena” (p. 176). Wray also pointed out the importance of community in Kuhn’s ideas. He argued that in a Kuhnian paradigm, community is more important than theory and is, in fact, the unit of analysis when one studies science critically. In Wray’s formulation of a social epistemology, his described
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the notion of field socialization. This phenomenon occurs when a new researcher is adopted into a research community only after he or she has mastered the paradigm and has committed to conducting normal science activities. Wray argued that this field socialization results in a community-wide lack of reflexivity. Agassi (2014) observed what he called the bandwagon effect as the tendency within a paradigm that keeps established ideas and research agendas in power through social pressures. Additionally, it results in research conformity because paradigm members blindly commit to normal science pursuits.
According to Kuhn (1996), normal science involves operations that tidy up the relationship between the theoretical and experimental by “forcing nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies” (p. 32). As the articulating force of the paradigm’s theoretical model, normal science must tend to three important foci: (1) generating a group of facts that the paradigm has demonstrated to be revealing of reality; (2) generating a group of facts that are linked to predictions made within the paradigm; (3) and conducting empirical work for the purposes of resolving the gaps and ambiguities within the paradigm. Once a paradigm has been firmly established,
Kuhn argued that the role of normal science embedded within it has been reduced to that of puzzle solving. Thus, the aim of normal science is to focus on the conceptual puzzles within the paradigm while doing little to advance new or different conceptual understandings or perspectives. Those researchers practicing normal science within the paradigm are ultimately insulated from the ideas that exist outside their socio-cultural and conceptual spheres of practice.
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According to Barnes (1982), the acceptance and sustenance of a theory through the operations of normal science, can only arise from cognitive commitments “acquired through socialization and maintained by the application of authority and forms of social control” (p. 11). Barnes asserted that throughout the endeavors of normal science, paradigmatic knowledge production is not seen as a final statement of complete knowledge, but rather as a precursor to subsequent research that will bolster the paradigm by eliminating or explaining away experimental anomalies. Thus normal science acts as a program of apologetics for the paradigm that it serves. Furthermore, those conducting normal science within a paradigm perceive the need to increase the precision of measuring techniques and perfect methodologies so that the paradigm can be extended and applied to other cases or previously incompatible fields of inquiry. Through the cognitive construct of analogy, paradigm scientists attempt to make the unknown conceptually similar to what is already known within the paradigm. As a paradigm evolves, it becomes the basis for all research and subsequent practice.
In addition to preserving and extending the paradigm, normal science facilitates the production of new generations of paradigm practitioners through the social acts of training and pedagogy. According to Barnes (1982), training is the transmission of existing knowledge and procedure from teacher to student in order to insure the future quality of paradigmatic practice. Barnes argued that the student must assimilate the paradigm; his or her training requires that the existing paradigm “be recognized as the sole legitimate representation of, and mode of dealing with, an aspect of the physical environment” (p. 18), or, for the purpose of this study, the education environment. Within a paradigm, student training is authoritarian and its doctrines are presented pedagogically
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as dogma. Ultimately, according to Barnes, the student’s natural abilities are used to achieve expertise in conducting normal science and not to inquire into the nature of reality outside paradigmatic precepts. Barnes argued that, in addition to pedagogy, textbooks within a prescribed curriculum indoctrinate and facilitate student acquiescence to a particular scientific worldview along with its accepted methodologies. Such training narrows the scope of normal science investigations so that research is conducted only if it directly benefits the paradigm. Such a narrowed scope comes at the expense of blank or blind spots in research and practice. Lastly, Barnes argued that pedagogy and training occurring within normal science program are forms of socialization into the paradigm.
Regarding the actual practice of conducting research within this education research paradigm, Lawson (2009) discussed the notion of exemplars, or the “accepted examples of how research can and should proceed” (p. 103). According to Lawson, these exemplars encompass law, theory, application, instrumentation, as well as the rules for conducting research, determining rigor and deciding what counts as valid knowledge
(p.103). Ultimately, the knowledge created through this research perpetuates the paradigm by becoming the content of teacher education programs. Bosi (2012) argued that paradigmatic research is characterized by a drive for heightened productivity in which the volume of what is actually produced increases while the quality and inventiveness of the research declines (p. 454). She asserted that while this drive promotes growth in the quantity of research publications, it is accompanied by “the emergence in many areas of barriers to interdisciplinary cooperation” (Bosi, 2012, p.
454). Consequently, blank and blind spots begin to emerge within teacher education programs of study. Normal science can be viewed as an inherited set of blinders for
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students of education research and practice. Within the context of teacher education, normal science conducted within Themisean meta-theory limits each student methodologically and programmatically.
Paradigm shifts. As history reveals, the dominance of a particular paradigm is ephemeral. Kuhn (1996) suggested how the historical rise of a paradigm is always followed by a fall via the mounting anomalies and novel insights that occur over time.
Initially, researchers within the paradigm only experience those phenomena that they perceive to be usual or expected. However, as they become aware of the mounting challenges to a paradigm, practitioners, engaged in normal science, generate ad hoc modifications to the model in order to keep it safe from these anomalies. Wray (2011) suggested that these novelties or experimental anomalies often arise through difficulty against a background of expectation. This background of expectation is conceptually similar to Foucault’s (2002) episteme (discussed later) and grid of intelligibility.
Eventually, these anomalies become anticipated as the paradigm is forced to bend and shape over time. Inevitably, researchers must learn to look at reality in slightly different ways. However, as the number and profundity of the anomalies increase, the faltering paradigm becomes so contorted that its professional community begins to experience a real sense of insecurity. The numerous ad hoc adjustments become too logically cumbersome. Meanwhile, during these periods of crisis, the community of researchers calls for philosophical analysis and theoretical speculation in the search for new ways to give meaning to the data. As paradigmatic rules continually break down, researchers, often reluctantly, begin to search for new ones. According to Kuhn (1996), the rejection of a paradigm can only come about through the symmetric action of accepting a
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replacement paradigm, for “a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place” (p. 86).
During the tumultuous time of revolutionary science that eventually precipitates a paradigm shift, Wray (2011) posited that opposing research communities inevitably talk past each other when they appeal to their own standards to justify methodologies and judge truth claims. Wray indicated that as Kuhn’s (1996) ideas evolved, he came to embrace the importance of taxonomic or lexical changes as requisites for a true paradigm shift. As such, Wray (2011) argued that science revolutions always involve “the replacement of one lexicon or taxonomy by another incompatible lexicon on taxonomy”
(p. 25). Furthermore, Wray argued that due to this importance of language in scientific inquiry, disputes between competing paradigms cannot simply be resolved by appealing to logic and experiment alone.
Typically, students within a given research paradigm contribute very little either to resuscitate the faltering paradigm or to help usher in a new one. Kuhn (1996) suggested that students generally accept theories on the authority of teachers and textbooks and not on data or evidence. This is an important consideration for the purposes of this study when considering that the role of teacher education is a means by which to perpetuate an education research paradigm.
Kuhn (1996) asserted that the anomalies forcing a paradigm shift are special in that they must possess the following qualities: (1) they must call into question the foundational/fundamental assertions within the paradigm; (2) they must inhibit model applications that are of practical importance; (3) and they must successfully prevent the activities of normal science from explaining them away. As this special set of anomalies
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becomes more pervasive within paradigmatic discourse, a growing and expressed discontent encourages philosophical debate over fundamental concepts. Finally, through the use of successful techniques of persuasion and the expressed consent within the professional community, a paradigm shift occurs and a new replacement paradigm ascends as the dominant research model. Kuhn asserted that this replacement model “is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field’s most elementary theoretical generalizations” (p. 93). Wray (2011) argued that scientific revolutions or paradigm shifts completely alter the ways that discourse attaches to or corresponds with the observed phenomena. It is important to note that while the normal science that operates within a paradigm is cumulative, Kuhn (1996) argued that paradigm shifts produce discontinuities in the progress of overall knowledge. Paradigm shifts are non-cumulative and occur between two conceptually incompatible paradigms.
This discussion is, indeed, relevant to the study because of my assertion that contemporary teacher education operates according to Themisean meta-theory—a construct that can be conceptualized as a paradigm. As such, those within teacher education should critically examine the anomalies and complexities that are typically dismissed as incommensurable to the functioning of normal science within the paradigm.
In light of what has just been discussed regarding the potential for paradigm shifts, I feel that it is important to include a brief discussion of alternative perspectives on education research and practice—perspectives that could, in fact, lead to such a shift within the education landscape. Hyslop-Margison (2010) asserted, “Rather than adopting the notion of scientific research, then, a more pragmatic understanding of research in education is required that appreciates the contextual uniqueness of classroom situations”
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(p. 816). Furthermore, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) argued, “Education is a distinctly human practice that is far less governed by demonstrable causal regularity than by surprises, disappointments, accidental encounters, contingencies, and everything else to which human circumstance and history are subjected” (p. 53). They asserted the importance of divergent thinking from policy-makers, funding agencies, and research institutions so that they can become open to inquiry that is qualitatively different than that which stems directly from the dominant paradigm. This divergent thinking can also help to promote awareness regarding the inherent limitations of scientism in education research. Lastly, Hyslop-Margison (2010) suggested that education research and practice should have as its primary focus the determination of “our destination, rather than identifying the best available vehicle to take us there” (p. 829).
Given the presence of a dominant paradigm, or at least the presence of paradigm- like characteristics in contemporary education research and practice, several theorists
(Bosi, 2012; Hodgson & Standish, 2006; Lawson, 2009; St. Clair, 2005; Stone, 2006;
Thomas, 1998) cited alternative modes of analysis and posed important questions that could potentially challenge the status quo and lead to a paradigm shift. Bosi (2012) stated, “We must influence the mechanisms, agendas and specific processes involved in knowledge production and act in settings concerning research and its dissemination, that is, in the distribution of scientific and social capital” (p. 460). Hodgson and Standish
(2006) echoed this call to action when they argued for education research and practice that engages “with the philosophical questions inherent in education […] and dialogue with the knowledge of the social sciences in order to challenge its sense of purpose, of its history, and of its relationship to that which it seeks to study and improve” (p. 573).
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Lawson (2009) offered autobiographical and reflective components that he deemed to be essential to the education process. He also asserted the importance of “cross-paradigm bridge-building and paradigmatic hybrids” (p. 99).
Awareness through philosophical analysis and reflective practice could lead to more fruitful education research and practice as well as an eventual paradigm shift. St.
Clair (2005) called for such awareness when he stated, “It is essential for educational research to avoid the pitfall of assuming that any method will lead to perfect knowledge of educational processes” (p. 435). This includes the recognition, according to St. Clair, that there is “no logical basis for believing that it is possible to transfer empirically based knowledge between educational settings” (p. 445). St. Clair believed that education research can become more powerful when it focuses on developing useful empirical heuristics or “models of relationships between factors based on empirical evidence, but without a claim to universality” (p. 445). Empirical heuristics would serve as the principle means by which those in the classroom could practice more reflexively.
Likewise, Stone (2006) called for “a new politics of education research, a kind of radical stance in which methodology is questioned” that begins with “undermining the domination of empirical research as the sole basis for educational and social change” (p.
543). Thomas (1998) claimed, “Research in education is too often research created in its own image, forever iterating its own findings and reiterating its own beliefs, obsessed with its procedures and locked in its own involuted literatures” (p. 157). Thomas asserted the importance of imagination and creativity to educational inquiry and challenges the restrictive parameters of paradigmatic discourse by declaring that researchers and practitioners must be free to think. Lastly, Lawson (2009) posed two fundamentally
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important questions in the hopes of challenging the current paradigm: “Do researchers recognize the selectivity, limitations and ‘blind spots’ in their work? Have they established structures and operational processes for research-focused improvements?” (p.
97).
Conclusion. In this section, I provided evidence from the literature that suggests the presence of paradigm-like tendencies within contemporary education research as it relates to teacher education. I also explored the implications of paradigm research including its abilities to control its own discourse, filter out incompatible theories and methodologies, induct and indoctrinate new participants, and decide what questions to ask and how to ask them.
There are two principle points to be gleaned from this section. First, paradigms are sociocultural constructs that internally define its theoretical presuppositions and methodological commitments through consensus and powerful gatekeeping devices. As such, they are contingent on the cultural and historical influences that permeate society at large and should not be viewed as operating neutrally and objectively. As Feyerabend and
Oberheim (2011) suggested, “the sciences are full of conflict. The only monster
SCIENCE that speaks with a single voice is a paste job constructed by propagandists, reductionists, and educators” (p. 56). Furthermore, Feyerabend asserted that science is more than a collection of “truth” statements; science is a complex amalgam of people, places, things (lab instruments), politics, and economics.
Secondly, paradigms, because of their dogmatic adherence to internally derived presuppositions and theoretical frameworks, are apt to become myopic in scope particularly with respect to highly complex fields of study such as education. While much
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of the preceding review was focused primarily on education research, the implications are directly linked to teacher education. Teacher education heavily relies on the knowledge production and theory generation emerging from education research activities. As such, teacher education can be viewed as a direct consequence of paradigm practice or a manifestation of paradigm thinking. The practice of teacher education is the other side of the education research coin—the two are wholly intertwined. I hope that this discussion will prompt readers to take on a more critical and reflexive stance within their respective fields and strive for greater awareness in the areas and considerations that their particular professional paradigm might be neglecting or dismissing.
Themisean Framework: Epistemes
In this section of the literature review, I will attempt to make the case that the knowledge produced by education research and relied upon by teacher education programs, is the output of the Themisean meta-theory model. Accordingly, this knowledge output is given value and implemented according to the dictates of the contemporary episteme. For the purposes of discussing education research output and its effect on teacher education, I will utilize Foucault’s (2002) episteme as a theoretical construct that will help illustrate the link between knowledge and power and how education research knowledge can be used to preserve societal power relations and the status quo. The focus of the ensuing discussion will be the direct link between education research and teacher education and how this link has the tendency to both normalize the teaching profession and preserve current societal power structures.
The episteme has been a focal point of critique by several contemporary education researchers. Popkewitz (1998) asserted that within the episteme, the knowledge products
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of science-based education research have been applied to teacher education so that each program of study has become “a ‘civilizing process’ that normalizes the dispositions and sensitivities of those who would teach” (p. 10). He posited, “Discourses about development and achievement functioned objectively to separate, rate and rank individuals by creating finer and finer differentiations of everyday behavior” (Popkewitz,
1998, p. 10). Butin (2003) took this idea a step further by suggesting that many university professors of education and education researchers “have already been systematically molded in their professional careers such that there is a ‘positive internalization’ of being examined and examining others” (p. 164). This professional molding creates the capacity to yield unquestioningly to the disciplinary power of external authorities—a power often encapsulated by the examination process. This implies that the discourse occurring at the teacher education level trickles down into the classroom and ultimately affects teacher and student relationships through curricular and pedagogical initiatives. Lather (2004) suggested that such discourses and knowledge application within the episteme contribute to the formulation of a “biopolitics” designed to “regulate behavior and render populations productive” (p. 23). Regardless of whether the context is at the macro-level
(city, state, nation) or at the micro-level (the university or K-12 classroom), discourse and procedures focused on ranking, sorting, classifying and analyzing “work toward disciplining through normalizing” (Lather, 2004, p. 24).
Regarding the field of education research, Butin (2003) discussed the ways in which any field of study solidifies itself as such. Ultimately, discourse drives this process, and in the context of education research and practice, “The emergent educational focus on productivity and efficiency at the start of the twentieth century as a type of ‘discourse’
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[…] shaped subsequent discourses and legitimated particular norms” (Butin, 2003, p.
166). Thus the official discourse, emerging from and endorsed by the episteme, shapes the future trajectory of a given field as well as its discourses, methodologies and agendas.
Townsend (2012) substantiated this position by observing how researchers, particularly in the field of education, have lost their ability to autonomously decide what to research and how to research due to funding pressures within the episteme. These pressures define legitimate research according to a specified set of research questions and methodologies
(Townsend, 2012, p. 433). Some scholars (St. Pierre, 2012; Tie, 2012; Townsend, 2012) have observed how knowledge production within the episteme has been used to rank and classify academic journals as well as universities. St. Pierre (2012) argued that such ranking schemes and classification systems do not arise from “a neutral science but only by the rules of its own discourse” (p. 499). Tie (2012) discussed the influence of the episteme on the very governance of universities, particularly in Asia, where policies have contributed to “an intensified effort to compete in international academic rankings” (p.
437). According to Tie, those universities with the highest international rankings are those with greater concentrations of published research deemed to be of high quality and found in the “high impact journals” (p. 438). Policies of promotion and tenure within these universities also reflect the privileging of certain kinds of knowledge occurring within the episteme. In order for a scholar to advance, he or she has to publish a specified number of articles within ISI (Institute for Science Information) journals. The number of required articles corresponds to the type of position the academic is seeking. Tie argued that because such research endeavors primarily focus on policy and education phenomena
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at the macro level, there has been a subsequent lack of “engagement of the university with its local community” (p. 445).
Pais and Valero (2012) addressed the episteme and its relation to math education practice and research. They assert that contemporary math education “is defined not by its intrinsic characteristics, but by the crucial discursive and ideological role it plays within the educational systems and society” (Pais & Valero, 2012, p. 13). This is yet another example of how the episteme uses knowledge teleologically to sustain its power and control. Pais and Valero also discuss the episteme’s “tendency towards the learnification of education [, or] the reduction of the study of educational phenomena to the study of administrable, engineerable learning processes” (p. 14). This tendency has stripped away notions of context, culture and power from the field of education research and practice. According to Pais and Valero, the learnification of education has also introduced a set of “mechanisms through which school mathematics constructs a set of learning standards that are closely related to the administration of children rather than to an agenda of mathematical knowledge” (p. 15). These learning standards are based on conceptualizations from within the sciences of psychology and social psychology and are used within the episteme as bio-power or the enforcement strategies of Foucault’s (1995) bio-politics. Pais and Valero (2012) defined bio-politics as “the growing inclusion of human natural life [as opposed to political life] within the mechanisms and calculations of power” (p. 15). According to the authors, this bio-power is clearly evident in the measurement and evaluation pedagogical practices and evidence-based research practices common to the episteme--processes “that fully reduce human beings to numbers representing” performance levels (Pais & Valero, 2012, p. 15). Bio-politics also involves
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the implementation of “technologies of the self […] that force individuals to bind themselves to their own identity, defined by the degree of adherence to social norms”
(Pais & Valero, 2012, p. 14). The authors argued that the episteme forces the teacher to adopt pedagogies suitable to the context of learnification and its constant call for measurement and assessment, regardless of the individual teacher’s professional knowledge and experience. Within the episteme, teachers are pressured to conform to pedagogical norms due to the ever-present fear of accountability and poor student performances, while students are pressured to perform according to standards of normalization for fear of marginalization and negative classifications.
Foucault’s episteme. In The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences, Foucault (2002) set out to discover the explicit conditions of an epistemological field in which certain knowledge is conceptualized apart from objective and rational criteria. The impetus behind this task was Foucault’s belief that the order (or perceived rational coherence of reality) emerging from these epistemological fields, or epistemes, is contingent upon the historical-cultural space of knowledge within which they are situated. Foucault developed the method of archaeology in order to investigate how a culture experiences order through the establishment of relationship tables, hierarchies and classification systems.
Within Foucault’s (2002) method of archaeology, there are four points of analysis. First, archaeology locates the socio-historically situated epistemological system common to the set of scientific representations and knowledge products emerging from a variety of disciplines at a given point in time. It also seeks to determine the sociocultural and historical conditions that give rise to the discontinuous and complete scientific
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restructuring and ordering that occur over time. Secondly, archaeology analyzes the rules that govern scientific discourse (similar to Kuhn’s (1996) analysis of the socioculturally derived discourse within paradigms) and the conditions required to give practical value to scientific discourse. Thirdly, archaeology is the analysis of an episteme’s scientific discourses through the use of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics allows the researcher to deconstruct dominant discourses through recognition of the tremendously important role that language and communication play in establishing systems of thought.
In his analysis of epistemes through archaeology, Foucault (2002) answered three important questions: 1. On what grounds is the validity of the system’s classification established with complete certainty? 2. What are the identities and analogies that allow us to sort and categorize? 3. From where does the coherence of the classification emerge?
Ultimately, the establishment of order among things within an episteme depends on the application of a “preliminary criterion” (Foucault, 2002, p. 17). According to Foucault, this preliminary criterion that serves as the foundation of order within an episteme is purely a product of language; order exists when episteme practitioners express it verbally through text and discourse. Foucault claimed that by employing archaeology as a method for the analysis of knowledge within the context of an episteme, the investigator would have a better understanding of how knowledge arises and functions historically, socially and culturally. According to Foucault:
The fundamental codes of a culture--those governing language, its schemas of
perception, its exchanges, its techniques, it values, the hierarchy of its practices--
establish for every man, from the very first, the empirical orders with which he
will be dealing and within which he will be at home. (p. 17)
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Similarly, Apple (1999) discussed the interplay between the episteme and the knowledge production that occurs within it. His specific focus is on education research and its impact on education practice. Apple argued that there is a “power/knowledge nexus underlying any construction of a field of knowledge,” and that with the current fixation on “what the data say,” there are complex epistemological issues that need to be realized in order to deconstruct this nexus (Apple, 1999, p. 343). Apple claimed that this fixation is “deeply connected to the social and epistemological commitments and conventions of the ‘discourse community’ in which one is situated,” and is indicative of how “‘fields’ are constructed, [and] how discourses both construct and are constructed by, political/epistemological moves” (p. 344). Thus, knowledge is assessed and assigned espistemal value according to its status “within that field of power […] and in the connections between that specific field and more powerful fields” (Apple, 1999, p. 344).
The implications of imbuing certain knowledge with value or a privileged status can be observed in contemporary higher education when a university strives to accumulate highly valued knowledge through an episteme-approved research agenda, and by doing so, raises its own status within the episteme. Its higher status then becomes a form of social capital that can be traded on the knowledge market for additional resources, higher rankings, etc. (Apple, 1999, p. 344).
Bridges (2006) discussed the communal and consensus-based nature of knowledge production within an episteme and how communities of research and practice operate with a common identity forged through a mutual understanding of the field-based norms that govern all inquiry (p. 264). Bridges argued that this normalized system of research behavior, similar to the behavior within Kuhn’s paradigms, stems from the
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researchers sharing “a common language and their shared recognition and reference to some common rules of (in this case) intellectual and creative behavior (p. 265). But, as a point of departure from Kuhn’s (1996) paradigm, the norm-based research behavior within the community is maintained by external forces such as “the intellectual, moral and institutional props, [all of which] constitute the discipline of the discipline, of the tradition of thought and representation with which they are associated” (Bridges, 2006, p.
265). The very discipline of the discipline is formed in part by the episteme context within which it is embedded. The episteme dictates the rules used to normalize communal research and practice and the ways in which the knowledge that is produced is applied politically to the various societal problems related to that field’s purview. According to
Bridges (2006), these rules also:
link the methods appropriate to the research task or conclusion to particular
ontologies and epistemologies and hence shape the character of the truth claims
… shape the way in which appropriate inferences can be drawn from the evidence
that indicate the impossibility of such inferences … [and] indicate what are the
analytic and explanatory concepts appropriate to the research task and evidence.
(p. 266)
Bridges (2006) asserted that, ultimately, these episteme-based rules not only open up research and practice possibilities by enabling the social processes that produce meaning, but also restrict or close down other possibilities by disallowing non- conforming discourse that has the potential to offer new insights or qualitatively different perspectives (p. 268). Indeed, it is up to the researcher to become more aware of these structures and to operate, and resist when necessary, according to this knowledge. Lastly,
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Bridges concluded that the value of research and the knowledge it produces are directly linked to how closely the research operations conform to episteme norms, and how readily the produced knowledge can be implemented within episteme discourses that perpetuate existing power relations (p. 271).
In his discussion of the episteme as it relates to education research and practice,
Alhadeff-Jones (2010) focused on its tendency towards a simplifying mode of organization. According to Alhadeff-Jones, this mode of organization:
Leans toward the denial, the reduction and the fragmentation of complexity,
understood here as the fabric of antagonistic, contradictory and complementary
relationships that characterize and connect the elements constitutive of a critical
system of representations and actions, as well as the physical, social and symbolic
environments that surround it. (p. 487)
Alhadeff-Jones constructed the “paradigm of simplification” in order to suggest that knowledge production and usage imply “the selection of significant data and the rejection of non-significant [data], separating, uniting, organizing into a hierarchy, and centralizing information” (p. 480). This paradigm is characterized by several key characteristics that include: the principles of universality and reduction, the principle of deterministic order, the principles of isolation (between studied object and environment) and disjunction
(between studied object and researcher), and the principles quantification and formalization (elimination of ontological considerations) (Alhadeff-Jones, 2010, p. 480).
Operating through this paradigm of simplification, the current episteme embraces and applies knowledge reflecting “a logic of hyper-specialization looking for a perfect order located behind the complexity of phenomena” (Alhadeff-Jones, 2010, p. 480). Alhadeff-
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Jones juxtaposed this paradigm of simplification with a “paradigm of complexity” (p.
479) that is characterized by the primacy of the local and singular, the necessity of historical context when studying a particular phenomenon, and the centrality of the whole that cannot be considered solely by examining its parts (p. 480). Lastly, he called for a change to the episteme that will enable it to “tolerate the continuous negotiation between order and disorder” and that will promote the “process of self-reflection bringing researchers to continuously question their doubts, their ignorance and their confusion”
(Alhadeff-Jones, 2010, p. 480).
For the purposes of this study, the implications of episteme analysis raise important questions. Are teacher education programs enabling students to become aware of the episteme, along with its limitations, restrictions and power dynamics, within which they are studying and will ultimately practice? Are teacher education programs equipping future teachers with the intellectual tools required to resist conforming pressures for the sake of providing their students contextually appropriate guidance and support? Teachers will need to be able reach their students in spite of the inevitable, controlling presence of the episteme.
Technologies of power. Within the episteme, Foucault (1995) asserted the existence of a technology of power through which the individual becomes perceived “as an object of knowledge for a discourse with a scientific status” (p. 29). Furthermore, through the processes of discipline and punishment that are based on scientific knowledge, the individual’s body is transformed into an object of power relations. Once this transformation takes place, a person can be readily observed and analyzed as a scientific object, in light of performance standards. According to Foucault, systems of
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discipline and punishment incorporate diagnostics, assessment and normative judgments in order to satisfy the knowledge needs of the episteme—all of which lead to a “technical prescription for a possible normalization” (p. 25). Within these systems, Foucault asserted the evolution of “small-scale legal systems and parallel judges” (p. 25) that must enforce and evaluate normalcy for the steady perpetuation of the episteme. As a direct tie in to this study, Foucault included education researchers and practitioners in the ranks of these parallel judges. These systems subjugate the body by turning it into an object of knowledge—an act that is produced by power in an effort to sustain that power.
Foucault (1995) described two fields of the body: the political field and the economic field. Power relations (politics, knowledge, language) within the system directly affect the political field of the body. The economic field of the body concerns the productive power of the individual. Accordingly, the body becomes useful only when it is productive through subjugation. Foucault argues that the goal of discipline on both the political and economic fields of the body is docility. The state of docility is reached only when the body is analyzable and manipulable. Thus a docile body is one that is subjected, used, transformed and improved for the good of the episteme and the current balance of power. In order to promote docility, control must be exerted “at the level of mechanism itself—movements, gestures, attitudes, rapidity: an infinitesimal power over the active body” (Foucault, 1995, p. 135). According to Foucault, this control must be focused on the economy and efficiency of movement, and it must be based on a modality of coercion, uninterrupted supervision of activity, and the partitioning of time and space.
Through docile obedience, the person becomes more economically valuable and less politically powerful.
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For the purpose of this study, Foucault’s (1995) descriptions of strategies for control and processes of discipline and punishment can be readily extended to an educational context—particularly a contemporary educational context informed by science-based research and practice. First, the discipline of the minute is the meticulous regulation and supervision of the body through attention to details. Through this type of discipline, the body’s activities are precisely scripted so that control can be constantly maintained (scripted curriculum, scripted lesson plans, etc.). Secondly, the discipline of space promotes control through the careful spatial distribution of bodies (i.e., fixed seating oriented towards a teacher at the front of a classroom). Enclosure is a technique that establishes control through monotony (i.e., lecture, teacher-centric models of curriculum and instruction). The body becomes docile when the mind becomes numb due to a lack of visual stimulation. Partitioning allows the control of the body through its separation from other bodies (individual testing as opposed to collaborative learning).
This partitioning facilitates the supervision of the individual from moment to moment, in isolation, for the purposes of assessing performance. This strategy includes the use of functional sites or places corresponding to pre-defined activities. When placed at a functional site, the person is restricted from engaging with others for fear that communication could disrupt the power relations required by the episteme.
Furthermore, procedures for determining mastery of knowledge and application are developed and implemented at these sites (Foucault, 1995, p. 142). Such procedures include the discipline of classification through which a stable grid classifies individuals according to skill and speed in order to promote pedagogical efficiency and greater control over the body. This particular type of discipline can be clearly observed in
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contemporary education contexts wherein exist classifications based on GPA, reading levels, FCAT scores, school ratings, etc. Foucault (1995) likened educational space to a learning machine with the capabilities of “supervising, hierarchizing, [and] rewarding”
(p. 146), as well as complimenting the measuring and evaluating functions of that space.
Ultimately, power is imposed and sustained through distribution and ranking processes.
Over the past decade, several education researchers (Green, 2010; Humes &
Bryce, 2003; B. Johnson, 1999; Lather, 2004; Townsend, 2012) have discussed the ways that education research and practice have been used to perpetuate power relations and to sustain the existing episteme. Green (2010) argued that knowledge related to a particular discipline is powerful and enduring, but not neutral (p. 52). According to Green, such knowledge should be “recognized as an exemplary form of power-knowledge [and] (i)t is this (hierarchical) form of knowledge that pervades institutionalized education, or the modern(ist) project of schooling” (p. 52). Humes and Bryce (2003) suggested that in order to truly understand knowledge production and the value of that knowledge within an episteme, one must also understand the power relations and the exercise of power within that episteme (p. 179). B. Johnson (1999) defined power within this context as
“the capacity or ability to realize desired ends despite the resistance offered by others” (p.
32). Examples of this type of power include “web scrubbing”—a process in which the
U.S. Department of Education deleted research from web-based databases that it deemed to be contrary to Bush administration education policy agendas (Lather, 2004, p. 15).
Additionally, Congress’s privileging of random field trials to determine the efficacy of federally funded programs indicates that educational research has been transformed into
“a partisan tool, much like standardized tests have functioned for almost two decades
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now” (Lather, 2004, p. 18). Within the current episteme, Lather (2004) asserted, “It appears that science, money, and politics have combined with pre-positioned capability and sweetheart contracts […] to court the increased federal role in the adoption of experimental methods” (p. 22). Thus the relationship between politics and the episteme is clear: politics is an essential component to the preservation of power. Johnson (1999) argued that politics is the means by which allocation (political and economic) decisions are made and it “is reflected in the varied efforts of mobilized interests to realize partisan values in decision outcomes” (p. 24). Of special concern to this study is the fundamental role that information, particularly information that results from education research, plays in the relationship between politics and power. Johnson asserted, “Information is the lifeblood of the decision-making process. It is the raw material used by policy actors to frame, support, oppose, and justify policy arguments in various decision-making arenas”
(p. 24). Johnson stressed the importance of awareness as it relates to the contentious nature of information usage within the political context of the episteme. Such awareness must include recognizing that information is not value-neutral (p. 26). Moreover, those directly linked to the political maneuverings within the episteme often use information as a means by which to guarantee their own political survival through the maximization of political gains and the minimization of political losses (Johnson, 1999, p. 27). Therefore, according to Johnson, information is often used selfishly to further one’s political career, increase one’s power and preserve one’s status within the episteme. Johnson also suggested that within knowledge-power dynamics, “The capabilities of reason are overestimated, whereas the complexities of the social world go unrecognized” (p. 28).
Lastly, Johnson spoke to the importance of interpretation within political processes.
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Johnson posited, “Empirical findings never stand alone; they are embedded in an interpretive context [and that a] given interpretation of existing information is a function of the ideological bent, analytic tools, basic assumptions, and attention structure of the interpreter (p. 30).
Of tremendous significance to this present study is what Townsend (2012) described as the marketization of the research process. Marketization occurs when there is a discernible “move away from pure research and theoretical knowledge to a more pragmatic concern about what works in terms of new policies and practices” (Townsend,
2012, p. 430). However, as discussed in an earlier section, policy makers, education researchers and teachers often fail to consider the effects of research when it is applied indiscriminately to diverse populations in the name of effectiveness and performativity. I argue that such considerations are absolutely essential to education that embraces notions of equality, diversity and social justice. Are teacher education programs promoting awareness of the various technologies of power so that today’s student-teachers will later work to circumvent them in their classrooms of tomorrow?
Discipline through control. Discipline is achieved through the control of activity, time and performance. Foucault (1995) indicated that control of activity is best achieved through the constant supervision of and pressure from supervisors to insure precision and regularity of actions in order to optimize productivity and performativity. Controllers establish rhythms, repetitions, cycles and schedules to operationalize this control over activity. To control time, supervisors create periods of isolated training and practice that are organized into time intervals with increasing levels of complexity. These training intervals have a pre-determined duration and conclude with the testing of the individual.
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Foucault asserted that such testing allows supervisors to organize labor according to test- based hierarchies and rank. Foucault linked this type of training to the notion of exercise, or the imposition of different yet repetitive tasks on the body for the purpose of “bending behavior to some terminal state […] that makes possible a perpetual characterization of the individual either in relation to this term, in relation to other individuals, or in relation to a type of itinerary” (p. 160).
The control of performance is carried out through the process of examination, which “combines the techniques of an observing hierarchy and those of a normalizing judgment” (Foucault, 1995, p. 188). It is this particular type of control that Foucault
(1995) directly tied to the context of education. He argued that the school is an “apparatus of uninterrupted examination” (Foucault, 1995, p. 188) that situates students within a new domain of knowledge because it employs the examination as a means to create an individual that is describable and analyzable as an object. Foucault posited, “The age of the ‘examining’ school marked the beginning of a pedagogy that functions as a science”
(p. 188). Within this age of examining schools, one must ask the fundamental question of whether or not a science of the individual is possible or legitimate (Foucault, 1995, p.
195). In summary, discipline is a major component to the technology of power. As such, its goal within the episteme is “to obtain the exercise of power at the lowest possible cost
[…] and to increase the docility and utility of all the elements of the system” (Foucault,
1995, p. 224).
Within an episteme, disciplinary control results in two types of knowledge: dominant/hegemonic knowledge and subjugated knowledge. Knowledge is inextricably linked to discourse; knowledge informs discourse and discourse alters, legitimizes, and
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de-legitimizes knowledge. As argued by Foucault (1995), the episteme and the knowledge-discourse-power interplay within it are socioculturally contingent. According to Stanton (2001), “The circulating types of frames, events, and identities that can be presupposed to organize a particular discursive interation […] are (most often) implicit construals of what different linguistic forms mean for the social positioning of speakers
(p. 256). As such, the sociocultural context within which an episteme operates helps shape its discourse. Similarly, the power-knowledge relationships of the episteme determine the status of that discourse and those engaged in it. According to Peters (2012),
Foucault’s notion of subjugated knowledge “arise[s] out of the local context as a form of criticism and also represent[s] knowledges that have been disqualified or silenced by a system of institutional filters and official funding patterns” (p. 796). Butin (2003) similarly described subjugated knowledge as “a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently elaborated” (p. 174). Thus one may view subjugated knowledge as a byproduct of contextualism—an important implication of the putative existence of an episteme. According to Peters (2012),
“Contextualism is an epistemological doctrine that holds that in a non-trivial sense, meaning, truth, knowing, and justification are to be understood relative to a context” (p.
794). Therefore, the act of discourse, whether promulgating the dominant knowledge or giving voice to subjugated knowledge, “is made in reference to a certain audience and becomes understandable only against the background of a shared context” (Peters, 2012, p. 794). For the purpose of this study, the contextualism that emerges from the episteme dichotomizes knowledge into the knowledge of power--the dominant/hegemonic knowledge, and subjugated knowledge. Peters asserted, “Contextualism in educational
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research often points to deep and often unexamined or taken-for-granted assumptions about the way gender, class or social position influence what we accept as knowledge”
(p. 795). Accordingly, these assumptions perpetuate this knowledge dichotomy within the episteme. What are teacher education programs doing to undermine this knowledge dichotomy? How are teacher education programs equipping student-teachers to engage with subjugated knowledge as it relates to the official knowledge embedded in curriculum? Such questions are important to this study given the implications of the preceding discussion.
Challenges to the episteme. Researcher Dan Butin (2003) suggested that when applying Foucault’s ideas to sociocultural contexts--particularly contexts of education-- many theorists commit what he considers the “Foucauldian fallacies”: the negation of agency, the exclusion of the potential for resistance to domination, and the capitulation to radical relativism (p. 158). According to Butin, human agency is fundamental to any system of power relations, and without it, the very idea of an episteme would collapse (p.
162). One should not make the mistake of equating the lack of resistance within some contexts to the lack of an ability to resist. He argued that resistance through human agency is “a means of self-transformation through the minimization of states of domination” (Butin, 2003, p. 158), and is something that can and should occur within any episteme. Butin asserted that Foucault was not interested in pursuing some universal set of truths, philosophical principles or methodologies that should be embraced by a particular society, culture or field of research. Instead, he was concerned with the
“privileging of transformative possibilities” as a means to “problematize practices of normalization and subjectification” (Butin, 2003, p. 172). For, according to Butin,
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Foucault realized that truth, regardless of how and why it emerges, “has the potential to create its own ‘regime of truth’ and that every form of ‘emancipatory power relies on the counterpower to which it is opposed” (p. 163). Therefore, while the imposing nature and tremendous power of the episteme may seem daunting, education researchers and practitioners have both the agency and a systemic mandate to resist. Are teacher education programs promulgating this mandate?
Numerous contemporary education theorists (Alhadeff-Jones, 2010; Butin, 2006;
Lather, 2004; Pais & Valero, 2012; Peters, 2012) cited a variety of ways by which to challenge the status quo. For example, Peters (2012) suggested that research emphasizing local context and power relations and employing Foucault’s archeology or genealogy methods “tends to undermine the taken-for-granted assumptions about official discourses, questioning their power and rediscovering local criticisms and discursivities” (p. 797).
Pais and Valero (2012) discussed the importance of reflexive research practices as a means by which to challenge the episteme. This reflexivity occurs when researchers within a particular field begin to question not only what it studies, but also the nature of the field and its status as a knowledge producer (Pais & Valero, 2012, p. 10). This reflexivity often leads to analysis of “the effects of research in generating particular discourses, with its encompassing ideologies” (Pais & Valero, 2012, p. 10). Alhadeff-
Jones (2010) endorsed a “complexifying” mode of knowing that stands in opposition to the “simplifying” mode common to the episteme. He called for the promotion of
“Pedagogical and research strategies privileging the confrontations and crossing-over of diverse critical perspectives, acknowledging the heterogeneity of their disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, and stressing their antagonisms, complementarities, and
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contradictions” (Alhadeff-Jones, 2010, p. 487). Furthermore, he endorsed hermeneutic approaches that adopt narrative inquiry for the sake of challenging traditional research methodologies and instrumental conceptions within education research. He also argued for the use of logical critiques that will challenge “the criteria of epistemic adequacy,” as well as pragmatist critiques that emphasize observation, experience, action and reflection in order to challenge the banking model of knowledge transmission (Alhadeff-Jones,
2010, p. 483). Lather (2004) called for the adoption of Foucault’s “indiscipline” by education researchers and practitioners. According to Lather, indiscipline is “a mechanism by which a marginalized population/practice is created to exert pressure that cannot be tolerated by the very process of exclusions and sanctions designed to guard against irregularities and infractions” (p. 27). Similarly, Butin (2003) stressed the importance of deliberate resistant action, regardless of its modality, as a way to reverse relations of power and “subvert the seemingly ‘natural’ binaries of knowledge production and dissemination as external and expert-driven” (p. 379). According to Butin, it is up to the education researcher and practitioner to reveal and reverse the “all too static and uni- directional relations of power in education” (p. 380) so that the assumptions and presuppositions within the episteme can be questioned and challenged. Lastly, Butin noted, as a word of caution, that even the so-called emancipatory education practices can eventually lead to new “regimes of truth” and that there can never be a final state of liberation, freedom or happiness for all people within such a context (p. 165). All that an educator can ever hope to do is continually challenge systemic norms, power relations and the hegemonic implementation of knowledge; all of which are designed to perpetuate the status quo within the field of education and society at large.
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In summary, the episteme, within which knowledge output is ultimately categorized, assessed and utilized, is socioculturally contingent and driven by dynamic power relations. The episteme has the power to both legitimize and stigmatize knowledge. Often, implementation and utility of knowledge serves to sustain political, economic and societal power structures within the episteme in order to perpetuate the status quo. For those of us working directly within the field of education, it is important to become aware of the potentialities and eventualities of the knowledge that we create. It is also important for us to perpetually question and challenge the existent knowledge that currently drives our field. In doing so, we should strive to de-mystify common sense notions and field-related norms. Furthermore, it is important for us to carefully examine how this knowledge affects teacher education.
Introduction to Part II (Erisean Meta-theory)
In this section, I intend to explore the recognized and unrecognized significance of theory. In so doing, I will be attempting to make the case that there are meta-theories that guide researchers and aid them in the development of new theories to explain observed phenomena. Of particular interest to this study are the ways in which these meta-theories shape contemporary teacher education. I explored the first such meta- theory in part 1 of this chapter. Themisean meta-theory is one that is developed under the intense pressures of current sociocultural metanarratives. It is perpetuated by sociocultural gatekeeping, theoretical and methodological indoctrination, and the dogmatic adherence to discourse structures and lexicons, which are all present within paradigms. And, it marginalizes, normalizes, and standardizes knowledge by relying on
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the generalizing techniques found within an episteme. These techniques discount context, discipline the mind and body, and preserve existing power structures.
Over the next several pages, I will be exploring an alternative meta-theory—
Erisean meta-theory (Figure 2). This particular meta-theory is rooted in an awareness that embraces context, perspective, history, power and the individual self. I will attempt to make the case that when teacher education programs operate according to this meta- theory, they will begin to promote awareness and enable future educators to more effectively reach their students at the levels of curriculum, development of the self, and social justice. This meta-theoretical positioning will also enable educators to more critically reflect upon their own perspectives, practices and the field of education itself.
The Nature of Theory
Empirical inquiry relies on theory. As Wray (2011) argued, the raw data emerging from empirical studies requires connections to theory and explanations that are grounded in a particular theoretical framework in order for there to be meaning. Furthermore, in order to generate theory, those working with a given data-set must interpret it in light of a particular theoretical or meta-theoretical orientation. Thus, as Wray argued, the selection and application of a particular theory are contingent, not necessary, commitments.
Moreover, he posited that the significance of experimental results varies according to theoretical context. This means that those working with the data can selectively determine which results count and which results should be dismissed, ignored or discounted. Consequently, data becomes pliable and is therefore unable to provide a solid, uncontestable foundation for field-related knowledge. Regardless, Wray viewed theory as a “concrete accomplishment” or template that can act to resolve present and
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future problems within a given field (p. 57). While scientific inquiry is tied directly to the past, with its reliance on established theoretical and methodological traditions, it also affects the future as it serves to perpetuate those traditions.
RICHNESS (situate ield contextually- RECURSIVE awareness of (problematize ield practices, neoliberal context re lect on personal practices/ and beliefs-awareness of the metanarratives) episteme and the connection between ield knowledge and power; awareness of paradigmatic tendencies of the ield) RESEARCH (awareness of the research act in its relation to the researcher, the researched, the ield and the socio- historical context)
RELATIONS (subject-centered, concern with the RIGOR emergence of self; (reconceptualization of the awareness of ield, reformulation of he episteme's effect ield's language; openess to on the subject) other perspectives/ approaches; awareness of paradigmatic taxonomies and lexicon)
Figure 2. Erisean meta-theory: Awareness approach. This model is alinear and is based on Doll’s (1993) Post-modern curriculum.
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Similarly, Wray (2011) discussed the effects of theory on the vision of its adherents in the field. According to Wray, “too often philosophers assume that the implications of a theory are transparent to the scientists working with it” (p. 110).
Through theory commitments, researchers and practitioners see only what they should see, according to the scope and restrictions presupposed by the theory itself. Accordingly, they must fully understand and embrace the systems of classification and organization inherent within their adopted theoretical framework. Moreover, Wray asserted that within this framework, researchers and practitioners operate under an instrumental rationality.
This rationality is based on whether or not an action or choice advances a theory goal, regardless of the desirability of that particular goal. Value judgments are typically not made within systems dictated by instrumental rationality. Wray indicated that Kuhn
(1996) perceived instrumental rationality as the operative rationality in scientific endeavors—an important consideration in light of the integration of scientism within teacher education grounded in Themisian meta-theory. This is especially problematic when instrumental rationality governs inquiry within social and cultural fields of study like education where values are of the utmost importance (Biesta, 2010). Lastly, for those in fields dominated by instrumental rationality, theory and methodological changes often come about as responses to problems with the theory and not as attempts to describe the true nature of phenomena. Wray (2011) suggested that measures of theory success change in response to changing research agendas, evolving conceptual schemes and advancing scientific instrumentation.
Theory as language-based. The language component of theory should not be dismissed. In this study, one of the crucial points central to my arguments is that, in order
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for researchers and practitioners to be more reflexive and contextually aware, they must explore language and its implications on both the development and implementation of theory. Agassi (2014) asserted that theories are sets of statements within a given language. Wray (2011) argued that language is a conceptual tool used to model different phenomena; therefore, they are not true or false in an objective sense, but are useful in a pragmatic sense. According to Wray, “competing theories are like different languages in that they impose different structures on the world” (p. 72). Furthermore, the close connection between theory and language can result in meaning-incommensurability--a situation in which proponents of competing theories talk past one another. Wray attributes this phenomenon to the holistic way in which a theory’s key concepts are defined in relation to one another.
Theory as historical and evolutionary. Feyerabend and Oberheim (2011) advocated theory analysis that is focused on identifying the key ideas, methodological trends and influential players involved in the emergence of contemporary paradigms and theoretical frameworks. This is due to what he perceived to be strong historical and evolutionary facets of theory. He argued that ideas become popular only when people with power and influence support them. This observation offers additional support to the metanarrative, paradigm and episteme components of Themisean meta-theory.
Feyerabend’s theory analysis is also reminiscent of Foucault’s genealogy--an analytic method that I will explore in more detail in a subsequent chapter. Similarly, Wray (2011) pointed out that this historical approach to the philosophy of science seeks to “understand science as it [is] really practiced” (p. 2) and is generally not concerned with the epistemic authority of scientists. This is in direct contrast to the philosophers of science preceding
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Kuhn who focused solely on the logic of science and dismissed the psychology and history of science since they did not relate directly to questions of confirmation (Agassi,
2014; Wray, 2011). On the other hand, Kuhn (1996) recognized theory as a pragmatic tool whose value is contingent upon its ability to serve the local needs of scientists working within a field related to the theory or a field in which the theory was developed
(Wray, 2011). This historical conceptualization of theory is important because, according to Wray (2011), it enables us to see that no privileged position exists for the purposes of evaluating the merits of competing theories, and that there is no ultimate knowledge destination to which theory can take us. In short, the historical nature of theory
“undermines previous certainties and raises problems for principles that seemed to be well-established” (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011, p. 96).
An Alternative Model for Teacher Education
Throughout this study, I will make the case that there are broad, over-arching meta-theories that inform the development and implementation of a wide variety of field- specific theories. This is particularly relevant in light of my speculation that such a meta- theory has permeated contemporary teacher education. In Part 1 of this Chapter, I discussed what I consider to be a dominant or paradigmatic meta-theoretical model of teacher education. This meta-theory is influenced by metanarratives, developed and applied through various paradigm structures, and ultimately used to classify, sort, generalize and discipline according to the episteme’s order of things. In this section, I will discuss the second meta-theory model—Erisean meta-theory. This model reflects the
Post-Modern orientation offered by Doll (1993) in his A Post-Modern Perspective on
Curriculum. In my discussion of this meta-theory model, I will appropriate Doll’s Four
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R’s of a Post-Modern curriculum: Richness, Recursion, Rigor, and Relations. I posit that these dimensions appropriately embody the ideas central to an alternative meta-theory that is rooted in awareness.
Before I begin discussing this alternative meta-theory, it is important to first consider what the role of theory should be in education since theory, in other fields, is used to predict, describe and explain (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011). Biesta et al.
(2014) made the assertion that theory is the cognitive precursor to the design and implementation of a particular research design. It is also the origin of large-scale research programs. They also claimed that theory is fundamental to both the conceptualization of the phenomena under investigation and the construction of research objects. When analyzing a theory or its parent meta-theory, Biesta et al. suggested the importance of first addressing the theory question in education: How do theories from different disciplines relate to the study of education? Furthermore, the authors call for researchers to address the education question in theory: What are the implications of applying particular theories to educational research contexts? Within the context of this study, the first question relates to paradigms of education research and practice while the second question pertains to the influence of metanarratives and the inherent power of the episteme.
Moreover, Biesta et al. (2014) argued that the trajectory of contemporary education theory, or what I am speculating to be Themisean meta-theory, is directed by a myopic focus on what works. This direction prioritizes empirical evidence or the brute facts of research, over theory. This is a truly profound assertion because it has powerful
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implications on the research driving both teacher education and the prescribed practices that future educators are taught to embrace.
Erisean richness: Awareness. According to Doll (1993), Richness allows for multiple layers of meaning and hermeneutical multiplicity. Richness also embraces the historical context of curriculum, pedagogy and learning. Doll argued that learning cannot be viewed as a transcendent act, but an act that is deeply rooted in specific temporal and geographic localities. Perhaps most importantly, Richness directly pertains to the subjective meaning that connects a student to the curriculum. Through my interpretation of Doll’s Richness, I applied it to the Erisean meta-theory model as a dimension that relates directly to Awareness. In stark contrast to the lack of awareness inherent in
Themisean meta-theory, Richness in this model indicates a keen awareness of power issues, cultural and historical contexts, the contingency and situated-ness of discourse, and the context of theory itself.
Szkudlarek (2014) viewed education theory as a two-edged sword. According to
Szkudlarek, not only does theory have the potential to sustain current sociocultural hegemonic regimes and perpetuate the status quo (as with Themisean meta-theory), it also has the power to expose invisible power structures. This ability to expose the invisible is a key function of Richness as embodied in Erisean meta-theory. Similarly,
Richness implies the importance of recognition—the cognitive “next step” after awareness. Ball (2013) asserted the potential power of theory for enabling researchers to recognize the modes of thought, ethics and practices that eventually produce the contemporary education practices of research and pedagogy. This recognition is also concerned with how and where power acts upon us as researchers and practitioners. Ball
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argued that through awareness-oriented theory, one can recognize that power acts in and through our subjectivity, thus enabling the subject to know exactly where to focus his or her efforts to resist.
Moreover, Richness through awareness and recognition, also relates to acknowledgement of the limits of theoretical knowledge. Sidorkin (2014) claimed that theory, blind to its own limits, can lead to the ontological destruction through ignorance of a research subject due to the imposition of restrictive and reductive conceptual generalities. Sidorkin viewed the recent failures of education reform as important evidence supporting this idea. As theorists, researchers and educators are we attempting to recognize the limits of knowledge—that which we can know with certainty?
Similarly, meta-theory Richness allows us to become more aware of the link between the structure of an extant field of knowledge and the forms of its expertise and practices (Ball, 2013). Ball argued that emerging fields and their associated forms of expertise lead to the development of new professions with new practices. Ultimately, these new fields establish new sites of truth. Accordingly, Erisean meta-theory promotes
Richness as the means by which those in education can recognize the context and development of the fields within which they work. Ball championed this Richness because of how it deals with Foucault’s critique of knowledge. Richness enables us to recognize the unchallenged or taken for granted assumptions that give rise to accepted modes of practice within our specific fields. Phelan (2014) offered examples of how certain assumptions inherent in a given sociocultural episteme directly shape practice.
According to Phelan, contemporary teacher education focuses on issues of immediate use and practical relevance while generally neglecting issues of teacher ontology such as the
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teacher as a cultural entity and the teacher as subject “anchored in ideology and nested in layers of meaning that call for clarification and interpretation” (p. 168). I agree with
Phelan’s point regarding contemporary teacher education and its reliance on Themisean meta-theory. Teacher education built on Erisean meta-theory model would promote
Richness by addressing questions related to awareness and recognition: questions related to freedom and subjectivity, agency and action, and society and history. In order to adopt
Richness into one’s research and practice, one must begin by collecting cultural data “in order to understand how education has been envisaged as a technology to solve alleged problems and to plan an envisaged future” (Trohler, 2014 p. 61). By doing so, the educator will begin to have a keener awareness of contemporary societal issues of power.
Perhaps this awareness will lead to some of the conclusions reached by Szkudlarek
(2014), such as his observation that government policies regarding pedagogy and curriculum are often wielded as a means of domination in modern societies. Theory
Richness in the forms of awareness and recognition, is vital to education due to the fact that “power works best when unnoticed, and its invisibility is often, simply, the result of the internalization of its mechanisms” (Szkudlarek, 2014, p. 151). Richness prompts us to carefully seek out those assumptions, historical trends, and sociocultural contexts that we either take for granted as truth or ignore because of how wholly immersed we are within them. Do contemporary teacher education programs promote this Richness?
Erisean recursion: Problematization and reflexivity. According to Doll (1993),
Recursion occurs when educators build feedback loops into educative processes so that those involved (teachers and students) can continually progress, develop and transform.
Recursion demands on-going dialogue, meaningful experiences, and opportunities for
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interpretation and reflection. Doll developed this idea from Deweyan action, through which, students can reflexively interact with their environment. For the purposes of formulating Erisean meta-theory, I appropriated Doll’s Recursion and developed it into one of the four powerful dimensions of that model. Since Recursion is tied directly to notions of action and reaction within a Post-Modern context, I am equating it with actions promoted by Foucault (2002)—namely eventalization, problematization and genealogy.
Recursion enables researchers and practitioners to relearn, unlearn and reflect on a given field’s knowledge and practices. For example, Usher and Anderson (2014) argued that theory enables the education researcher to be more reflexive in practice, for through awareness-oriented theory the researcher does not research on behalf of the truth but
“questions educational truths as to their effects of power and questions power on its educational discourses of truth” (p. 142).
Biesta et al. (2014) described the dual nature of education research as that which can bring both what is strange into understanding and make what is familiar and well understood become strange. Research, rooted in Recursion, should strive for both. Biesta et al. called for this eventalization in education theory because through the deliberate complication and pluralizing of all that we presume to understand well, we are eventually able to uncover and de-mystify in order to re-see familiar phenomena through fresh, new perspectives. Along with this call for eventalization, Biesta et al. also encouraged educators to problematize conventional wisdom and practices and to adopt new descriptions of educational processes. Likewise, Popkewitz (2014) advocated “unthinking to rethink what is given as practical and useful” (p. 31) and viewing theory as a style of reason in order to “disturb the causality that interns and encloses the possibilities of the
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present” (p. 31). Recognizing the complexity of history, its potential to be otherwise, and the historical implications of theory on systems of order and classifications, are crucial to the Recursion processes of problematization and eventalization (Popkewitz, 2014; Usher
& Anderson, 2014).
Recursion also embraces Foucault’s (2002) ideas of archaeology and the episteme. Foucault’s analysis typically focused on the archaeological level of thought— its governing rules and regularities, and the structures that constitute a discourse, instead of the epistemological level—the generation of knowledge products, the separation of subjects and objects of knowledge, and the establishment of relations between objects and truth (Ball, 2013). Recursion enables researchers and practitioners to discern how historical discourses determine the truth of statements and how their rules are linked to power (Ball, 2013). Accordingly, Recursion allows educators to recognize the episteme.
According to Ball (2013), the episteme is “a regime of truth or general politics of truth, which provides the unconscious codes and rules or holistic conceptual frameworks that define problems and how the problems should best be solved” (p. 22). Ultimately, an episteme makes discourses possible since it is a complex web of interconnected discursive formations (Ball, 2013). Since we all operate within an episteme, Recursion becomes a tremendously helpful process because it reveals the inherent problems of socio-historical ordering and discursive processes.
Genealogy and archaeology. According to Foucault (1980), genealogy is “the union of erudite knowledge and local memories which allow us to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make use of this knowledge tactically today” (p. 83).
Recursion is strongly connected to this methodology because it focuses on historicizing
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and problematizing knowledge and theory. Through genealogy, one perceives research and theory as styles of reasoning that “embody cultural theses about particular modes of life that travel as seemingly self-evident, practical and useful knowledge” (Popkewitz,
2014, p. 17). Popkewitz (2014) described the recursive potential of genealogy as its ability to “make fragile what is taken as natural and thus to open spaces to make alternatives possible that are outside of what is given as the order of things” (p. 19).
Similarly, Ball (2013) pointed out the recursive possibilities of archaeology. Through archaeology, the analyst is able to discover how a particular discourse acquires the status of science and how it creates the conditions of what counts as truth (Ball, 2013). This historicizing of discourse reveals that theories do not possess a timeless validity, and it helps us to see why and how theories gained their statuses given their respective historical contexts (Trohler, 2014). Lastly, as Ball (2013) suggested, Recursion, through genealogy and archaeology, will lead to thinking in new spaces and to the consideration of new possibilities.
Producing genealogies. In order to capitalize on the recursive potentialities of
Foucault’s genealogy, it is important to have an understanding of its objects, modes and scope of analysis. Ball (2013) observed the goals of genealogy to include making history visceral and displacing the self and the subject in order to show that the subject is a contingent, historical production resulting from discourse and discipline (p. 31). Ball also described genealogy as the “histories of things that are supposed to have no history” (p.
31). According to Usher and Anderson (2014), genealogy takes as its objects of analysis truth, as defined within the episteme, and the subject. Likewise, Ball (2013) indicated that genealogy is an analysis of the subject, as it exists within the episteme, and the social
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practices that constitute the subject, in order to create possibilities for resistance and the eventual liberation of the subject. Usher and Anderson (2014) reminded us that the purpose of conducting a genealogy is not to make claims on the relative goodness or badness of the discourse within an episteme, but rather to question and problematize that which is assumed, familiar and unexamined. Subsequently, they argued that the focus of any genealogy is on discourse discontinuities and subjugated knowledges and practices— the narratives that don’t fit the “totalizing story” (p. 140). Furthermore, Ball (2013) argued that it is this reliance on the marginalized voices that enables genealogy to disrupt the hegemony of the established episteme. In addition to exploring subjugated discourse as episteme discontinuities, genealogy enables us to recognize, analyze and push the discourse/knowledge limits within which we operate as researchers and educators (Ball,
2013).
Erisean rigor: Appreciation of perspective and the power of language. Doll
(1993) recognized the importance of multiple perspectives and the implications (both good and bad) of power when he included Rigor as the third component of his Post-
Modern curriculum. With respect to curriculum, Doll viewed Rigor as the means by which to promote change through disequilibrium. Doll asserted that only through this
“system” disequilibrium will a student be forced to self-organize—a process that facilitates intellectual transformation to a higher level of complexity. For Doll, this is true learning.
Furthermore, this notion of Rigor embraces individual perception and conception and accordingly challenges the learner to synthesize, analyze, connect and interpret.
Indeed, Rigor requires on-going dialogue between the learner and the learning object, the
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learner and the teacher, and the learner and the learning community. Ultimately, Rigor manifests itself as the combination of “complexity of indeterminacy with the hermeneutics of interpretation” (Doll, 1993, p. 183).
For the purposes of conceptualizing Erisean meta-theory, I have appropriated
Doll’s (1993) Rigor as a conceptual tool that theorists, researchers and educators can use to recognize the tremendous impact that perspective has on education processes. Rigor also enables us to discern the power of discourse to construct and normalize, as well as to deconstruct and liberate. Erisean meta-theory calls for educators to embrace and explore perspectives shared by the educative “Other” and become master players of the language game—i.e., knowing the rules, knowing when and how to break the rules, knowing the origin of the rules, knowing alternative rules and how they can be used to alter the game, etc.
Feyerabend and Oberheim (2011) captured Rigor by stating “that those who think that new things can be found only by wandering along a precisely defined path are wrong” (p. 130). As Lundahl (2014) argued, the wide spectrum of education issues, problems and contexts requires a wide array of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Lundhal feared the potential reality of “end[ing] up with a research mono-culture that is capable of covering only a narrow aspect of the central educational problems” (p. 40). I argue that such a mono-culture may already exist in the form of the research culture driven by Themisean meta-theory. Similarly, Gallagher
(2014) argued, “all methods are non-privileged tools useful in constructing knowledge rather than discovering or finding it” (p. 91). Accordingly, Rigor implies openness to methodological and analytic approaches. As an example, Gallagher cited the importance
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of hermeneutics to theory. Through Rigor’s openness to hermeneutic experience, one can successfully navigate “the convergence of tradition […] which sets the stage for expectations, beliefs and so on, with the disruption, negation and clashing of ongoing experiences” (Gallagher, 2014, p. 93). Lastly, Lundhal (2014) argued that “theoretically strong research is not externally prescribed” (p. 41). Instead, researchers, embracing
Rigor in their research pursuits, should be guided by their autonomous, contextual wisdom and experiences as well as intellectual and ethical integrity.
Tacit knowledge is an example of an autonomous, non-externally prescribed cognitive guide. According to Feyerabend and Oberheim (2011), tacit knowledge is an experiential body of knowledge that activates and must be communicated by actions and examples. Moreover, Feyerabend and Oberheim asserted, tacit knowledge is a powerful force in the ostensibly objective and neutral realm of scientific research. Scientists often react intuitively (subjectively) to experimental phenomena as they happen; consequently, it would not always be practical to rely solely on prescribed theoretical and methodological statements. Feyerabend sees a culture of empirical research guided by tacit knowledge in the use of lab equipment, in interpreting observations, and in making intuitive judgments. This observation contradicts the strongly held position that science operates in an objective, systematized and codified manner.
Similarly, Gallagher (2014) described this tacit knowledge as the knowledge used by teachers and students that is incommensurable with scientific investigation, control, predictions or generalizations. In fact, Gallagher argued that if one sought to create a research model to describe tacit knowledge, it would be impossible to enumerate all the
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relevant contextual and subjective variables, thus rendering generalization across contexts impossible.
Discourse. Rigor enables education researchers and practitioners to recognize the tremendous role that discourse plays in knowledge construction and use within the episteme. According to Foucault (1980), “there are manifold relations of power which permeate, characterize, and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated, nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse” (p. 93). Thus, theoretical discourse has the power to shape the subject and alter the conceptualizations of the phenomena being investigated. Popkewitz (2014) pointed out that theory orders and classifies what can become the objects of experience as they relate to curriculum, pedagogy and relationships in the classroom. Furthermore, Popkewitz revealed the inherent power of the language utilized in empirical research. He asserted that research, stemming from discourse-driven theoretical abstractions, tends to use data as a means to reify these abstractions. Accordingly, the abstractions are perceived as empirically established fact even though the qualities inherent in the abstractions were not discovered but are intrinsically linked to the theoretical conceptualizations and related procedures of measurement. Rigor promotes the awareness of such issues related to discourse and its use in producing knowledge.
Moreover, there is a tendency in scientism and its theoretical progeny to fetishize numbers. The use of numbers to quantify leads to the materialization of abstractions and contributes to the language of certainty. Those operating within paradigmatic research circles view the language of certainty as an ideal. Popkewitz (2014) asserted the power of
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numbers in discourse and research by arguing that they define the “problem space for standardizing its subject and object […and that] the uniformity given by numbers brings unlike orders in social life into a system of magnitudes that regularize relation” (p. 26).
The Rigor promulgated in Erisean meta-theory would enable researchers and practitioners to recognize what Popkewitz asserts to be two important implications of numbers in regards to its use in discourse. First, numbers embody cultural principles and are never just numbers. Secondly, numbers constrain historical curricular and pedagogical practices by providing the standards by which to order and classify how judgments are made within the episteme. Research and practice within Themisean meta- theory have a tendency to rely on numbers “as technologies to chart, compare and give direction to what should be in schooling” (Popkewitz, 2014, p. 26). Rigor allows us to see the cultural forces that are tied to the emergence of numbers as a privileged mode of expression.
Erisean relations: Growth and the transformation of the self. Relations is the fourth and final R in Doll’s (1993) Post-Modern Curriculum. Doll recognized the importance of Relations when he argued that curriculum requires pedagogical relationships to stimulate qualitative growth and the transformation of the student.
Additionally, Relations in curriculum necessitates cultural connections through activities of dialogue, interpretation and narrative discourse. Lastly, Doll equated Relations with recognition of the self. This recognition occurs within the context of community as well as within the global matrix of diverse cultures and perspectives (Doll, 1993). It should be clear that Doll’s Relations concept is strongly related to the notion of awareness central to
Erisean meta-theory. Consequently, Relations, as the fourth component to that model, is
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subject-oriented and is concerned with selfhood, what it means to be human, and existential struggle. Relations is yet another conceptual guide enabling education researchers and practitioners to act with greater awareness and sensitivity. Through
Relations, educators will act according to a deeper appreciation of the self.
Regarding the self in a Post-Modern context, Ball (2013) argued that statements uttered within a discourse-defined regime of truth ultimately construct the subject, which implies that the self is not ontologically prior to power. In his exploration of the complex relationships between discourse, power and the self, Popkewitz (2014) asserted that the abstractions embedded in theory create categories or classifications of people. These abstractions, through statistical techniques, are given magnitudes and correlations and are eventually stabilized through quantifiable categories of characteristics (Popkewitz, 2014).
Through these systems of ordering and classification that are based on quantified and reified abstractions, the subject--including teacher and student--is pressured to conform according to normalized, categorical modes of being.
According to Ball (2013), the subject is:
constituted and self-constituting in the relationships between discursive practices
(that determine what counts as true or false) and power-relations (the rationalities
and techniques by which one governs the conduct of others) and ethics (the
practices of self through which an individual constitutes itself as a subject). (p.
118)
Relations, as a crucial component to Erisean meta-theory, allows one to recognize the struggles of self against the normalizing and conforming pressures of discourse within the episteme. Furthermore, Ball described discipline as the principle instrument through
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which these pressures manifest. He asserted, “Discipline normalizes, analyzes and breaks down—breaks down individuals, places, time, movements, actions and operations” for the purposes of modification and surveillance (Ball, 2013, p. 41). Furthermore, Ball argued that discipline generates new modes of power through analytic processes that disrupt old spaces and create new spaces for the sake of greater precision. Because of the strong link between public education and the government, “School systems, with few exceptions, are rooted in a history of classifications and differentiations, in particular those that are articulated by performance, which is taken to be an indicator of something deeper—ability” (Ball, 2013, p. 45). Ball argued that government requires concrete and measurable knowledge in order to discipline the subject with greater effectiveness.
Ultimately, this knowledge contributes to the construction of classification systems that lead directly to the normalization of the subject. According to Ball, “measures
(standards), methods (examination), techniques of analysis (statistics) which latterly attached themselves to knowledge (psychology) provided a technical repertoire for the classification of learners and the population as a whole “ (p. 45). Relations, as a dimension of Erisean meta-theory, will enable researchers and practitioners to see how the episteme constructs the Post-Modern subject, thereby enabling them to pursue praxis of resistance and liberation.
Educational psychology, the foundation of much contemporary empirical education research, likewise can be directly linked to the normalization and reduction of the subject. Friesen (2014) observed that educational psychology is generally not concerned with the ontological self, but with defining laws that describe the regularities of human behavior as it pertains to learning. He noted that education psychology has
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transformed education research and practice into modes of reductive behaviorism through which learning is conceptualized as conforming to the rules of causality and predictability. Thus, learning has become a process that is readily manipulated as “a naturalized set of responses to a situation or environment” (Friesen, 2014, p. 105).
Relations provides the theoretical means for greater awareness of the self, and what has been done to it in the name of education, over the past several decades. According to
Friesen, research and practice during this time were “preoccupied with disengaged calculations of instrumental manipulation and control” that ignored “the pursuit of interests in the context of a child’s growing consciousness of both self and other” (p.
114).
Research and the self. In stark contrast to research and practice that is based on educational psychology and behaviorism, I advocate research and practice built on the principle of Relations. Education that operates under Erisean meta-theory and that embraces the key notion of relations will share Dewey’s (1938) conceptualization of the self in which, according to Friesen (2014), “The self, through its awareness and experience, is qualitatively distinct from the passive or reactive objects around it” (p.
103) and therefore cannot be treated (empirically, theoretically) as such. Furthermore, education theory, when it is oriented towards Relations, acknowledges Friesen’s observation that the self is both social and communal. The implications of this observation include the notion that the emergence of self is ontologically inseparable from the development of society. This link between the self and society implies, as
Friesen suggested, the importance of language and social interactions with the other to the development of self.
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Similarly, Feyerabend and Oberheim (2011) described a fundamental difference between academic evidence--the value of special, selected variables, and the evidence relevant to the population of a particular study--how it relates to the ways they experience the world. Relations, in education research and practice centers on the latter type of evidence and is guided by the principle, also promulgated by Feyerabend and Oberheim, that the relevant evidence in social scientific inquiry is highly idiosyncratic, contextual and generally does not conform to academic definitions and categories. Relations reveals that this type of evidence is the evidence required to actually help those within a study’s population and that academic evidence is not necessarily relevant to the people involved in the investigation. Moreover, academic evidence is often created in the name of objectivity, neutrality and researcher distance—what Feyerabend and Oberheim referred to collectively as research neutering. Relations may ultimately allow education researchers and practitioners to shorten the distance, lamented by Feyerabend and
Oberheim, between the investigator and what is being investigated. Through Relations, we would embrace what Feyerabend referred to as contextual pragmatic knowledge. This knowledge is built on intimate, tacit and relational experience and is more apt to liberate the subject than the distanced and neutral scientific knowledge.
Language and the self. In addition to narrowing research distance, Friesen (2014) argued that Relations must also recover the language of education: the languages of curriculum, pedagogy and learning. This recovery involves constructing a language that contains “more integrative ways of speaking of the self” (Friesen, 2014, p. 100).
Relations prompts us to grapple with “what is” as opposed to focusing on system deficiencies. Relations will also enable researchers and practitioners to recognize and
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identify what Szkudlarek (2014) described as the artifacts of contemporary education-- artifacts that cannot be captured with the existing language that is used to construct education policy.
In addition to the theoretical use of language, Relations brings to the fore the practical implications of language. Fendler (2014) asserted “The need for a language that connects teaching to fundamental questions about the quality of life” (p. 174). The conceptualization of language embedded in Erisean meta-theory through Relations is in opposition to the instrumentalist language of Themisean meta-theory that, as Fendler argued, dwells on technical questions of best practice and raising test sores. Relations helps us recognize, what Fendler described as the narrowly defined language permeating contemporary education research and practice in which pedagogy is not conceptualized as powerful and complex, but merely the professional activities related to leading a classroom. Ultimately, the language of Themisean meta-theory is conducive to funding and political purposes—ostensibly, attempts to fix education. Relations brings to our attention the myopia of this language and gives us the ability to gain greater awareness of the realities of our profession.
Pedagogy and the self. Lastly, Relations guides us as we theorize the complex connections between the self, pedagogy and curriculum. Erisean meta-theory has the potential to prompt the creation of new teaching theories that, as Fendler (2014) asserted, expand possibilities for teaching beyond being merely the professional head of the class
(p. 179). In order to fully embrace Relations as a theoretical construct, we are required to realign according to a different orientation of thought in which we recognize “the impossibility of education as a mandatable practice” and promote education as fallible,
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conditional and responsible (Allan, Edwards, & Biesta, 2014, p. 200). Additionally,
Bellman (2014) argued that Relations must shift our focus and cause us to address, the contextually dependent interactions that occur between the teacher, the student and the curriculum. Relations allows us to acknowledge what Bellman asserted to be the theoretical primacy of intersubjectivity over subjectivity, and the importance of questioning how education is even possible given the chaotic implications of such a complicated, interconnected system. Ultimately, Bellman argued for a theoretical turn from the level of organization to the level of interaction. Indeed, it is the notion of
Relations that allows us to deftly take this turn. See Appendix B for a more detailed treatment of Erisean meta-theory in practice.
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CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHOD
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of contemporary teacher education in the United States. In so doing, this study will address the societal, cultural, political and ideological forces that have shaped today’s dominant teacher education structures as well as the favored (in terms of funding, accreditation and political status) philosophical and methodological approaches to scholarly inquiry that exist within them.
I assert, and investigated in this study, that certain theoretical approaches to teacher training and education research have, over time, taken on a privileged paradigm status.
As such, these approaches often go unchallenged, eventually becoming normalized as education common sense and institutionalized as the normal science of education. I speculate that these theories are oriented toward the goals of measurability, performativity, generalizability, predictability and control as discussed in Chapter 2.
Moreover, these paradigmatic theoretical approaches (meta-theory) are acontextual and lack ontological awareness. Lastly, I analyzed how the paradigmatic structures guiding contemporary teacher training are sustained and perpetuated philosophically, socioculturally and politically.
In this study, I addressed the following research questions:
1. How are selected teacher preparation programs affected by external
philosophical, sociocultural, historical and political influences?
a. To what extent do such programs recognize these influences?
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b. To what extent have they provided the necessary pedagogical and
curricular support to enable their students to problematize the field?
2. What concepts/theories related to teacher education are being ignored or
subjugated?
a. How might the “blank” and “blind” spots created by ignoring
concepts/theories lead to an alternative teacher education landscape?
b. How might the inclusion of alternative concepts/theories change
teacher education nationally?
c. What are the implications for such an alternative teacher education
landscape?
d. What are the possibilities for a paradigm shift in teacher education in
the United States?
Conceptual Framework
In this study, I employed a conceptual framework built on three theoretical constructs: Lyotard’s (1984) metanarrative, Kuhn’s (1996) paradigm and Foucault’s
(2002) episteme. Using this conceptual framework, I situated the conjectured dominant, contemporary meta-theory that underlies current teacher education, as an input-driven function that generates, through historical and sociocultural forces, contextually appropriate knowledge output. For the purpose of conducting this analysis, I utilized accreditation guidelines, program descriptions and course syllabi as the tangible manifestations of this meta-theory.
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Lyotard’s Metanarrative
Metanarratives are the big ideas that give meaning to a culture’s discourse and its intellectual pursuits. In Chapter 2, I discussed the metanarratives that I anticipated finding during this analysis. This does not necessarily preclude the emergence of unforeseen metanarratives; however, such findings could be considered new additions to the body of scholarly literature related to metanarrative influences on contemporary education; or, at the very least, these findings would reflect metanarratives that have received very little treatment in the extant body of research. The metanarrative conceptual construct is critical to this study because when the historically and socio-culturally contingent metanarratives are used to legitimize knowledge, the legitimacy of the processes and structures built on this knowledge can be called into question (Lyotard, 1984). This model component enables me to recognize the historically and culturally contingent nature of education scholarship and program accreditation guidelines as they relate directly to the external forces (outside of the field) operating throughout the broader sociocultural context. I used the metanarrative component to analyze the outside influences and pressures that act as inputs to teacher training programs. Ultimately, these pressures reflect the big ideas permeating the contemporary political, socioeconomic and cultural contexts.
Kuhn’s Paradigm
I used the paradigm conceptual construct to analyze the inner-workings of the teacher training function model. A paradigm is a socioculturally constructed mode of scientific research. According to Kuhn (1996), a paradigm ultimately normalizes research as well as the methodologies and tools used to conduct that research. Through this model
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component, I analyzed the social and cultural nature of education scholarship and accreditation processes that drive teacher training. This conceptual construct also enabled me to discover the categories of research questions and methodologies that might be rejected due to their incommensurability within the paradigmatic context (Kuhn, 1996).
Through the use of this construct, I gained greater insight into the various modes of normalizing or gatekeeping used by the state (policymakers), accreditation organizations, and university administrators to preserve the dominant theories that are foundational to the definition of, and practices within, teacher education. This conceptual construct also helped me recognize the normalized practices and dominant or “official” research agendas that exist within the contemporary education research landscape, particularly those that have provided the intellectual capital used to define teacher education and its practices.
Foucault’s Episteme
An episteme, as defined by Foucault (2002), is the socioculturally derived body of rules used to classify, legitimize and utilize knowledge that is produced. This model component recognizes the contingent (historical and sociocultural) nature of knowledge and its practical applications. The episteme conceptual construct enabled me to analyze the ways in which research knowledge is used to drive teacher education and its accreditation regulations. The episteme conceptual construct was also instrumental in my analysis of the discourses that give value to and allow for the practical application of education scholarship—particularly with respect to teacher training and university accreditation (Foucault, 2002). More specifically, through episteme analysis, I focused on
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the university usage of research knowledge and its compliance to accreditation regulations as they are used to shape the development of teacher education curriculum.
Methodology and Procedures
In this textual analysis, I adopted an approach partially informed by Critical
Discourse Analysis. I examined the official language used to describe teacher education programs and the accreditation of these programs in the U.S. through a review of program and course descriptions, course syllabi and accreditation standards. The focus of this study is on teacher education (curricular and pedagogical) at the undergraduate level and its associated foundational and regulatory theories.
Critical Discourse Analysis
The textual analysis carried out in this study was partially informed by Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA). The study design embodied many of the characteristics described by Bowen (2009) in his discussion of CDA (pp. 5-7). Accordingly, I carefully selected bodies of text that were used by teacher education programs within the sampled universities. I also examined the bodies of text published by CAEP (2015) as the guidelines for accrediting teacher education programs.
As the researcher, I readily acknowledge a set of premises and guiding principles that have been instrumental to the development of this study’s design and methods. First,
I embrace the notion, as argued by Tenorio (2011), that “an individual’s sense of who they are arises from their imbrication in systems of historically contingent meanings communicated by institutionalized patterns of behaving, thinking and speaking” (p. 192).
While this assertion applies equally to the researcher as well as to the sociocultural structures being researched, its implications in regards to the university’s influence on
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future educators is of primary importance to this study. Similarly, discourse, as operationalized in this study, is utilitarian in that serves as both a regulatory and reinforcing instrument for the preservation of institutional and theory power structures
(Tenorio, 2011). As the primary methodology for this study, I employed textual analysis, modeled somewhat after Critical Discourse Analysis, as the means by which to reveal the hidden structures of power. This type of analysis also enabled me to deconstruct the implicit and explicit theories and ideologies deeply embedded in discourse. Finally, the textual analysis, informed, in part by CDA, allowed me to make visible those normalizing presuppositions that are rarely apparent. Tenorio asserts the importance of challenging and demystifying the strategic use of language that is often used to construct individual identities within the institution or system (p. 189, 206). Ultimately, it is the task of the critical discourse analyst to ascertain why certain textual statements emerge “to the exclusion of all others and what function they serve” (Graham, 2011, p. 667). Throughout this textual analysis, that which is absent is often just as important as that which is present within the discourse.
In addition to the aforementioned guiding principles that are rooted in critical theory, this study embraced many of the ideas central to poststructuralism. Accordingly, I assert that the subsequent analysis was interpretive, contingent and emergent—it was necessarily contextualized theoretically, epistemologically and/or ethically (Graham,
2011, p.). Through this poststructuralist theoretical positioning, I did not “make claims to truth through ‘scientific,’ ‘objective,’ ‘precise’ methodologies” (Graham, 2011, p. 667).
Moreover, my embrace of poststructuralism has resulted in a respect for uncertainty and a realization that notions of clarity and simplicity are incommensurable to the fuzzy,
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complex nature of the phenomenon under investigation and the degree to which the phenomenon can be understood and interpreted by an individual investigator (Graham,
2011). Practically, this means that I did not presume to capture a definitive account of the true nature of the phenomenon in question (teacher education). I also assert that the phenomenon under investigation is more than the official discourse used to describe it.
Teacher education is a multi-faceted experience with multiplicities of meaning corresponding to multiplicities of perspectives. Lastly, I am aware that the theoretical positioning that I have adopted as the researcher provided me with greater clarity as I approached the data through my conceptual lens; however, it is possible that this positioning limited my scope relative to others approaching the same data from a different conceptual or theoretical orientation. Consequently, any claims to a definitive account of the phenomenon under investigation would be disingenuous. The primary objective of the poststructuralist component to this analysis was to question the presuppositions and intelligibility of the truths that are now taken for granted in order to
“enable researchers to think and see otherwise, to be able to imagine things being other than what they are, and to understand the abstract and concrete links that make them so”
(Graham, 2011, p. 666). I intended for this study to offer a fresh perspective and a new discourse to the extant body of literature for the purposes of improving contemporary teacher education and exposing theoretical and practical blank and blind spots that may have accrued through the application of other researcher perspectives. The implications of this poststructural orientation will be more readily apparent in Chapter 4 when I present the findings and discuss their ramifications to teacher training.
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Data Collection
For the purpose of gathering data for Discourse Analysis, I collected my sampled text from two sources. First, I reviewed the 2013 Accreditation Standards published on the CAEP (2015) website. The official text of the CAEP accreditation guidelines served as a primary data source that I used in conjunction with the second set of data. For the second set, I generated a sample of public and private undergraduate teacher education programs. The sample included one program from each of six geographical regions
(Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Northwest and Southwest) within the contiguous United States. The sample was also based, in part, on program rankings published by the National Council on Teacher Quality (2014). As such, the programs included in this sample are considered to be exemplary examples of teacher education at the undergraduate level. This was a targeted sample that enabled me to examine those programs deemed to have the greatest potential for positive change in the future of education in the U.S. I looked at both public and private schools because of potential differences in structure and policy pressures. Regional differences may also come into play particularly with respect to the specific factors that drive teacher education demographically, politically and economically.
Once the programs had been selected based on the aforementioned criteria, I examined each program’s literature in order to generate a working data set for analysis.
Conceptually, this study was modeled, in part, on the work that Gorski (2009) did with course syllabi in his evaluation of contemporary multicultural teacher education. In particular, I embraced Gorski’s distinction between the explicit curriculum--what actually happens within the classroom when individual instructor pedagogy and philosophy is
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taken into account, and the official curriculum--the curriculum based solely on the text that is used to describe it. Therefore, the intent behind this study was not to evaluate actual practice within the sampled programs, but rather to examine how university programs express and codify program descriptions, guidelines, objectives and courses as its official discourse in light of accreditation mandates and sociocultural context. In addition to the body of text published by CAEP (accreditation guidelines), the data set included the following text obtained from the sampled programs:
• Mission Statements
• Program Descriptions
• Program Designs (required courses; theory courses; methodology courses;
courses not present)
• Core Course Descriptions
• Elective Course Descriptions
• Course Syllabi (where available)
Data Analysis
I conducted the textual analysis in two phases. During Phase I, I investigated the guidelines and requirements used by the CAEP to certify and regulate teacher education programs in the United States. Conceptually and for the purposes of this analysis, this organization served as the exemplar of a teacher education paradigm. Practically, this means that its official guidelines have become institutional norms that dictate the proper modes of practice and the legitimate theoretical orientations determining curriculum and instruction. As such, I situated CAEP within the Function Model of Contemporary
Education Science conceptual model (or Themisean meta-theory) described in chapter 2.
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Accordingly, I hypothesized that CAEP is an organization that is driven by sociocultural metanarratives, Lyotard’s (1984) metanarratives, that acts socioculturally within the confines of contextual norms, Kuhn’s (1996) paradigms, and that produces knowledge for the episteme in order to perpetuate the status quo and its various power structures--
Foucault’s (2002) episteme. Additionally, I situated CAEP within the Awareness Model
(or Erisean meta-theory) in order to identify theoretical orientations that might be conducive to contextual awareness and sensitivity to matters of the self. Through this initial phase of CDA, I generated coding categories of text that reflect the theoretical/philosophical and methodological orientations, as well as external forces (i.e., metanarratives described in Chapter 2) underlying teacher education. To do this, I searched the text for significant words or phrases that would indicate the presence of such internal and external commitments. These key words or phrases are those that were conceptually linked to Lyotard’s (1984) metanarratives, Kuhn’s (1996) paradigm or
Foucault’s (2002) episteme. Additionally, other key words or phrases were conceptually linked to Erisean meta-theory and its emphasis on context, awareness and being. I conducted this analysis with the meta-theory models discussed in Chapter 2 serving as cognitive lenses and filters. I accomplished this phase through rigorous interrogation of the sampled text during which I addressed the following questions: (1) What theoretical or sociocultural orientations are implicitly or explicitly endorsed by the text? (2) What theoretical or sociocultural orientations are endorsed by what is absent from the text? and
(3) What is the purpose of teacher education and what are the best ways to accomplish this purpose, as implicitly or explicitly suggested by the text?
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Subsequently, I applied these coding categories to Phase II of the analysis. During this phase, I conducted textual analysis on the published literature from the sampled teacher education programs in order to reveal the power of the paradigm in controlling discourse and practice as well as to illuminate the theoretical blank and blind spots that emerge as a result of uncritical commitment to the paradigm. In Phase I of this analysis, I focused on determining the orientations of theory and practice within a paradigm as influenced by the metanarrative factors within the sociocultural context. However, during
Phase II, I investigated the implications of this paradigm on the preparation of future teachers. For this investigation, I closely examined how the language used in the official descriptions of programs and courses reflected the metanarrative concerns of the paradigm, the theoretical and methodological commitments of the paradigm, and the epistemic goals and power-knowledge orientations of the paradigm as embodied by
CAEP. During this phase of the Critical Discourse Analysis, I began by searching for key words and phrases within the sampled, published text that fit the coding categories generated during Phase I. I subsequently organized this coded text within the four broad categories of metanarratives, paradigm, episteme and awareness to account for both the
Themisean and Erisean meta-theory models. Throughout this process, I interrogated the data with the following questions that were designed to reveal hidden power knowledge structures (in line with Critical Discourse Analysis) and the normalizing rules of the sociocultural paradigm within which I have been a member (in line with Critical Auto- ethnography): (1) What discourses dominate and permeate the program descriptions and what discourses are noticeably absent? (2) How do program and course goals reflect paradigm commitments and sociocultural pressures? (3) What is emphasized
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conceptually (disciplines and fields), theoretically and epistemologically and what is de- emphasized or excluded? (4) What role do alternative perspectives and theories play within the various programs and how prevalent are they within the paradigm that they challenge? (5) What is the degree of discourse homogeneity within each program and what are the implications of this homogeneity? (6) What types of knowledge are deemed legitimate as evidenced by the nature and scope of program requirements and course assignments? and (7) What values does each program endorse, adopt or promulgate?
By focusing on the language used to describe teacher education programs, courses and syllabi, this textual analysis revealed the official theoretical orientations that serve as the foundation for program content and objectives. Ultimately, throughout this research endeavor, my primary concern was with the institutional codification of approaches to teacher education found within the text that each program uses to define itself.
As a complement to the work done in Phase I, in Phase II I also examined the products (teacher education programs) of the paradigm in order to understand how they
“reaffirm a particular perception of phenomena and prescribe the technical manner in which to deal with it” (Graham, 2011, 670). Through this phase of analysis, not only was
I able to answer the first research question, but it also became possible for me to address the second: What theories related to teacher education are ignored or subjugated? I thoroughly discussed these theories in Chapter 2 and they are expressed in the Erisean meta-theory model.
Not all of the Erisean meta-theory codes emerged during Phase I. Thus, when analyzing the sampled text during Phase II, I discovered additional codes related to awareness, context, and the self. These additional codes emerged as I interrogated the
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data with the following questions: (1) How do program and course descriptions reflect a concern with the development of self? and (2) How do program and course descriptions reflect a concern with context both at the micro and macro levels? Furthermore, these additional Erisean codes suggested the presence of alternative discourses and the extent to which these alternative discourses reflect the present postmodern context and a distinctive education theory.
Lastly, I conducted a cross-case analysis in order to locate broader and more generalized themes based on the codes, the frequency of their usage within the sample collectively, and the larger ideas they embodied. Such themes provided tremendous insight into the teacher education phenomenon as revealed by this sample set.
Limitations
This study was by the degree of access that the researcher had to program and course descriptions and course syllabi for each of the sampled universities.
Delimitations
The first delimitation was geographical. This study only focused on teacher education programs within the United States. As a citizen of, and student within the
United States, I already possessed a significant degree of familiarity (cultural, social, historical, pedagogical) that I would not have have within other sociocultural contexts around the globe. The second delimitation was scope. This study focused solely on undergraduate teacher programs. A primary goal of this study was to assess how theory shapes the means by which future teachers are trained, therefore this delimitation is warranted. The third delimitation was access. For this study, I only utilized published text
(program website, course syllabi) as my sampled data. In this study, I was primarily
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concerned with the official text and discourse of sampled programs and how that text is indicative of a paradigm (as embodied by CAEP) and whether or not the text provides evidence of alternate theoretical orientations. While it is certainly possible that many instructors within the sampled programs may explicitly “play the game” while implicitly challenging the status quo, in this study I was only interested in the official discourse as codified in the university’s literature. Lastly, I only surveyed six teacher education programs due to the labor-intensive and time-intensive nature of this type of analysis.
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CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS
The Study’s Trajectory and Goals
The purpose of this study was to problematize teacher education. To accomplish this, I situated this phenomenon within a specific, highly complex, sociocultural context that is influenced by metanarratives, that operates according to a paradigm, and that is governed by an episteme. This study has helped me gain greater insight into the dynamics within this context as well as the practical implications of these dynamics as they relate to teacher education program design and curriculum. This problematization was directly related to the Themisean meta-theory model. Accordingly, this study provided me with greater understanding regarding the extent to which the dominant ideas, philosophical and methodological orientations, and modalities control teacher education. Part of this task requires the analysis of official policy. As an example of this official policy, I conceptualized Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accreditation guidelines as a governing or regulatory instrument of power that is used to enforce, sustain and perpetuate the dominant sociocultural forces. Lastly, I discovered the extent to which counter philosophical and methodological orientations and modalities exist within this sociocultural matrix. In the literature review, I discussed why these alternative orientations, as embodied by Erisean meta-theory, are important to teacher education. This study enabled me to determine if the teacher education landscape is, in fact, a shared space. Ultimately, the following research questions drove this study:
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1. How are selected teacher preparation programs affected by external
philosophical, sociocultural, historical and political influences?
a. To what extent do such programs recognize these influences?
b. To what extent have they provided the necessary pedagogical and
curricular support to enable their students to problematize the field?
2. What concepts/theories related to teacher education are being ignored or
subjugated?
a. How might the “blank” and “blind” spots created by ignoring
concepts/theories lead to an alternative teacher education landscape?
b. How might the inclusion of alternative concepts/theories change
teacher education nationally?
c. What are the implications for such an alternative teacher education
landscape?
d. What are the possibilities for a paradigm shift in teacher education in
the United States?
The research leading up to this study provided the conceptual framework. This framework has become the lens through which I read all of the sampled text, and the filter through which I categorized and organized the data. Accordingly, I entered this study expecting to find text corresponding to those metanarrative influences, paradigmatic modalities and epistemal regulations as described in the literature. During
Phase I of the study, I sampled text from CAEP (2015) accreditation guidelines. As explained above, CAEP serves as a governing or regulatory instrument that perpetuates the status quo and preserves the dominant theoretical and methodological orientations.
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Through this analysis, coding categories directly related to my meta-theory models emerged, thus confirming the real implications of these models in teacher education. I then applied these emergent coding categories to Phase II of the analysis in which I explored text from the sampled teacher education programs. While most of the coding categories emerged during Phase I, a few more emerged during Phase II. The rationale behind this two-pronged approach was so that I could better understand the level of controlling influence CAEP, as an arm of the episteme, has on the structure and functioning of teacher education. I wanted to see just how closely interconnected they are as functioning systems within a shared sociocultural context. I also wanted to see points of deviation between CAEP and the sampled teacher education programs. Lastly during
Phase III, after having analyzed each of the six teacher education programs, I looked for broader themes through cross-case analysis.
Appreciating the Big Picture: Preliminary Findings
Sociocultural Ideals
Before conducting this study, I anticipated observing program level implementation of specific theories and/or program level alignment to specific theoretical orientations. This would indicate a more dominant paradigmatic function within the
Themisean meta-theory model. And while I did observe this in varying degrees across the sampled programs, the findings suggest that this question should be reframed to address the external influences, or metanarratives, permeating the contemporary sociocultural context within which teacher education takes place. Thus, in answering the first research question regarding the theories that drive teacher education in the United States, the data forced me to reconceptualize theories as sociocultural ideals—a reconceptualization
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directly linked to the idea of metanarrative. For these sociocultural metanarratives ultimately help determine theory orientation and implementation. So while the data does not clearly indicate the presence of program allegiance to a set of specific theories, the data does suggest the presence of strong commitments to contemporary, contextual ideals, akin to the metanarratives of the Themisean meta-theory model. For example, I argued earlier that contemporary teacher education in the United States exists within the context of neoliberalism, and as such, it is heavily influenced by the prevailing metanarratives inherent within that context. Consequently, CAEP (2015) accreditation standards, as a governing or managerial instrument for teacher education within this nation’s neoliberal context, should reflect those metanarratives commonly associated with neoliberalism. Accordingly, such metanarratives are oriented towards the ideals of efficiency, effectiveness, high quality and practicality/expediency. Given those contextual ideals, it is not surprising that outcomes emerged as a code through analysis of the CAEP accreditation guidelines. Over the past couple decades, this notion of outcomes has risen to prominence in policy and research agendas due to the ease with which analysts can quantify, measure, generalize and predict outcomes. Furthermore, quantifiable outcomes have become the most expedient means by which to test the efficacy of new policy measures and research interventions in the field of education.
However, as Biesta (2010) pointed out, it is quite likely that we are simply valuing what is easy to measure as opposed to measuring that which we truly value in the name of a bastardized sense of accountability—a phenomenon he calls learnification.
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The Meta-theory Spectrum
In light of the previous analysis, research question 2 is much more difficult to answer due to the complexity of the findings. This question is related to the identification of concepts and theories that are presently ignored or subjugated by contemporary teacher education programs. I embarked on this study with the assumption that there would be glaring omissions or holes within the theoretical and curricular fabric amongst the sampled programs. However, there are 244 sampled statements related to the hypothesized dominant model rooted in Themisean meta-theory versus 253 sampled statements related to the hypothesized alternative or marginalized model rooted in
Erisean meta-theory. Thus, out of context, it appears as though there is not a dominant model due to the fact that the textual examples representing both meta-theoretical models are almost equal in number. However, over 50% of the text related to Erisean meta- theory was found in the Montclair State University literature, while the text associated with Themisean meta-theory was more evenly distributed; but, even within the more equitable distribution of the Themisean meta-theory text, almost two thirds of the statements came from just two schools: Arizona State University and North Carolina
State University. So, while the aggregate data does not indicate the presence of an overwhelmingly dominant meta-theory orientation, closer examination does reveal a spectrum upon which these sampled programs fall according to meta-theory orientation.
In light of the data analysis, teacher education at Montclair State clearly aligns itself closely with Erisean meta-theory while teacher education programs at Arizona State
University and North Carolina State University are much more in tune with Themisean meta-theory. The other three sampled programs lie in between these two spectral ends.
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Thus, I did not observe any obvious conceptual or theoretical deficiencies within this data set when taken as a whole. However, there was significant variation regarding the degree to which each program aligned to the two competing meta-theory orientations.
Such variation suggests that, given an individual teacher education program, meta-theory alignment strongly determines programmatic treatment of various theories and concepts.
So, while at the macro level there appears to be an impressive demonstration of inclusivity, such inclusivity often dissipates as one explores the literature of an individual program.
Moreover, I originally speculated that the theories and concepts associated with
Erisean meta-theory would be ignored or subjugated. However, the evidence that emerged through textual analysis suggests that these concepts were often included and considered. These concepts include being, community, service, diversity and context. And while each of these five concepts was addressed by the literature of four, five or six out of the six programs (depending on the concept), there was significant variation in the extent and degree to which these concepts were addressed.
Critical Textual Analysis of CAEP: Phase I Findings
When conducting this type of analysis, it is impossible for me to divorce myself from the theoretical lens through which I read the text and collect the data. It is my task, in the pages that follow, to illuminate the conceptual scaffolding that has enabled me to construct the various codes from textual analysis and to explain my rationale for making the connections between CAEP text and that scaffolding. I will begin by presenting the emergent codes related to Themisean meta-theory that fall into the categories of metanarratives, paradigms and the episteme. I will conclude this section by presenting the
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codes that are related to Erisean meta-theory and that can be categorized as context awareness.
My textual analysis of CAEP documents proved essential when addressing the second part of the first research question: the origins of the dominant theories, or key concepts, in terms of education policy and accreditation requirements. With the exception of innovation, these key concepts stem directly from the CAEP accreditation guidelines.
With my conceptual framework acting as an empirical and cognitive lens for this study, three out of the four most pervasive concepts emerged as a priori codes during my analysis of CAEP standards. Indeed, these concepts are equally important to both the sampled programs and CAEP. Subsequently, a new set of questions arises: why are these specific concepts important? Why do they emerge more pervasively than others?
Emerging Codes Related to Metanarratives
As presented in Chapter 2, Metanarratives are the big ideas that emerge from a particular sociocultural, economic and political context. These big ideas frame national conversations regarding social issues, shape research agendas and public policy, and alter field-transcendent theory (meta-theory orientations) and practice trends. Metanarratives provide the trajectories along which intellectual pursuits travel and the destinations at which system goals lie.
Outcomes. Going into this study, I assumed that CAEP accreditation standards, as a governing or managerial instrument for teacher education within this nation’s neoliberal context, would reflect those metanarratives commonly associated with neoliberalism. Accordingly, such metanarratives are oriented towards the ideals of efficiency, effectiveness, high quality and practicality/expediency—ideals that are also
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central to capitalism. Given those contextual ideals, it is not surprising that outcomes emerged as a code through analysis of the CAEP (2015) accreditation guidelines. Over the past couple decades, this notion of “outcomes” has risen to prominence in policy and research agendas due to the ease with which analysts can quantify, measure, generalize and predict outcomes. Furthermore, quantifiable outcomes have become the most expedient means by which to test the efficacy of new policy measures and research interventions in the field of education. But as Biesta (2010) pointed out, it is quite likely that we are simply valuing what is easy to measure as opposed to measuring that which we truly value in the name of a corrupted sense of accountability—a phenomenon he calls learnification. Quotes such as “The Academy panel found that existing research provides some guidance regarding factors ‘likely to have the strongest effects’ on outcomes for students” (CAEP, 2015, p. 2), “Providers ensure that completers apply content and pedagogical knowledge as reflected in outcome assessments” (CAEP, 2015, p. 3), and “Share accountability for candidate outcomes” (CAEP, 2015, p. 6) reveal the high value and vital role that outcomes play in the accreditation process according to
CAEP standards.
Managerialism. The following quotes serve as evidence that this particular metanarrative has been influential in the development of CAEP accreditation standards.
These quotes also serve as evidence supporting my decision to include managerialism as the second metanarrative related code. Regarding its focus on the quality of students,
CAEP (2015) stated, “The provider presents plans and goals to recruit and support completion of high-quality candidates from a broad range of backgrounds” (p. 8). CAEP expressed quality, as it relates to a program’s learning experiences, with this statement:
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“The provider ensures that effective partnerships and high-quality clinical practice are central to preparation so that candidates develop the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions” (CAEP, 2015, p. 6). Lastly, CAEP stressed the importance of quality control measures through several statements within their standards. For example, CAEP posited, “The provider maintains a quality assurance system comprised of valid data from multiple measures, including evidence of candidates’ and completers’ positive impact on
P-12 student learning and development” (p. 14).
Performativity. Closely related to outcomes and managerialism, performativity is a metanarrative that is inextricably linked to the core constructs of behavior, performance, effectiveness and positive impact. Performativity has emerged as a powerful metanarrative within the contemporary neoliberal context because of its close associations with measurement, quantifiability, and value-free/neutral behavior--behavior that can be easily manipulated through positive and negative reinforcement to attain some predefined objective.
The language employed by CAEP in its accreditation guidelines indicates an affinity to the performativity metanarrative. Accordingly, performativity emerged as the third metanarrative related code. For example, statements such as “ensure that candidates demonstrate their developing effectiveness and positive impact on all students’ learning and development” (CAEP, 2015, p. 7), “All candidates demonstrate the ability to teach to college- and career-ready standards” (CAEP, 2015, p. 10), and “can teach effectively with positive impacts on P-12 student learning and development” (CAEP, 2015, p. 7) suggest a strong orientation towards the measurement and evaluation of effective behaviors in pedagogy. Furthermore, CAEP (2015) asserted the importance of
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performance effectiveness, as perceived by program candidates, in statements such as,
“and the satisfaction of its completers with the relevance and effectiveness of their preparation” (p. 14). Effectiveness, at least in an Erisean sense, is more than the presence of positive trend lines graphically representing test score data sets. Effectiveness is relational, contextual, ontological and meaningful—dimensions of effectiveness that do not seem to be adequately addressed by CAEP.
Operationalism. The language used by CAEP to describe the end goals of teacher preparation programs and P-12 student programs appear to reflect an orientation towards the operationalism metanarrative. Accordingly, operationalism emerged as the fourth metanarrative related code. For example, statements such as “advance the learning of all students toward attainment of college- and career-readiness standards” (CAEP,
2015, p. 3) and “All candidates demonstrate the ability to teach to college- and career- ready standards” (CAEP, 2015, p. 10) seem to reflect myopia in P-12 program goals.
While such goals are certainly desirable, CAEP (2015) seems to describe them as singular or exclusive. What of democratic, ethical, ontological and axiological readiness standards?
Technologization. When CAEP (2015) asserted, “Candidates need experiences during their preparation to become proficient in applications of digital media and technological capabilities” (p. 23) and “Providers present multiple forms of evidence to indicate candidates’ developing content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and the integration of technology in all of these domains” (p. 10),
CAEP appears to be overlooking the producer/consumer dynamic of 21st century technology while focusing simply on the expedient use of technology as a powerful
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means to achieving potentially very simple ends. Furthermore, the statement “Candidates should help their students gain access to what technology has to offer” (CAEP, 2015, p.
23) is void of any critical considerations. There is no mandate to providing students with the knowledge that will allow them to become safe and discerning consumers of “what technology has to offer.” There are no references to the importance of equipping students with the skills required to become ethical digital citizens who will ultimately utilize technology to protect and promote the ideals of democracy and equality. Lastly, CAEP asserted, “Providers ensure that completers model and apply technology standards as they design, implement and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; and enrich professional practice” (p. 4). For many, these metanarrative related codes may seem to be a forced reading of the CAEP guidelines. However, I assert that while CAEP language may seem neutral, and what it promotes may seem to be entirely reasonable and beneficial, the language is also one-dimensional, sometimes vague, and often in lock step with some of the metanarratives that contemporary research associates with neoliberalism.
Emerging Codes Related to Paradigms
Paradigms have systemic gatekeeping structures that safeguard theoretical foundations, mandate acceptable methodologies, and restrict the kinds of questions that investigators can ask within the paradigm. A paradigm dominates community thought and eventually leads to blank spots, blind spots and myopia in both the theory and practice within its purview.
Consensus and gatekeeping. The first code—consensus—is based on the evidence of consensus in CAEP’s language. For example, CAEP (2015) alluded to its
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epistemological ties to science when it states, “The Commission adopted a structure for the standards that begins with three areas of teacher preparation identified by the National
Academy of Sciences 2010 report, Preparing Teachers: Building Evidence for Sound
Policy” (p. 3). Such a statement makes it clear to teacher educator programs that CAEP accreditation reviews will rely on quantifiable evidence for establishing program worth.
This mandate forces Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) to adopt systems of assessment developed specifically to produce the kinds of evidence deemed valid within this particular paradigm of practice. Thus, teacher preparation programs must acquiesce to the consensus-driven demands of CAEP, as an instantiated sub-community within the paradigm. Additionally, the statement, “If any state can meet the CAEP standards, as specified above, by demonstrating a correspondence in scores between the state-normed assessments and nationally normed ability/achievement assessments” (CAEP, 2015, p.
10) further reflects a strong commitment to normed test scores as a valid indicator of
CAEP standards compliance. The linking of state-normed with nationally normed achievement tests similarly reflects the notion of consensus and uniformity at the national level.
Through the language employed by CAEP (2015) in its accreditation standards, its role as a paradigm gatekeeper is pretty clear—hence the emergence of the second paradigm related code: gatekeeping. For example, CAEP made references to predefined and standardized professional practice in statements like, “Before the provider recommends any completing candidate for licensure or certification, it documents that the candidate understands the expectations of the profession, including codes of ethics, professional standards of practice, and relevant laws and policies” (p. 10). While, there is
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nothing obviously problematic with that statement, it does beg such questions as how are these standards developed? Who is responsible for developing and enforcing these standards? And, are these standards sensitive to culture and context?
Furthermore, CAEP’s (2015) appeal to “establishing performance benchmarks for those measures (with reference to external standards where possible)” (p. 16) indicates a systematic means by which to control for quality according to paradigmatic standards both within the field of education and without (external standards). This is further reiterated when CAEP asserted, “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth” (p. 14).
This is a direct reference to a paradigm-derived level of expectation governing teacher performance and the resulting student response.
Regarding the provider data, CAEP (2015) places paradigm restrictions on what is accepted, and makes specific demands as to how the validity of the data is determined.
For example, CAEP asserted, “Providers must present empirical evidence of each measure’s psychometric and statistical soundness (reliability, validity, and fairness)” (p.
13). Thus, in order to be deemed valid, provider data must be accompanied by additional data or metadata that, according to paradigm regulations, prove the worth or trustworthiness of the original data in question. Lastly, CAEP’s controlling, paradigmatic influence on practice is further clarified when it asserted, “Providers show evidence of the credibility and dependability of the data that inform their quality assurance systems, as well as evidence of ongoing investigation into the quality of evidence and the validity of their interpretations of that evidence” (p. 16). CAEP not only demands certain forms of acceptable data, it also demands another level of data that empirically proves the worth of
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the original data as well as a third level of quantitative data that justifies program-level interpretations of the original data.
Prediction and metric standards. Prediction is the third paradigm related code to emerge through this analysis. Through statements such as “and reports data that show how the academic and non-academic factors predict candidate performance in the program and effective teaching” (CAEP, 2015, p. 10), and “As better performance assessments are developed and as various licensure tests are shown to be predictors of teacher performance and/or student learning and development, CAEP may be able to put more emphasis on exit criteria rather than on entrance criteria” (CAEP, 2015, p. 12),
CAEP (2015) reflected a strong commitment to the idea that data can be a predictor of some desired outcome. Given that future performance assessments will become more astutely developed, CAEP promoted the idea that the quantitative measurements gleaned from such assessments will ultimately ensure greater correlation with theoretical constructs and greater precision in predicting educational outcomes. Thus, CAEP promulgated this predictive ideal through the language it uses to describe what it deems to be desirable data and the ultimate uses for that data.
Metrics is the fourth paradigm related code to emerge from this analysis. CAEP’s
(2015) call for measurement permeates the entire standards document and appears to be the primary means by which to assess how well a program serves its candidates, both as present students and future teachers. This appeal to measurement is reflected in the statement, “Providers ensure that completers use research and evidence to develop an understanding of the teaching profession and use both to measure their P-12 students’ progress and their own professional practice” (CAEP, 2015, p. 4). Furthermore,
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statements such as “Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures
(including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider” (CAEP, 2015, p. 14), and “The provider demonstrates that the standard for high academic achievement and ability is met through multiple evaluations and sources of evidence” (CAEP, 2015, p. 10), reiterates the importance that CAEP places on the gathering of evidence via multiple instruments in order for each program to establish compliance with CAEP standards. Again, a paradigm commitment to extensive and thorough measurement is clear based on the language used by CAEP. Given the preferred nature of data previously discussed in this section, it is not a stretch to assume that the types of paradigm-validated measurements are similarly singular in nature—particularly given the sometimes, ambiguous nature of the language.
When the language is less ambiguous regarding measurement in statements such as “The provider demonstrates, using measures that result in valid and reliable data” (CAEP,
2015, p. 14), and “The provider maintains a quality assurance system comprised of valid data from multiple measures, including evidence of candidates’ and completers’ positive impact on P-12 student learning and development” (CAEP, 2015, p. 15), CAEP uses words such as valid and reliable—text commonly associated with quantitative analysis.
Thus, based on this researcher’s reading of the CAEP guidelines, it is clear that there is a paradigm-like preference for extensive measurement that results in a restricted type of data.
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While the development of a paradigm over time may be completely warranted based on the available data and technology of a given period in history, a paradigm inevitably results in myopic theorizing and practice due to its inherent neglect of phenomena resting outside of its purview as well as its dismissal of incongruous observations as statistically insignificant anomalies or due to instrument error. Paradigms should be recognized for what they do and the potential impact they may have on future endeavors.
Emerging Codes Related to the Episteme
As presented in Chapter 2, the notion of episteme is defined as the intellectual context within which ideas are validated or invalidated. As ideas emerge from within a given field, this external, episteme context ascertains their value and determines how they can be used to preserve existing power structures, implement greater disciplinary techniques, or suppress/marginalize contrary knowledge. If the episteme is unable to appropriate such ideas in any beneficial way, they become dismissed through systemic instruments of power manifested as political machinations, policy mandates and policing maneuvers (via media and ideological propaganda). The following emerging codes that are related to the episteme reflect CAEP’s (2015) role as an arbitrator in the legitimacy of ideas. As an accrediting body, CAEP has the power to define standards and evaluate program worth based on criteria originating from within the episteme.
Discipline. The first episteme related code to emerge from this analysis is discipline. As discussed in Chapter 2, Foucault associated the notion of discipline as an activity of power within the episteme. CAEP’s (2015) disciplinary role with the episteme is clearly reflected when it asserts:
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The provider ensures that the average grade point average of its accepted cohort
of candidates meets or exceeds the CAEP minimum of 3.0, and the group average
performance on nationally normed ability/achievement assessments such as ACT,
SAT, or GRE: is in the top 50 percent from 2016-2017; is in the top 40 percent of
the distribution from 2018-2019; and is in the top 33 percent of the distribution
by 2020. (p. 9)
This statement implies a power, help by CAEP, to discipline teacher education programs into increasingly higher candidate standards over time or face the penalty of losing an
“accredited” status. Additionally, CAEP places itself (or is placed) in a position of validating the worth of teacher candidates based on episteme-level criteria of quality.
Within the episteme, SAT, ACT and GRE test scores are evidently esteemed as neutral measures of quality that define the relative value, meted out by the episteme, to future students.
Additional evidence of CAEP’s (2015) disciplinary agenda can be found in statements such as its definition of continuous improvement: “An organizational process through which data are collected on all aspects of a provider’s activities; analyzed to determine patterns, trends, and progress; and used to define changes” (p. 16). This statement suggests that in order for teacher education programs to be in compliance with
CAEP guidelines, they must continually make internal adjustments and alterations according to the expectations and demands arising through on-going CAEP analysis and the subsequent interpretation of site-specific datasets that are collected over time.
Moreover, CAEP (2015) has the power to approve the worth of alternative methods, proposed by programs, as a means by which to prove that CAEP standards
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have, indeed, been met. For example, CAEP asserted, “Alternative arrangements for meeting this standard (beyond the alternative stated above for “a reliable, valid model that uses admissions criteria other than those stated in this standard”) will be approved only under special circumstances” (p. 10). Essentially, CAEP determines whether or not special circumstances warrant alternative arrangements AND whether or not the alternative arrangements are legitimate. Because CAEP is indirectly associated with teacher education policy, its power is also interconnected with political power; and both powers share a common source--the episteme within which teacher education occurs.
Lastly, teacher education programs, as described by CAEP (2015) guidelines, are placed as proxy extensions in the disciplining of its teacher candidates. According to
CAEP guidelines, “Educator preparation providers establish and monitor attributes and dispositions beyond academic ability that candidates must demonstrate at admissions and during the program” (p.10). Thus, EPPs, as institutions accountable to the dictates of the episteme (indirectly) and CAEP (directly), are commissioned with the task of developing a set of regulated attributes and dispositions that transcend academics and somehow result in effective pedagogy. Such a set of abstract “attributes and dispositions” could quite possibly lead to incessant discipline as each teacher candidate feels compelled to conform to nebulous esotericism regarding the ideal teacher.
Surveillance. The second episteme related code to emerge from this analysis is surveillance. Within Foucault’s (2002) episteme, there is an ever-present monitoring system designed to preserve power through the control of seemingly every aspect of activity—both at the macro level (institutional, societal) and micro level (the actions of each individual). Moreover, within this system of surveillance, there are myriad
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subsystems that are able to serve as extensions in order to infiltrate more localized levels requiring finer systemic penetration. The ultimate implementation of such a massive network of surveillance is the panopticon—a scenario in which the individual succumbs to perpetual self-monitoring in recognition of continuous systemic observation regardless of whether such observation is really occurring.
Since this analysis presupposes that teacher education programs operate within a present day episteme, and that CAEP (2015) is an enforcing arm of this episteme, it should not be surprising to find language within CAEP guidelines that reflect its role as a monitoring body. Indeed, according to their standards, “CAEP monitors the development of measures that assess candidates’ success and revises standards in light of new results”
CAEP, 2015, p. 10). Thus CAEP constantly surveils the activity of individual programs so that it can insure program compliance to the truth regime inherent within the episteme.
CAEP also uses the data gleaned through surveillance to bolster its regulatory powers.
Perhaps even more apparent is CAEP’s (2015) delegation of monitoring powers to teacher preparation programs. Such delegation can be viewed as a means by which to enhance surveillance effectiveness at more local levels. For example, CAEP asserted,
“The provider sets admissions requirements, including CAEP minimum criteria or the state’s minimum criteria, whichever are higher, and gathers data to monitor applicants and the selected pool of candidates” (p. 9). This indicates an implicit expectation for teacher education programs to take an active role in surveilling its applicants in order to eventually assess their potential worth as enrolled students and future teachers. Moreover, this surveillance is ongoing throughout a student’s enrollment in the program as evidenced when CAEP mandated, “The provider creates criteria for program progression
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and monitors candidates’ advancement from admissions through completion” (p. 10), and
“The provider regularly and systematically assesses performance against its goals and relevant standards, tracks results over time, tests innovations and the effects of selection criteria on subsequent progress and completion, and uses results to improve program elements and processes” (p. 15). Accordingly, EPPs are charged with the role of constant and systematic surveillance of their enrolled students. Subsequently, the acquired data can be used by the individual program and/or CAEP. While such data could provide meaningful insight into curriculum and pedagogy, the potential problem of such widespread surveillance, as asserted by Foucault, is that complete knowledge can ultimately lead to complete control.
Emerging Codes Related to Context (Erisean Meta-Theory)
While much of this analysis has resulted in codes closely associated with the
Themisean meta-theory model, I also found evidence to support codes related to the
Erisean notion of context. The implications of such findings, particularly in regards to the absence or presence of such language in documents produced by sampled programs, will be thoroughly discussed in Chapter 5. However, I suggest here that this language may reflect a changing tide or the eventuality of a paradigm shift on the horizon of future education theory and practice. Or, it may be the result of language used to assuage the critiques levied by critical scholars, or language used to temporarily alleviate the fears shared by those within diverse communities. Moreover, just how such standards are implemented in practice is even more important than the fact that they appear in CAEP
(2015) guidelines.
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Family. Erisean meta-theory recognizes the value of student context. This context includes culture, class, race, gender, and creed. In order to establish connections to an individual student so that a meaningful, mutually respected relationship may ensue, the teacher must have an appreciation for that student at a very human level. The family, as a unit of context for each student, provides an avenue for the development of such a relationship. The first context related code to emerge in this analysis is family. The language used by CAEP seems to reflect recognition of the importance of family to education. For example, CAEP (2015) posited, “To be effective, teachers also must be prepared to collaborate with families to support student success” (p. 6), and “When teachers understand families and communicate and build relationships with them, students benefit” (p. 6). Interestingly, these statements did not come directly from numbered standards, but can be found in the written rationale for the first group of standards. Additionally, the statement, “Many studies confirm that strong parent–teacher relationships relate to positive student outcomes for students, such as healthy social development, high student achievement and high rates of college enrollment” (CAEP,
2015, p. 6), although phrased in language reminiscent of Themisean meta-theory, does again reflect CAEP’s position on the high value of positive connections between home and school.
Being. In addition to family, Erisean meta-theory largely focuses on the reality of being, the self, and the existential nature of personhood. Such ideas are absolutely integral to this meta-theory orientation and subsequently to education theory and practice when approached from this framework. The second context related code is being. CAEP
(2015) language seems to acknowledge the importance of knowing one’s student. For
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example, CAEP asserts, “Understanding of pedagogical content knowledge is complemented by knowledge of learners—where teaching begins” (p. 6). This assertion, while at least on the surface, seems to be in line with Erisean meta-theory, does beg the question: what kind of student knowledge is important? Perhaps CAEP provided an answer to this question in its assertion that “Teachers must understand that learning and developmental patterns vary among individuals, that learners bring unique individual differences to the learning process, and that learners need supportive and safe learning environments to thrive” (p. 6). This seems to suggest a richer knowledge of the student that goes beyond one-dimensional, quantifiable measures like achievement test scores.
The language also seems to be referring to the importance of context when it describes
“supportive and safe learning environments.” Lastly, CAEP further alluded to the power of context in the statement, “advancing their students’ learning through presentation of subject matter in a variety of ways that are appropriate to different situations— reorganizing and partitioning it and developing activities, metaphors, exercises, examples and demonstrations—so that it can be grasped by students” (p. 6). Statements like these stand in stark contrast to statements that appeal to the generalizable, the aggregate and the norm.
This discussion of the CAEP (2015) accreditation standards analysis marked the end of Phase I analysis as discussed in Chapter 3. I subsequently used these preliminary codes as a priori codes during the analysis of the sampled teacher education programs in
Phase II of the research. Throughout Phase II analysis, additional codes belonging to either Themisean or Erisean meta-theory emerged. Furthermore, additional textual evidence emerged that supported the codes presented in this section. At the conclusion of
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this Chapter, I will address the analysis, the codes, and the findings in light of the research questions.
CAEP’s Presence in Teacher Education
Summary. Through my analysis of the CAEP (2015) accreditation guidelines, I found strong textual support for five Metanarrative related codes. There was an average of five statements supporting each code. These codes include outcomes, performativity, managerialism, operationalism, and technologization. I expected to find textual support for these codes due to their prevalence in the body of literature related to our current sociocultural context and its implications on education, in general, and teacher education in particular. Additionally, I found textual support for four Paradigm related codes. These codes include consensus, prediction, metric standards and gatekeeping. There was an average of 7.75 statements supporting each code. However, 16 out of the 31 paradigm related statements focused specifically on metric standards. I expected to find textual support for consensus and gatekeeping due to their close associations with Kuhnian paradigms. I also expected to find prediction and metric standards due to their robust treatment in the body of literature related to contemporary education research and policy.
Regarding the Episteme, I found two related codes: discipline and surveillance. There was an average of 5.5 statements supporting each of the two codes. I expected to find textual support for these codes due to the treatment they have received in the body of literature related to knowledge and power and their implications on contemporary education. Lastly, I found textual support for two Erisean related codes: being and family.
There were three statements supporting each of the two codes. Thus, the overwhelming
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majority of sampled statements and subsequent codes resulting from the analysis during
Phase I belong to the Themisean meta-theory conceptual model.
Individual Program Analysis: Phase II Findings
Program 1: University of California Irvine
I selected the University of California Irvine based on the National Council on
Teacher Quality (2014) ranking of eight amongst undergraduate secondary teacher education programs and because it serves as a representative of the Western region of the
United States. However, the sampled text provided very little in the way of rich data.
First, there was a relatively small textual presence on the program’s accompanying webpages. Secondly, the sampled text primarily described program details, as opposed to providing the rationale for those details.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. Due to the dearth of rich, descriptive text on this program’s website, there was little data that could be appropriately coded as belonging to any of the three major components of Themisean meta-theory or Erisean meta-theory. However, there were a few examples of text that could not be ignored. In particular, some text corresponded to metanarratives such as operationalism, technologization and innovation. For example, on the “UCI General
Catalog” webpage, the writers extol 21st Century Literacies as those literacies “required for academic and career success” (University of California Irvine, 2016a). This text reflects operationalism in that it conflates education with future career success. As previously discussed, operationalism is the reconceptualization of a person or thing for expediency and ultimate implementation as input to an economic or political function.
Thus in the neo-liberal context, 21st Century Literacies are embraced because they enable
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students to attain greater levels of economic productivity upon completion of formal education. Furthermore, there is evidence of technologization in statements such as “Cal
Teach students have the option of earning their bachelor’s degree in a STEM field and a secondary teaching credential in four years” (University of California Irvine, 2015b).
Additionally, statements like “Research projects address topics as diverse as information and communications technologies” (University of California Irvine, 2016b) reflect a program-wide techno-centric orientation in research. This push can be viewed as a product of the neo-liberal socioeconomic context of the day. Lastly, this teacher education program has embraced the charge for greater innovation as evidenced by the text such as, “Innovative approaches to literacy” (University of California Irvine, 2015a) as found on the About Us webpage.
Emerging codes related to paradigms. Regarding paradigms, the lack of rich, descriptive text did not yield much data that could be identified as being related.
However, there was evidence for consensus in the text, “Psychology as well as
Psychology and Social Behavior are two popular UCI majors for students who are considering an elementary teaching career” (University of California Irvine, 2007). As an example of consensus, this statement suggests that Psychology and Social Behavior are disciplines and modes of inquiry that are acceptable within the education paradigm, if indeed it exists. Accordingly, it is a consensual presupposition that the knowledge emerging from these fields is relevant for curriculum and instruction.
Emerging codes related to the episteme. I did not find any text that could be coded within the Themisean Episteme category. I attribute this more to the quality of the text sample at this site as opposed to the lack of epistemal mechanisms at work.
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However, I am unable to be definitive in my speculation due to the lack of evidence either way.
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). Within the broad
Erisean category of Context, I found textual evidence for diversity. For example, the program’s Mission Statement states, “The mission of UC Irvine's School of Education is to promote educational success and achievement of ethnically and economically diverse learners of all ages” (University of California Irvine, 2015a). Additionally, the goals of
“enhancing the achievement of diverse students” (University of California Irvine, 2015c) and “Equity of opportunity for ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse learners” (University of California Irvine, 2015b) indicate a stated Erisean positioning with respect to diverse populations. While such a position may simply be one of pragmatism due to the diverse student population within the state of California, it does appear, at least on the surface, to reflect a sensitivity to differences within the education context.
Program 2: Boise State University
I selected Boise State University due to its geographic location in the Northwest region of the United States and due to its high national ranking for undergraduate secondary education (#37).
In contrast to the University of California Irvine, the sampled text here provides more descriptive data--particularly language that is suggestive of philosophy, orientation and program goals. While not as robust as the language found on other websites sampled in this study, the data is commensurable to subsequent analysis within the two meta-
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theory models. During this analysis, I categorized about 50% of the sampled text within
Themisean meta-theory coding categories.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. Regarding the outcomes code, the data included some clear examples that reflect the importance of outcomes at Boise State.
For example, the authors state on the About Us page, “It also means that we are conducting high-level research with graduate students that aims to improve school outcomes” (Boise State University, 2016a). Student achievement, itself an outcome measure, is also seen as an emphasis in statements such as, “Boise State University strives to develop knowledgeable educators who integrate complex roles and dispositions in the service of diverse communities of learners using effective approaches that promote high levels of student achievement” (Boise State University, 2016b). While this statement reflects diversity awareness, it seems blind to the contextual dimensions of “student achievement.” This absence suggests that such outcome measures exist in a contextual vacuum.
With respect to the managerialism code, the program literature describes the managerialism focus on high quality. For example, on the Early and Special Education webpage, the authors asserted, students “deserve high quality educational experiences.”
Elsewhere on the About Us page, the authors quoted Dean Rich Osguthorpe, who claimed, “Candidates are able to develop their knowledge, skills, and dispositions over time […] This is in line with what quality teacher education programs are asked to do and is grounded in research-based methods” (Boise State University, 2016a). Such statements appear to imply the existence of a universal standard of “high quality” that transcends
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context and thus can be inserted into any program as an attainable, clear objective— despite the fact that this ideal remains somewhat nebulous.
Several statements focused on the program goals of student achievement and highly effective pedagogy. For example, on the Conceptual Framework webpage, the authors stated, “Boise State University College of Education’s conceptual framework,
‘The Professional Educator’, establishes our shared vision in preparing educators to work effectively in P-12 schools” (Boise State University, 2016c). Elsewhere on that page, the authors asserted, “Boise State University strives to develop knowledgeable educators who integrate complex roles and dispositions in the service of diverse communities of learners ssing effective approaches that promote high levels of student achievement”
(Boise State University, 2016c). While such goals appear to be valid, statements such as the examples cited above, beg the questions: 1) how is high student achievement measured? 2) what does being effective look like to the students? Such ideals could very well materialize as being one-dimensional. For example, high student achievement could simply equal scoring well on standardized tests and effective teaching could just be the same as preparing students to score well on standardized tests.
Though not as pervasive, some of the data pointed to the more progress-oriented metanarratives. For example, authors of the Early and Special Education webpage offered, “As such, they are highly sought after by employers in Idaho, the Northwest and the nation” (Boise State University, 2016e). This text reflects operationalism in that program completers should have no problem becoming productive members of society upon graduation. This boast makes sense as a means by which to attract potential applicants. As such, it is not a strong example of this metanarrative code. However, if this
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operationalism becomes the primary program goal, then teacher education simply becomes a means to an economic end.
On the Department of Literacy Welcome page, the data reflects technologization in the statement, “The Literacy Center will become more intensely involved in research, evaluation, and development projects that pertain to reading communities and lifelong reading, as well as to ways in which technologies impact literacy practices and new modes of conceptualizing literacy” (Boise State University, 2016f). Though not an overtly strong example, it does reflect the contemporary tendency for phenomena to be redefined according to the current state of technological advancement. Related to this is the program goal of innovation. Evidence for this goal can be found on the Welcome page where the authors asserted, “Boise State University’s College of Education meaningfully engages with communities through innovative teacher preparation and education research” (Boise State University, 2016g). Also, on the Accreditation page, the authors stated, “The College of Education at Boise State University is committed to preparing students who are ready to take their places as innovators, educators and leaders in service to their communities” (Boise State University, 2016b).
Emerging codes related to paradigms. Some of the text provided evidence for consensus by way of best practices. For example, on the Special and Early Education page, the authors indicated, “The department’s teacher preparation programs in Early and
Special Education Studies offer the best in research-based best practices in the schools”
(Boise State University, 2016e). Similarly, on the Welcome to the Office of Teacher
Education page, the authors stated, “The programs provide candidates with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for beginning teachers” (Boise State
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University, 2016h). Such text implies a consensus regarding a set of generalizable best practices as well as an a-contextual set of, desirable teacher characteristics.
The authors also used text reflecting a paradigmatic proclivity for prediction— especially as it relates to research informing practice. For example, the authors of the
Literacy Department webpage cited the objective of providing “evidence-based practices, policies, actions, and resources to support all kinds of literacies” (Boise State University,
2016f). Similarly, the authors on the Accreditation webpage asserted, “And our programs are driven by research data that assure we will constantly improve” (Boise State
University, 2016b). Such statements indicate a reliance on the predictive power of education research with no explicit mention of mitigating contextual factors.
Emerging codes related to the episteme. During my review of the Boise State
University website, I only found one statement that could be properly categorized within the episteme category. On their Accreditation webpage, the authors stated, “The National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), which ensures quality in teacher education, in its most recent intensive review recognized the high quality of the college’s programs (Boise State University, 2016b). Such a statement reflects disciplining power with the phrase “ensures quality in teacher education” and surveillance with the phrase “in its most recent intensive review” (Boise State University, 2016b).
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). During the analysis of the Boise State University website, I came across several examples of text reflecting
Erisean meta-theory. Regarding the being code, statements such as “Guided reflection of all experiences from a variety of perspectives fosters the self-analysis and evaluation skills essential for continued professional development” (Boise State University, 2016g) ,
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suggest an appreciation for reflection, perspective and experience. Similarly, the course description for Foundations of Education included, “Social, multicultural, philosophical, and historical perspectives in education; current educational issues; and problems of education. Provides a conceptual framework from which students will learn to reflect upon and question American public education” (Boise State University, 2016d). This text reiterates the importance of perspective and personal reflection.
Several statements suggested the value that Boise State places on service. On the
Vision section of the Course Catalogue webpage, the authors stated, “The College of
Education will be a leader in […] the preparation of professionals who provide exemplary educational and related services to improve the lives of individuals in a changing and complex global society” (Boise State University, 2016d). This commitment to service is echoed on the Accreditation page where the authors wrote, “The College of
Education at Boise State University is committed to preparing students who are ready to take their places as innovators, educators and leaders in service to their communities”
(Boise State University, 2016b). Such text embraces some of the central tenets of Erisean meta-theory: community outreach and education as a means by which to improve quality of life.
My analysis also revealed a stated commitment to the education of diverse populations. According to the course description for Civic and Ethical Foundations, students will be engaged “in discussion of ethics, diversity, and internationalization”
(Boise State University, 2016d). Similarly, students taking Cultural Diversity in the
School will receive “an introduction to the forms of diversity most relevant to local schools” (Boise State University, 2016d). The course description also included “In
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addition to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, the course introduces students to the psychological, legal, and cultural foundations of bilingual education and
English as a Second Language with a special emphasis on Mexican-American culture”
(Boise State University, 2016d).
Lastly, I found text that indicated an awareness of context. On the Literacy Center webpage, the authors wrote “study, evaluate, and develop multiple literacies as they are emerging in contemporary culture, which include among others, visual, media, information, digital, critical, cultural, and participatory literacies” (Boise State
University, 2016f). Elsewhere on this page, the data reflects technologization in the statement, “The Literacy Center will become more intensely involved in research, evaluation, and development projects that pertain to reading communities and lifelong reading, as well as to ways in which technologies impact literacy practices and new modes of conceptualizing literacy” (Boise State University, 2016f). Though not a strong example, this text does imply recognition of the importance of cultural context as it relates to literacy.
Program 3: Arizona State University
I selected Arizona State University due to its geographic location in the Southwest region of the United States and due to its high national rankings, according to the
National Council on Teacher Quality (2014), in Special Education (ranked #1),
Elementary Education (ranked #16) and Secondary Education (ranked #27).
Like Boise State University, the sampled text here provides more descriptive data, particularly language that is suggestive of philosophy, orientation and program goals.
While not as robust as the language found on the websites of other sampled programs, the
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data does lend itself to subsequent analysis through the two meta-theory models. During the subsequent analysis, I categorized about 75% of the sampled text within Themisean meta-theory coding categories.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. Sampled data indicated a program orientation towards outcomes and performance. For example, authors of the website stated, “We offer services in program evaluation design, implementation/fidelity to model evaluations and outcome/impact-focused evaluations” (Arizona State University, 2016a).
Such a statement is indicative of the high value this program places on quantifiable results.
Analysis also reveals textual affinity to the metanarrative codes of managerialism and operationalism. For example, the authors asserted, “Classroom Organization and
Child Guidance: Develops and implements analysis, intervention, and consultation strategies for effective management of classroom behavior for students with and without disabilities” (Arizona State University, 2016b). Key words such as quality, cost-effective, expert, effective, consultation and management are associated with the heightened accountability of managerialism within a neoliberal context.
There are numerous examples of sampled text reflecting the idea of education as a means by which to increase productivity within the current economic system. Statements such as “Gain a competitive edge with employers and graduate and professional schools”
(Arizona State University, n.d.-c) and “Give your resume a boost as you engage in vital community service” (Arizona State University, n.d.-c) indicate the high value of placement outcomes after graduation. Other statements echo this program goal while also touting the program’s ability to insure future economic success for the student. This is
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evident in statements such as “Educational Studies students are prepared to work in a variety of general career fields within the corporate world” (Arizona State University, n.d.-b) and “Turn your passion for education into a business potential. Start your own business that supports positive changes in communities” (Arizona State University, n.d.- b). Such text focuses on the economic or monetary worth (operationally defined) of the education received upon completion of program requirements.
The push towards a more technology-centric curriculum and pedagogy is revealed through the sampled text. For example, the website authors wrote, “Instructional
Methodologies for Young Children: STEM Explores, applies and integrates STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) content, project-enhanced instructional strategies and assessments” (Arizona State University, 2016b). The text also suggested a transformation in the teaching profession as the authors asserted the need for greater technology proficiency through “database experience (always moving away from paper);
[and the] ability to function in online environment” (Arizona State University, n.d.-b).
Lastly, the text implies a greater reliance in education on computer ready, quantifiable information/data in statements such as “Through CREST, we provide technical assistance, consultation, and data management/analysis support to educators and school district leaders” (Arizona State University, 2016e).
Innovation and 21st Century skills are two terms repeatedly used throughout the text. For example, on the About Us page, the authors wrote, “We develop ideas, people and innovations that improve education for the greatest possible number of people”
(Arizona State University, 2016g) and “ASU is #1 in the US for innovation” (Arizona
State University, 2016g). Regarding the importance of 21st century skills, the authors
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asserted, “Service-Learning is a strategy that has been proven to: Ignite 21st century skills” (Arizona State University, 2016g).
Emerging codes related to paradigms. Throughout the text, the authors posited the importance of consensus by using keywords such as standards, best practices and research. For example, the program website included the statements “Receive a firm foundation in academic content based on the latest research and best practices as well as extensive clinical experience” (Arizona State University, 2016d), and “The program offers students a firm grounding in academic content, research and best practices integrated with real world classroom experiences” (Arizona State University, 2016d). The website also expresses the program’s direct link to consensus driven state and federal policy. This is revealed in text such as:
During that year, Teachers College faculty members collaborate with K-12
teachers in, among other things, applying the Arizona's College and Career Ready
Standards to their lessons. In addition, Teachers College students fully participate
in district-led trainings on Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards, and
will implement Common Core into their classrooms with the guidance of their
mentor teachers. (Arizona State University, 2016f)
These types of organized, policy-related arms of consensus help to solidify current modes of pedagogy and curriculum design.
There are examples of text that indicate a reliance on quantitative testing for policy, student placement and student tracking. For example, the authors wrote, “Further, our team has extensive knowledge in value-added models (VAMs), as well as growth curve and other multi-level models” (Arizona State University, 2016e). Additionally, in
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the program’s Evaluation and Intervention Strategies for Infants, Toddlers and
Preschoolers with Disabilities literature, the authors stated, “Students will learn to screen, assess and provide services to young children with special needs using norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, and formative assessments to determine special education eligibility, plan individualized family service programs, and monitor progress for eligible students”
(Arizona State University, 2016b).
Emerging codes related to the episteme. There are examples of text that indicated program acquiescence or conformity to outside standardizing forces. Statements such as “Teachers College students fully participate in district-led trainings on Arizona's
College and Career Ready Standards, and will implement Common Core into their classrooms with the guidance of their mentor teachers” (Arizona State University, 2016f), reflects the feedback loop of discipline that directs teacher preparation activities within the program.
When I collected the data during the summer of 2015, all of the surveillance related text came from Arizona State’s T-Prep page. As of May 2016, this page is no longer part of the Arizona State University’s official text. Therefore, I will not include this set of sampled text.
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). Regarding the program’s incorporation and accommodation of the Erisean notion of being, there are text examples that reveal ways through which ontological issues are addressed. On the
Education Studies page, the authors wrote, “Both provide opportunities for students to explore their professional identity, inquire about where they might be of service to children, youth, and/or adults within their local communities” (Arizona State University,
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2016c). This example reflects a stated program commitment to developing the whole person of its students. Other statements such as, “Education as an instrument in the development of the individual and society and its significance as an American
Institution” (Arizona State University, 2016c) and “design curriculum based on the whole child in the context of their family, culture, community and learning needs” (Arizona
State University, 2016b) are evidence that the program recognizes the student as an individual within a non-trivial, existentially vital context.
Other statements indicated an appreciation for family and community factors and influences as well as the power of these factors and influences in the education of the individual child. For example, on the Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special
Education webpage, the authors wrote of the importance of using “techniques and approaches to involve family members in the growth and development of the young child” (Arizona State University, 2016b). Elsewhere on that page, the authors asserted that the program, “emphasize(s) community connectedness, technology integration, administration, policy analysis and advocacy related to young children with disabilities or developmental delays.” (Arizona State University, 2016b). Such text is indicative of the value that this program places on its connections to the community within which its students and their students reside.
Several statements throughout the program’s website reflected a commitment to serving the student as well as the student’s community. For example, the authors stated,
“Weekly seminar, course readings, discussions and reflection assignments facilitate critical thinking and a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, citizenship and social injustices, and how to utilize this knowledge in the teaching profession to better serve all
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students” (Arizona State University, 2016b). Additionally, as a Service Learning
Capstone, students must “(a) successfully assess a community need in education that correlates to current research and (b) collectively plan a sustainable service project that benefits high-needs children” (Arizona State University, 2016c). Regarding the program’s explicit recognition of diversity, several statements suggested its value and the importance of reaching every individual within highly diverse student populations. For example, in the Understanding the Culturally Diverse Child course description, enrolled students will “[Survey] cultural and linguistic diversity in American education, including education equity, pluralism, learning styles, and roles of schools in a multiethnic society”
(Arizona State University, 2016c). Additionally, according to the Special Education for
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children and Youth course description, enrolled students engage with “General issues and practical applications regarding the education of culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities” (Arizona State
University, 2016c).
Though there were not as many statements that related directly to the idea of sociocultural context, there did seem to be awareness as indicated through the sampled text. For example, the Culture and Schooling course description includes, “Overview of the cultural, social, and political milieus in which formal schooling takes place in the
United States” (Arizona State University, 2016c).
Program 4: Miami University of Ohio
I selected Miami University of Ohio due to its geographic location in the Midwest region of the United States and due to its high national rankings in both the
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undergraduate elementary education (ranked #8) and undergraduate secondary education
(ranked #5) programs.
In contrast to the University of California Irvine, the text found on this program’s website, as with Arizona State University, provides more descriptive data, particularly language that is suggestive of philosophy, orientation and program goals. While not as robust as the language found on some of the other sampled websites, the data does lend itself to subsequent analysis through the two meta-theory models. During the analysis, I placed about 55% of the sampled text within Themisean meta-theory coding categories.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. The sampled text indicated a program-wide emphasis on effective teaching, dispositions and behaviors. For example, on the Dispositions page, the authors wrote, “It is the responsibility of the College of
Education, Health, and Society to successfully prepare candidates to become effective teachers” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016e). Similarly, this same page contained the statement, “All of our initial licensure programs require candidates to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions outlined in the conceptual framework of the College of Education as they align with the expected behaviors of beginning teachers” (Miami
University of Ohio, 2016e). This program emphasis on behavior and performance is further reiterated in the statement, “Each of these broad categories of Dispositions has a set of observable behaviors that are expected of a professional educator” (Miami
University of Ohio, 2016e). The text suggests a reliance on observable behavior as a means by which to assess the abilities of the teacher in connecting with his or her students.
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The notions of high quality and quality control are typical within a neoliberal context and are often indicative of the managerialism metanarrative. The sampled text reveals a program-wide desire for quality. High quality is linked to success in statements such as “Research has proven that high-quality early education programs produce the greatest success in children’s life-long academic and social success” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016f). While high quality may, in many cases, be an empty expression, the authors of the Urban Teaching Cohort page defined it: “High quality teaching is rooted in practices of diversity, equity, and social justice” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k).
Through this definition, it becomes clear as to what quality means—at least in the Urban
Teaching Cohort’s use of the term.
Analysis of the sampled text revealed a program-wide push towards greater technology integration and innovation. For example, on the Early Childhood Education page, the authors stated, “Technology integration not only enhances our students' learning experiences on campus, but also provides opportunities to implement strategies in the field classrooms. TeachLive, etutoring, and Project Backpack are some of the innovative technology tools our students use” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016e). In addition to innovation through technology, other statements suggested innovation through curriculum and instruction. On the Chair’s Message page, the chair wrote, “Our award- winning faculty exemplify Miami’s teacher-scholar model by offering dynamic and innovative courses, generating critical and high-impact research” (Miami University of
Ohio, 2016c). Similarly, the website authors asserted, “Our innovative multidisciplinary curriculum is designed to prepare you for tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities and give you the tools to change your world.” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016d). Whether
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this focus is appropriate or not depends on what innovation looks like and whether or not innovation is becoming an end as opposed to a means to an end.
While there is not much textual evidence to support the presence of globalization as a dominating, metanarrative influence, there is evidence to support at least a small degree of program-level awareness of globalization, particularly with respect to math, science and technology. For example, authors on the Adolescent and Young Adult
Education Department’s webpage, wrote, “Our program is not only focused on education in the United States, but also provides numerous international opportunities that inspire global engagement” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016a). Furthermore, the term globalization is used throughout the text of the Integrated Mathematics webpage.
Emerging codes related to paradigms. Only a few examples of sampled text could be appropriately coded as belonging to the Paradigm category. However a few implied the presence of consensus, or common knowledge, and mechanisms for gatekeeping. For example, on the Early Childhood Education homepage, the authors wrote, “Teaching requires such knowledge as the characteristics of learners, social structures of schools, families and communities, assessment techniques, classroom practices” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016f). This text indicates the existence of a commonly held body of knowledge related to education. Additionally, sampled text shows the presence of gatekeeping mechanisms via external licensure requirements and an internal conceptual framework that define the behaviors, dispositions, knowledge and skills required to teach seemingly regardless of context. On the Early Childhood
Education homepage, the authors wrote, “We are proud of our high reciprocity of teacher licensure across the nation—completion of Miami’s program makes you eligible for
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licensure in Ohio, and in 41 other states as well” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016f).
And, on the Information for Pre-Majors page, the authors stated, “All of our initial licensure programs require candidates to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions outlined in the conceptual framework of the College of Education as they align with the expected behaviors of beginning teachers” (Miami University of Ohio,
2016h).
Emerging codes related to the episteme. Two sampled statements suggest a disciplining power within the teacher education program. Dispositions page, the authors wrote, “Each candidate will be evaluated on these dispositions by faculty and school personnel and provided with feedback to assist with their progress” (Miami University of
Ohio, 2016e). On the same page, the authors operationally defined dispositions as,
“tendencies or beliefs that are conveyed or made public through observable behaviors”
(Miami University of Ohio, 2016e). Thus program administrators and faculty are granted the power to evaluate and discipline each student’s natural predilections and beliefs.
Furthermore, Benchmark 2 of the program requires each student to “join a professional organization and provide proof of this membership in order to proceed in the MCE
Program” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016i). This disciplining measure insures that each student is connected to peers within the existing paradigm.
Other sampled statements indicate the presence of surveillance measures built into the system. Such measures rely on the aforementioned operational definition of dispositions. This definition operationally enables those in positions of power to monitor students according to predetermined “broad categories of Dispositions [that have] a set of observable behaviors that are expected of a professional educator.” (Miami University of
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Ohio, 2016e). Furthermore, according to the MCE Benchmarks and Retention page, there is a “dispositions review for each checkpoint” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016i). In addition to determining whether each student is “maintaining satisfactory dispositions”
(Miami University of Ohio, 2016b), these key checkpoints also grant program staffers the power to surveil and monitor progress as manifested in “maintain[ing] a certain grade point average, pass[ing] prerequisite coursework, [and] complet[ing] specific “key assessments” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016b).
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). Through textual analysis, I categorized a little less than half of all the sampled text within Erisean meta- theory coding categories. However, most of the text coded as Erisean was found on the
Urban Teaching Cohort webpage. Thus, it is not entirely clear just how widespread the commitment to context is outside of the Urban Teaching Cohort.
The sampled text, especially from the Urban Teaching Cohort page, strongly conveyed and articulated an appreciation for the ontological implications of education.
Such an appreciation is well expressed in the statement:
Knowledge of one’s self and one’s positionality in the world is central to ethical
and effective teaching. This knowledge comes through critical self-reflection on
oneself as a cultural being—a person situated within structures of race, class,
gender, sexual orientation, ability, nationality, etc.—and reflection on one’s
desires, values, and experiences. (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k)
The authors also delineated between two types of knowledge and how they independently serve each student through a theoretical grounding sensitive to issues of the self. For example, on the Urban Teaching Cohort page, the authors wrote, “Pedagogical
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knowledge emphasizes how best to teach, but also how to help learners develop meaningful connections to what is taught” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k). Thus a teacher’s pedagogical knowledge is instrumental to connecting each student to the curriculum so that deep, subjective meaning can be drawn from it. Moreover, “Critical knowledge rejects the simple transfer of knowledge from an authority to a passive recipient; rather, it privileges the mutual creation of knowledge toward shared interest
(democracy)” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k).
The sampled text also revealed a commitment to the student’s family and community. This commitment is expressed in the Chair’s Message Page on which the chair charged the program with the task of preparing “caring, competent and transformative educators to serve as agents for positive change in schools and communities” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016c). Similarly, the authors of the Urban
Teaching Cohort page asserted, “Educators are ethically accountable to their students, and to their students’ families and communities” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k) and
“Critical, contextualized knowledge of students, families, and communities is central to ethical and effective teaching” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k). Lastly, this commitment to family and community through “Ethical and effective teaching acknowledges communities as assets and seeks to work alongside communities, learning from them and with them” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k).
Several sampled statements indicated a commitment to service. In general, this service is described as being directly connected to social issues outside of the classroom as well as the desire for greater social justice. This commitment is crystallized within the
Urban Teaching Cohort where students “discuss and reflect on issues of homelessness,
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privilege, and oppression” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k), and through the Teaching
English Language Learners program in which students are required to complete “a three course focus sequence and a cultural and social justice course” (Miami University of
Ohio, 2016j).
Based on my reading of the sampled text, there is awareness and appreciation for diversity. For example, the college chair asserted that the students “have high quality field experiences and immersions in urban, suburban, rural, and even international settings, working closely with diverse learners, including racial minority students, students with special needs, and English language learners” (Miami University of Ohio,
2016c).
The sampled text revealed that context is valued as an important factor in education. This appreciation for context manifests as community knowledge and critical knowledge. Community knowledge, according to the authors, “includes the social, cultural, political, historical, and spiritual context of a community as it is embodied in various people, institutions, and spaces” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k). Contextual understanding through community knowledge is an important part of the Human
Development and Learning in Social and Educational Contexts course. In its course description, the authors wrote, “The ways human development and learning can be fostered within diverse social and educational contexts and the interactive influences of contextual differences on direction and nature of these processes are a major focus for systematic inquiry” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016g). Regarding critical knowledge, the authors stated, “Critically oriented teachers question the arrangement and interests of sociocultural (symbolic) and material resources” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016k).
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Program 5: Montclair State University
I selected Montclair State University due to its geographic location in the
Northeast of the United States and due to its high national rankings in undergraduate elementary education (ranked #13) according to the National Council on Teacher Quality study conducted in 2014 (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2014).
The sampled text was rich and meaningful in its descriptions of program philosophy and goals. Furthermore, close to 80% of the fifteen pages of collected data belonged to the Erisean meta-theory category of codes. Thus, the sampled text coded as
Themisean was much smaller in quantity by comparison. Out of the six programs sampled for this study, Montclair State University is overwhelmingly the closest to being a truly Erisean program due to its use of language that indicated a strong commitment to and a heightened awareness of context.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. There are a few examples of sampled text employing language typically associated with performativity. On the
Portrait of a Literacy Educator page, the authors asserted the importance of
“demonstrate[ing] knowledge of assessment principles and techniques” (Montclair State
University, 2016m). Similarly, on the Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy
Education Department Goals and Objectives page, the authors described a program goal of “build[ing] communities of learners based on high quality effective relationships that enable effective learning” (Montclair State University, 2016g). And while every program in this study employed the term effective to describe a desired attribute of its future graduates, Montclair State did provide an alternative. On the Exercise Science and
Physical Education About the Department page, the authors used “well-educated”
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(Montclair State University, 2016c). instead of effective, highly effective or high quality
(a word associated with managerialism in this study). Such a language shift could indicate a conceptual emphasis on a personal quality as opposed to a measureable behavior.
Some of the sampled text reflected a sense of managerialism through usage of the term high quality. For example, on the NCATE Accreditation page, the authors wrote,
“We are proud of our long-standing accreditation and committed to maintaining the high quality of our programs for the preparation of educators” (Montclair State University,
2016j). Similarly, the authors of the Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training page, asserted a dedication “to providing a high quality, state of the art educational program consistent with the professional and ethical requirements of the profession of Athletic
Training” (Montclair State University, n.d.-b).
Some of the sampled text indicated a push towards greater technologization. For example, “Further integrating technology into department programs, procedures, and services” (Montclair State University, 2016l), is a stated goal on the Educational
Foundations Objectives of the Department page. Similarly, the authors of the Portrait of a
Literacy Educator page, asserted the importance of enabling future teachers to be
“technologically literate and know how technology facilitates learning and enhances literacy” (Montclair State University, 2016m).
Innovation is closely related to technologization in this study. Such a close association is evident in the statement, “These innovations include the integration of technology into the academic experience, new approaches to teaching and learning”
(Montclair State University, n.d.-a). Similarly, the dean wrote, “CEHS is a center of
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creativity, innovation, and excellence, where students, faculty, and staff create solutions to community problems, invent innovative practices and curriculum, and engage in and publish cutting-edge research” (Montclair State University, n.d.-a). What is not typical in this study is the association of innovation with a sense of professional freedom or autonomy—an association established by Montclair State. This association is made on the Secondary and Special Education About the Department page as the authors stated the importance of “Transcend[ing] systemic forces that inhibit innovation” (Montclair
State University, 2016p).
Emerging codes related to paradigms. The sampled text also contained language, such as the term best practices, associated with paradigm consensus in this study. For example, on the Mission and Goals page, the authors charged those enrolled in the program with “assum[ing] the responsibility of being stewards of best practice within their profession” (Montclair State University, 2016i). However, in contrast with the sampled text from other program in this study, Montclair State provided a definition of best practices using distinctly Erisean language. This definition, found on the Academics
Home page, stated, “Best practices are approaches, methods, and processes that have been shown through research to lead to desired results and are consistent with the values and commitments necessary to promote educational excellence, equity, and social justice in a democratic society” (Montclair State University, n.d.-a). Likewise, on the Portrait of a Teacher page, the authors combined the responsibilities of serving as “stewards of best practice” with “serving as change agents” (Montclair State University, 2016n), thus conceptually linking the two as critical mandates for all future teachers. Through my analysis, I did notice the language shifting to more of a Themisean orientation on the
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Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training page (still a part of the College of Education).
Perhaps this suggests that there is a fundamental, qualitative difference between teacher education for primary and secondary levels, and professional education for athletic training. As such, the former is more pedagogically and curriculum oriented whereas the latter is oriented towards science (anatomy, health studies) and physical behavior. Might this even suggest an association between Erisean meta-theory and a true language of education?
Emerging codes related to the episteme. Upon analysis, only a very small portion of the text reflects epistemal influences and factors. Regarding discipline, the statement, “Our response to the evolving standards and guidelines of the profession and of NCATE (now CAEP) has helped us maintain our commitment to excellence”
(Montclair State University, 2016l), indicates a controlling, disciplining presence associated with accreditation agencies. On the Undergraduate Subject Area Professional
Sequence page, the authors stated, “The Portrait is also used for ongoing assessment of students as they progress through the Program” (Montclair State University, 2016q). This statement suggests, with the text “ongoing assessment,” that perhaps there is a form of surveillance embedded in the program.
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). I categorized the vast majority of the sampled text as belonging to Erisean meta-theory due to the program’s seemingly, deeply rooted orientation towards context awareness, service to the community and sensitivity to ontological issues. Beginning with the being code, I noticed that the language described three particular dimensions of self as it relates to education.
First, the text reflects the important task of problematization for today’s education
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professional. On the Educational Foundations Relationship of the Department to College of Education and Human Services page, the authors wrote:
It is a major aspect of our mission, for example, to problematize such notions as
‘professional,’ ‘national standards,’ or ‘enculturation,’ concepts which are found
within the CEHS mission statement itself. We consider this form of
problematization to be an essential skill for critical, reflective educational
practitioners committed to continual educational reconstruction. (Montclair State
University, 2016o)
Secondly, the text reflects an awareness of the power of society and culture to potentially transform the self in conformity to hegemonic influences. On the Goals and Objectives page, the authors stated that, through these courses, the students will “analyze and critique […] the practice of schooling from philosophical, historical, social, political, psychological, and economic perspectives” (Montclair State University, 2016g). Lastly, the sampled text indicates the pursuits of correcting social injustice at the macro level and becoming more empathetic and the micro level. For example, on the Family and Child
Studies page, the authors wrote, “Power, diversity, and social justice are analyzed through an interdisciplinary and critical approach” (Montclair State University, 2016f).
And, regarding the micro level, the authors posited the importance of possessing “An attitude of care for and empathy with others and an awareness of and sense of responsibility for social problems” (Montclair State University, n.d.-b).
Several examples of text reflected the great value of family and the community to teacher education. For example, the dean asserted that the important mission of teacher education is a “mission [that] unites all of us in the College as we work within and
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beyond CEHS to make a difference in the lives of children, families and communities”
(Montclair State University, 2016h). In the Portrait of a Teacher document, the authors presented the professional goal of “building relationships with school colleagues, families, and agencies in the community to support students’ learning and well-being”
(Montclair State University, 2016n). Lastly, the authors of the Family and Child Studies -
Families, Children, and School Settings page wrote, “Through this lens [the study of the family], students learn about family development, relationships, dynamics, functioning, health, and resource management” (Montclair State University, 2016e). Thus, from the sampled text, those working within the program at Montclair State recognize the strong connections between the classroom and its surrounding community (families and neighborhoods).
Much of the sampled text reflects a program-wide desire to improve the lives of others and prepare professionals “to serve as agents of change” (Montclair State
University, 2016m). According to the dean, the teacher education program at Montclair
State “Draws on a long tradition of working to increase equity, social justice, democratic practice, critical thinking, and reflection, the College serves as a leader in preparing professionals to work collaboratively to change people’s lives” (Montclair State
University, n.d.-a). This call to action includes “preparing counselors to work with marginalized people such as those with HIV/AIDS, addictions, or mental health problems” (Montclair State University, n.d.-a), and “prepar[ing] practitioners who are committed to social justice and the elimination of health disparities in their communities using advanced-level critical thinking and problem-solving skills” (Montclair State
University, 2016k). The abundance of text oriented to service suggests that this particular
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program is, in their own words, “committed to preparing critical professionals who can improve the lives of children, youth, and adults by implementing effective care, education, and literacy programs” (Montclair State University, 2016a).
Several examples of the sampled text revealed a program wide sensitivity to issues of diversity and their implications in education. The dean expressed this sensitivity by stating that teacher education “promotes equity and inclusion for young people who are labeled in ways that result in their discrimination in schools and in other settings”
(Montclair State University, n.d.-a). The authors of the Missions and Goals page asserted the program goal of “promoting learning and growth for all, with respect for social, cultural, economic, and individual differences” (Montclair State University, 2016i)
Additionally, the text described many ways to accomplish this goal. For example, students are equipped to “identify bias (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) and intolerance in teaching practices, materials, websites, etc. and insure an anti-biased teaching and learning environment” (Montclair State University, 2016g). Similarly, the program includes courses that “promot[e] equity and inclusion for young people who are labeled in ways that result in their discrimination in schools and in other settings”
(Montclair State University, 2016g).
Lastly, the sampled text is indicative of a program that recognizes the fundamental role that context plays in teaching and learning. According to program literature, “Educators are cultural and political workers who accept an active role in democracy and the promotion of social justice locally, nationally and globally”
(Montclair State University, 2016b). Thus, educators will ultimately work within political and cultural contexts and will need to be aware of and appreciate this reality. At the
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macro level, the authors posited the importance of “examining the various cultural, community, and socioeconomic contexts in which families function and study interventions used to support families” (Montclair State University, 2016f). Furthermore, at the micro level, the authors wrote that teachers should “Understand how children and adolescents learn and develop in a variety of school, family and community contexts, and can provide learning opportunities that support their students’ intellectual, social, and personal development” (Montclair State University, 2016m). Accordingly, context is important not only in the ways that its implications manifest in family, community, society, culture, politics and geography, but also in its ramifications within the walls of a classroom and in the connections made between student and teacher.
Program 6: North Carolina State University at Raleigh
I selected North Carolina State University at Raleigh for three reasons. First, it served as a representative school in the South/Southeast region in the United States.
Secondly, its undergraduate program in Secondary Education ranked #57 according to the
National Council on Teacher Quality (2014) study. Lastly, this program is oriented towards STEM and preparing its teachers to work within this paradigm at both the pedagogical and curricular levels.
Like Montclair State University, the text sampled from this program’s website is descriptively rich and offers insight into program philosophies, goals and orientation with respect to the two meta-theories employed throughout this study. Unlike Montclair State
University, a little less than 75% of the sampled text can be categorized as aligning with
Themisean meta-theory. Thus, I assert that North Carolina State University at Raleigh can
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be considered a more Themisean school relative to some of the other sampled programs, especially Montclair State University.
Emerging codes related to metanarratives. Several examples from the sampled text indicate a program-wide focus on performativity—particularly teaching and learning as determined by tests. On the Academic homepage, the authors stated, “Standardized assessments are continuing to grow within our educational institutions, and instructors must know how to teach their students to take these tests as well as modify their instruction based on the results” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2016a) .
Thus standardized testing becomes the primary means by which to measure performance and efficacy. This focus on assessments is reiterated on the Re-Visioning Documents page on which the authors wrote:
Pre-service students will receive direct instruction and practice in assessment
beginning with the 100-level course in their programs. Instruction and guided
practice in structures and effective practices for assessment and other forms of
evaluation will begin no later than the 200 level courses in programs. Instruction
and practice cycles should continue in an integrated manner throughout the
remainder of each program. Cross-program seminars and a senior internship
seminar may be used to insure candidates develop expected understanding and
capacities in the area of assessment. (North Carolina State University at Raleigh,
n.d.-d)
From the sampled text, there appears to be a direct link between performativity and assessment, both of which, according to the text, are high program priorities.
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Technology and innovation are central components to the teacher education program at North Carolina State University. Technology integration and technologization are conceptually related yet different. In this study, I argue that technologization is a forceful integration of technology for technology’s sake that often results in a programmatic dismissal or neglect of other fields, disciplines or modes. While it would be difficult to definitively declare that the sampled text clearly reflects technologization over technology integration, I would argue that, given the context within which the courses are offered and given the predominance of STEM related courses over more
Erisean-oriented courses, that technologization is a powerful influence at this program is certainly a possibility.
On the Re-Visioning Documents page, the authors wrote, “The 300-level Subject
Matter Specific Technology Instruction will be used to enhance the technology expertise of candidates to their specific area” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d).
The text does not indicate why such expertise is necessary in decidedly non-technological fields. Moreover, the importance of STEM is clearly demonstrated in statements such as,
“Through the design and testing of new models of practice, we develop curriculum resources and conduct professional development programs to engage educators in incorporating new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) content and teaching practices in K-12 classrooms” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh,
2012). Lastly, the authors suggested the expansiveness of technologization on the
Academics homepage when they wrote, “NC State University’s College of Education is a community of innovators pushing the limits of technology” (North Carolina State
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University at Raleigh, 2016a). What does a systematic “pushing the limits of technology” look like?
From this analysis, I observed a conceptual linking of innovation with technologization. Additionally, I observed a close association between innovation and
21st Century Skills. For example, on the Research page, the authors described the program’s (faculty and graduate students) research agenda as “focusing on educational innovation and 21st century teaching and learning” (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, 2016d). Furthermore, in their discussion of the program’s Friday Institute, the authors asserted, “These programs enable teachers to use the latest tools and resources to teach 21st century content skills” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-b).
Regarding operationalism, the text reflected a program goal of equipping teachers to produce future professionals suitable to compete in the global economy. For example, the authors of the Re-Visioning Documents page affirmed, “The guiding mission of the
North Carolina State Board of Education is that every public school student will graduate from high school globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st century” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d).
In accordance with this guiding mission, the program at NC State Raleigh is committed to “produc[ing] the highest number of STEM teachers in NC and [having] most of our graduates receive job offers after completing their degrees” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, 2016e). Furthermore, the authors stated, “The College of
Education is graduating educators who can compete and succeed in this 21st Century global society” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2016a).
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This analysis also reveals a close association between operationalism and globalization. Conceptually, operationalism is the means by which a nation, a government, an economy, or teacher education program adapts to the perceived demands of globalization. This conceptual dynamic is expressed by the statement: “Globalization has become a major focus in recent research and emerging reports, emphasizing the need for effective instruction and experience for the teaching and integration of globalization concepts in the workplace and classroom of our global society.” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, n.d.-d). Elsewhere on the Re-Visioning Documents page, the authors asserted the importance of “expanding candidates’ understanding of concepts, skills, and world views related to globalization in the 21st Century” and “insure candidates develop expected capacities in globalization” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d).
Emerging codes related to paradigms. The sampled text provides a link between the code consensus and the notion of standards. The authors expressed this consensus through standards on the Re-Visioning Documents page by writing, “North
Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction uses the National Education Technology
Standards (NETS) to assess the work of students and teachers in the State of NC” (North
Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d). Here, technology continues to be a focus, and its usage is standardized. Moreover, teacher professional practice is similarly standardized so that the teacher education program at NC State must align itself with the various standards. The authors acknowledged this consensual standardization by stating,
“The 1996 General Assembly established the North Carolina Professional Teaching
Standards Commission in Statute 115C-295.1. The purpose of the commission is to
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establish standards for North Carolina teachers” (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, n.d.-d).
The sampled text revealed a definite commitment to standardized testing. This commitment manifests in a number of program objectives including the equipping of teachers with the skills to properly administer these assessments, accurately interpret the results, and predictively use the results to implement pedagogical and/or curricular change. For example, on the Re-Visioning Documents page, the authors wrote, “The expectation for NC State candidates is that they are “assessment ready” – knowing how to make, administer, and use assessments taken within and outside of the classroom, then analyzing the data from those assessments” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d). Thus, such testing is valued, in part, due to the ostensible predictive power linked to testing results. Accordingly, the authors wrote that its program graduates use “a variety of research-verified approaches to improve teaching and learning” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, n.d.-c). Lastly, standardized tests are used to assess, analyze and predict the abilities of future teachers as they enter the program. According to the authors,
“The Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators (Core) Tests measure academic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. These tests were designed to provide comprehensive assessments that measure the skills and content knowledge of candidates entering teacher preparation programs” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d).
Emerging codes related to the episteme. Through the analysis of this program, I observed some built-in disciplining mechanisms. For example, according to the NC State
University Field Experience Handbook, “To be recommended for licensure, a candidate must demonstrate professional performance at no less than the Proficient Candidate level
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on each element and on each standard” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh,
2013). Furthermore, this program exerts disciplining influence on the disposition of each teacher. In the Elementary Education Undergraduate Student Handbook, the authors wrote, “Teacher education majors are required to follow very distinct steps or gateways in order to make progress towards graduation in a timely fashion” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, 2014). Lastly, the program, itself, is not immune to discipline. The
NC State University Field Experience Handbook (2013) also indicated, “Procedures are in place to support and sanction schools that are not meeting state standards for student achievement.” In addition to discipline, the program also exercises surveillance of each student. The authors asserted, “Candidate performance is thoroughly assessed throughout the program and before the candidate is recommended for licensure” (North Carolina
State University at Raleigh, 2014).
Emerging codes related to context (Erisean meta-theory). Despite the fact that
I coded most of the sampled text as belonging to categories within Themisean meta- theory, some of the text does indeed reflect Erisean meta-theory. Regarding the Erisean notion of being, the authors of the Conceptual Framework wrote, “Those who complete the programs are ethical in their dispositions and behaviors toward all students, colleagues and parents. Ethical behavior encompasses respect, integrity and personal responsibility” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-a). Though not as clearly
Erisean in language as sampled text from other programs, the idea of respect of all students, colleagues and parents does align with an Erisean respect of the self. This respect is further reiterated in statements like, “Teachers treat students as individuals”
(North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-b). Lastly, some of the sampled text
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reflects the richness and multidimensional nature of humanness. On the Middle Grades
Language Arts and Social Studies page, the authors wrote, “Because well-considered moral, philosophical, aesthetic, and intellectual convictions are necessary for contributing to human thought and achievement” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2016c).
Some of the sampled text also suggested a high value placed on connections with student families and communities. For example, the authors stated, “The field experiences should provide both in-school and after-school opportunities to work with students, their families, and their communities” (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, n.d.-d). Elsewhere on the Re-Visioning Documents page, the authors asserted,
“Instruction should demonstrate ways to use the strengths of the families and communities to positively impact student achievement” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-d). Lastly, this commitment to family and community is practiced during enrollment in the program. According to the text, “The third year experience should focus heavily on family and community influences and working with families, communities, and agencies that support families and caregivers” (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, n.d.-d).
Text related to the Erisean notion of service was limited to expressions concerning social justice. According to the text, “The mission of the College of
Education states that ‘Our inquiry and practice reflect integrity, a commitment to social justice, and the value of diversity in a global community’” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, n.d.-d). Similarly, on the Message from the Department Head page, the author asserted, “We prepare professionals who are committed to equity and social justice” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2016b).
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In addition to expressing service, the previous quote from the Re-Visioning
Documents page also reflects a focus on diversity. This focus is expressed elsewhere on the page where the authors wrote:
Teachers are to establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of
students. This charges teachers to embrace diversity in the school community and
in the world, treat students as individuals, adapt their teaching for the benefit of
students with special needs, and work collaboratively with the families and
significant adults in the lives of their students. (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, n.d.-d)
Furthermore, the authors addressed diversity on the Elementary Education Objectives and
Outcomes page by writing, “Teachers embrace diversity in the school community and in the world” and “[Teachers] appropriately uses materials or lessons that counteract stereotypes and acknowledges the contributions of all cultures” (North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, n.d.-b).
Two examples of sampled text suggest an awareness of context. On the
Conceptual Framework page, the authors posited, “Necessary to effective practice is an understanding of the culture of the school, the larger educational environment and the society in which the educational institution exists” (North Carolina State University at
Raleigh, n.d.-a). Through this statement, the authors delineated the various contexts within which educators typically find themselves. Similarly in the Elementary Education
Undergraduate Student Handbook, the authors wrote, “The purpose of the course is to help prospective elementary grades teachers develop competencies for increasing student achievement by focusing on multicultural education, teaching to diversity, and
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understanding the classroom culture” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2014).
Here, the writers pointed out the importance of context at the micro level—the individual classroom.
Sampled EPPs and Their Commitments
Summary. During Phase II of the analysis in which I looked at the official text sampled from the six EPPs, I found textual support for the thirteen codes gleaned during
Phase I, as well as five new codes. Thus, the evidence suggests that the sampled EPPs are generally in compliance with current education policy as manifested in CAEP accreditation guidelines. Regarding the Metanarrative related codes, I identified 150 statements that offered support for the five codes generated during Phase I, as well as two emerging codes. These two new codes are innovation and globalization. All eight
Metanarrative related codes were backed, on average, by 21.4 supporting statements.
Furthermore, I sampled 54 examples of text offering support for the four Paradigm related codes generated during Phase I. There was an average of 13.5 supporting statements per code. There were no new Paradigm related codes emerging during Phase
II. Additionally, I found support for the two Episteme related codes from Phase I. There were forty samples of supporting text. However, over half of the supporting text (24 out of 40) came directly from North Carolina State University. Lastly, I found 253 statements supporting the two Erisean codes that emerged during Phase I, as well as three new codes: service, diversity and context. There was an average of 50.6 supporting statements per code. However, 131 out of the 253 statements came from the sampled text on the
Montclair State University website. This information is presented in Table 1.
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Table 1
Summary of EPP Codes
Meta-Theory Coding Category Sampled Textual New Codes Statements Support Themisian Metanarratives 150 21.4 Innovation Globalization Paradigms 54 13.5 No new codes Episteme 40 20 No new codes Erisean n/a 253 50.6 Service Diversity Content
Recognizable Patterns and Emerging Themes
While there was strong textual support for most of the codes emerging from the
CAEP document analysis as well as the new codes that emerged during the program analysis phase, individual codes were not necessarily represented by the text from every sampled programs. However, the textual evidence does suggest several pervasive themes running throughout the sampled text collectively. Because my analysis in inextricably linked to the meta-theory models constructed as the conceptual framework for this study, these themes, too, fall into four general categories: metanarratives, paradigms, episteme, and context.
Before I begin discussing the emergent themes, I think it is important for me to address the wide range of textual quality that exists among the six sampled programs. On one end, the University of California at Irvine primarily offers nuts and bolts language that does little to illuminate its philosophical or even missional positioning. On the other end, Montclair State University offers text that is rich in meaning and provides the reader with a clear, unmistakable picture of where the program is situated philosophically as 218
well as its ideals and goals. The very words employed by the authors are clearly rooted in
Erisean meta-theory as evidenced by its sensitivity to being and context and its call for critique and transformation. For example, the authors wrote, “Our broadest aim is to help develop in teachers the skills, dispositions and knowledge that equip them for collaborative transformation of educational structures and institutions” (Montclair State
University, 2016m). This statement clearly articulates a program objective centered on transforming the status quo within a particular sociocultural context through a holistic knowledge base implemented via democratic action.
On the same end of this quality spectrum, North Caroline State University offers text that, while not as philosophically expressive, clearly reveals its ideals and commitments as an institution. For example, the authors wrote:
NC State University’s College of Education is a community of innovators pushing
the limits of technology to invent new ways to teach, learn and lead. We are a
voice of innovation for learning across the life span and we proudly prepare
professionals who educate, innovate and inspire. (North Carolina State University
at Raleigh, 2016a)
In addition to its commitment to innovation and technology, the program authors take pride in the fact that “The College produces the highest number of STEM teachers in NC and most of our graduates receive job offers after completing their degrees” (North
Carolina State University at Raleigh, n.d.-a). Thus, the text provides the reader with valuable insight into this program’s position upon the teacher education landscape.
Furthermore, there are sampled programs that exist in between these two ends of the spectrum. For these programs, the sampled text provides just enough rich data for the
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reader to make connections to dimensions of one or both meta-theories. One could argue that this “just enough” is a weakness of this study. Accordingly, the sampled text is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg as it accounts for the surface of a much deeper phenomenon, and it doesn’t necessarily capture what really goes on during the day-to-day activities between students and professors as they relate to curriculum. And while I see the validity in these arguments, I do not see how they would apply to this study and not to studies that rely on widely accepted qualitative data sampling strategies like interviews.
For example, an interview, as one person’s perspective, cannot capture the entirety of a given phenomenon. Additionally, while potentially quite important to the study, it does not necessarily reflect some objectively true state of affairs. Moreover, the responses gathered during one interview session may be of a higher quality with respect to the guiding research questions than others.
Despite these inherent limitations, interviews are still very valuable in allowing the researcher to gain greater insight. And for the purposes of this study, I assert that the textual analysis of the sampled programs is an entirely appropriate course of action largely because this study is about the official text used by teacher education programs.
One of the stated goals of this study is to address the information that each program willingly chooses to publish, and how such text operates in harmony with or in spite of this particular sociocultural context. This official text is exactly what those in positions of power at a selected program want accreditors and potential students to know. In many cases, the official text is the first connection between a program and a prospective student. While I accept the idea that this text may not accurately reflect the true state of
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affairs, I assert that this is not really the point of the study; however, I do not dismiss this idea. On the contrary, it would serve as a fruitful starting point for future research.
Themisean Themes Related to Metanarratives
According to Lyotard (1984), metanarratives are the big ideas present within a given sociocultural context that give meaning to the intellectual discourse and structures of that context. As such, I liken metanarratives to the ideals and values that are promulgated and sustained within a sociocultural context through codifying (policy) and normalizing (professional) processes. These metanarratives are birthed within the context and become influential forces by virtue of the validity and valuation extended to them by the cultural dynamics within that context. Thus, the role of metanarratives in this study is an analytic one. Conceptually, metanarratives help me locate and address those sociocultural values and ideals that act externally on teacher education. In order to problematize teacher education, the identification and understanding of those forces that give shape to the sociocultural context within which EPPs operate is absolutely essential.
High quality effectiveness. The two phrases highly effective and high quality, were repeated throughout the sampled text. Together, these two phrases suggest a theme that encapsulates the contextual influences central to both performativity and managerialism. In most cases, the effectiveness dimension of this theme scrutinizes behavior against a set of pre-defined, ostensibly neutral, quantitative metrics.
Accordingly, effectiveness becomes a one-dimensional relationship between a teacher’s behavior in a classroom with a curriculum, and a student’s performance on a particular day with a specific test. Program authors for North Carolina State University (2016a) articulate this relationship on the Academics homepage by stating, “Standardized
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assessments are continuing to grow within our educational institutions, and instructors must know how to teach their students to take these tests as well as modify their instruction based on the results.”
Moreover, the high quality dimension of this theme appeals to neoliberal sensibilities such as cost-effectiveness, expertise, accountability and effective management. In some cases, sampled text directly related to the notion of high quality is void of any information regarding how such quality is measured. For example, on the
Boise State University (2016e) webpage, the authors asserted, without any qualification, that its students “deserve high quality educational experiences.” Lastly, I observed a small countercurrent of text that is more in line with Erisean meta-theory. Sampled text belonging to this countercurrent associates the notion of high quality with relationships and contextually sensitive pedagogy. For example, on the University of Miami Ohio
(2016k) website, the authors wrote, “High quality teaching is rooted in practices of diversity, equity, and social justice.” I must point out that such an association is the exception and not the rule. As such, it was only observed in the sampled text from
Montclair State University and the University of Miami Ohio’s Urban Teaching Cohort.
Innovative technology integration. The second emerging metanarrative theme is related to technology and innovation. I first observed the technology component during the analysis of the CAEP accreditation guidelines. This ultimately led to the technologization a priori code. Furthermore, I observed the innovation component of this theme during the second phase of analysis through which the innovation code emerged. I chose to label this theme with the phrase technology integration instead of technologization because I do not think that the text, when looked at as an aggregate,
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reflects the strong, technology-as-an-end trajectory that the literature links to technologization. While hints of this trajectory show up in the sampled text, it does so infrequently. Therefore, I employ the phrase technology integration to reflect a lesser degree push for greater technology use. This greater technology use serves as a means to achieve greater academic success while, in some cases, it serves as an end itself.
Through this analysis, I observed that the term innovation is now a buzzword used to describe courses, pedagogy, curriculum, and program objectives. Oddly enough, innovation was only defined once throughout all of the sampled text. Arizona State
University (n.d.-a) defined it as “think[ing] ‘outside the box’ when creating new and exciting things for children to learn.”
In general, innovation was used in one of three ways. First, it was used as a vague adjective or noun without any qualifiers. For example, on the Boise State University
(2016g) website, the authors wrote, “Boise State University’s College of Education meaningfully engages with communities through innovative teacher preparation and education research.” Perhaps programs use innovation to connect with our sociocultural sensibilities—after all, we live within a neoliberal context where entrepreneurialism is extolled as a virtue.
Secondly, innovation is linked to 21st Century Skills. 21st Century Skills are those skills necessary for success in this highly complex information age. These skills are deeply rooted in the neoliberal sociocultural context. As such, they do not include the means to transcend the context in any critical or problematizing way. Moreover, these skills are one-dimensional in that they only enable the practitioner to capitalize on the status quo in order to succeed. The authors of North Carolina State University at
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Raleigh’s (n.d.-d) program website wrote, “Assessment has been described as an essential part of the framework for the Partnership for 21st Century skills, and it is a vital part of the new North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards (standards one and four).”
Lastly, innovation, as used throughout the sampled text, is the dispositional bridge that leads to mastery of technology. On the Academics homepage for NC State University’s
College of Education (2016a), the authors described the program as “a community of innovators pushing the limits of technology to invent new ways to teach, learn and lead.
We are a voice of innovation for learning across the life span and we proudly prepare professionals who educate, innovate and inspire.”
Technology integration is a common theme throughout the sampled text. On
Arizona State University’s Educational Studies Courses webpage, the authors wrote,
“Educational Technology in the K-12 Curriculum focuses on using technology in an education setting and addresses the integration of technology in curricular areas for all students. Students receive a broad-based introduction to using and integrating technology into many different educational settings” (Arizona State University, 2016c). Although it is not entirely clear, the text appears to imply that technology integration is always a desirable means by which to improve education, regardless of context. This sentiment is echoed throughout the sampled text. Moreover, technology integration is often linked to
STEM curriculum. For example, the authors at NC State wrote, “Through the design and testing of new models of practice, we develop curriculum resources and conduct professional development programs to engage educators in incorporating new STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) content and teaching practices in
K-12 classrooms” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2012). The areas of
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science, technology, engineering and math have become major foci in teacher education programs, often at the expense of coursework that facilitates learning about context, being, democratic principles, and critical thinking.
Themisean Themes Related to Paradigms
Kuhn’s (1996) paradigms are theoretical commitments that give rise to organized communities or cultures of scientific practice. Those within a paradigm operate according to consensus and gatekeeping practices that insure homogeneity and the preservation of that paradigm’s theoretical foundation. I have applied Kuhn’s ideas to the education profession, and more specifically, to the training of future members—the students enrolled in EPPs. So while the theory implications of paradigms are not as important to this study in light of the findings, the ideas of consensus and gatekeeping within the profession are central. For these ideas ultimately govern the preparation and eventual practice of student teachers. Thus, there is direct link from this dimension of paradigm to the education occurring within the classroom.
Though not nearly as pervasive as text indicative of metanarrative influences, some of the sampled text reflected paradigm thinking as well as gatekeeping practices.
Some of the sampled programs focused on achievement standards, while others focused on standardized quantitative learning assessments and predictive learning models.
However, all of the sampled programs provided text that suggested the presence of a consensus theme.
Consensus. The existence of a paradigm is predicated upon consensus in theory acceptance, theory application, and interpretation of data as theory is implemented through empirical analysis. As shown in Chapter 2, a paradigm enables effective, and
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efficient knowledge production along a straight path. Along this path, the accepted theory is continually applied to a wide variety of phenomena, and continually tweaked and nuanced so that it seems to become a more perfect fit over time. At the same time, the theory championed within a paradigm excludes all other competing theories. Over time, it becomes blindly and dogmatically accepted, thus stifling theoretical dissention. Such dissention offers the potential for qualitatively transforming understanding within the paradigm. Thus, the inherent consensus of paradigm thinking leads to blind spots that give rise to deficiencies in empirical awareness and practice—particularly in teacher education. Accordingly, the observation of consensus in the sampled text does bring pause for concern.
During the analysis, I discovered a link between this paradigmatic consensus and the notions of best practices and research-based. Throughout the sampled text, I found repeated allusions to research-based best practices as a guiding principle in teacher education curriculum and as a desired learning outcome for graduates as they become classroom teachers. For example, at Arizona State University (2016d), the authors wrote that students “receive a firm foundation in academic content based on the latest research and best practices as well as extensive clinical experience.” Similarly, at Boise State
University (2016c), the authors wrote, “The department’s teacher preparation programs in
Early and Special Education Studies offer the best in research-based best practices in the schools.” The suggestion that there is a set of best practices certainly implies consensus.
Given the existence of a set of best practices, are there competing practices that are neglected or rejected because they do not fit some generally accepted standard model of pedagogy? Perhaps even more importantly, do these best practices transcend context?
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Lastly, the addition of research-based to best practices seems to provide an authoritative stamp implying that such practices should be unchallenged and universally embraced. However, in every case in which the descriptor research-based is employed, there is no indication of the nature of that research. Such statements seem to presuppose that research, regardless of quality, theoretical framework, or scope and context, can be neatly encapsulated as the epistemological guarantee of truth as it applies to best practices. As presented by the text, research-based appears as some nebulous construct used as a means by which to appeal to our natural proclivities for consensus and order.
Related to the consensus of best practices is the consensus of standards. In regards to education at the state and national levels, standards implies agreement as to the qualifications for entering into the teaching profession as well as in the content and form of tests designed to assess student learning. For example, the authors at Arizona
State University (2016f) wrote, “Teachers College offers educational opportunities and resources to help teachers and administrators implement Arizona's College and Career
Ready Standards in their classrooms and schools.” Similarly, the authors at North
Carolina State University at Raleigh (n.d.-d) wrote, “Standardized assessments are continuing to grow within our educational institutions, and instructors must know how to teach their students to take these tests as well as modify their instruction based on the results.” With such an emphasis on standards, there appears to be an implicit assumption that those seeking to enter the teaching profession as well as students within primary and secondary classrooms are homogenous masses that can be trained or assessed regardless of context. Moreover, when these standards become the focus of education and begin to trump the relationships forged between teacher and student, teacher and curriculum, and
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student and curriculum, then consensus fails to achieve what it ostensibly set out to do- successfully educate our children.
Themisean Themes Related to the Episteme
Foucault’s (2002) episteme is an intellectual context of power. Within the episteme, knowledge arises that contributes to the consolidation of power held by a ruling elite class. Those in power wield this knowledge as a means by which to control and preserve the status quo or their interests. Within the episteme, knowledge as power often equates to a subsequent loss of personal autonomy or individual power. The implications of this loss are, indeed, profound with respect to teacher education. The controlling power of epistemal knowledge manifests in controlling policies at the state and national levels, a reduction of program and curricular autonomy at the university level, and losses in professional and pedagogical freedoms within the classroom.
My analysis of the CAEP accreditation guidelines revealed a relatively strong presence of text related to the controlling power of the episteme. I anticipated this since
CAEP’s delegated role is to discipline and surveil teacher education programs in order to insure that they conform to those standards that, over time, have emerged from our contemporary sociocultural context. However, during my textual analysis of the sampled teacher education programs, I observed fewer examples of text suggesting the exertion of power. Moreover, the majority of such text came from one of the sampled programs—
North Carolina State University. Nevertheless, with the exceptions of the University of
California at Irvine and Boise State University, each of the remaining four sampled programs published at least one statement related to discipline and surveillance (Boise
State published one statement related to discipline and UC Irvine did not publish any
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statements related to the episteme). Consequently, I felt that the presence of episteme related text was just strong enough to warrant the recognition of a fourth Themisean theme: disciplining surveillance.
Disciplining surveillance. According to the sampled text, disciplining surveillance manifests in two ways associated with two different domains. First, there is a controlling presence from external evaluation bodies such as CAEP and NCATE and internal evaluation bodies developed within teacher education programs.
Secondly, disciplining surveillance occurs at the student level. There are internal mechanisms within the sampled programs that discipline and surveil the student so that he or she eventually reaches the desired level of accomplishment and embodies the desired set of professional dispositions, or faces intervention, remediation or termination.
For example, the authors at the University of Miami Ohio wrote, “Each of these broad categories of Dispositions has a set of observable behaviors that are expected of a professional educator” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016h), and asserted that there is a
“dispositions review for each checkpoint” (Miami University of Ohio, 2016b). Similarly, authors at North Carolina State University wrote, “Teacher education majors are required to follow very distinct steps or gateways in order to make progress towards graduation in a timely fashion” (North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 2014).
In summary. When looking across the sampled body of EPPs as a collective, several themes emerged. Within the Metanarrative construct, I located two themes: High
Quality Effectiveness and Innovative Technology Integration. The first theme is related to the managerial and performance related text with which there was ample textual support across the six sampled programs. The second theme reflects the numerous instances of
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sampled text related to innovation and technologization, and to a lesser extent, operationalism. Within the Paradigm construct, I located one theme: Consensus Through
Research-Based Best Practices. This theme reflects a harmony in the sampled text as it relates to consensus and gatekeeping. Teacher education, as it is described by the sampled EPPs, is founded on consensus that is contingent upon research and relies on a common set of best practices. Within the Episteme construct, I located one theme:
Disciplining Surveillance. This theme reflects the two powerful forces within an episteme. There was strong textual support from the sampled EPPs for systemic mechanisms of surveillance as well as programmatic instruments for discipline. This disciplining surveillance exists at both the macro (EPP level) and micro (student level) levels, as well as the external (accreditation by outside governing bodies) and internal
(program policy) levels.
Erisean Themes
I constructed the Erisean meta-theory model in response to my reading of Doll
(1993) and his Four R’s of the Postmodern curriculum. In his writings, Doll argued for a shift in the ways that we conceptualize curriculum and pedagogy. He prescribed a new set of pedagogical and curricular foci that includes context, the self, interpretation, and chaotic processes. This set is often at odds with the prevailing metanarratives of the contemporary sociocultural context, as well as the machinations of paradigm practice and the modalities of knowledge and power within the episteme. As such, Erisean meta- theory embodies these contrary ideas and serves as a conceptual foil to Themisean meta- theory. As presented earlier, I found 253 statements supporting the two Erisean codes that emerged during Phase I, as well as three new codes: service, diversity and context.
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There was an average of 50.6 supporting statements per code. However, 131 out of the
253 statements came from the sampled text on the Montclair State University website.
I sampled another sixteen from the Urban Teacher Cohort—a specific program belonging to the College of Education at the University of Miami at Ohio. Thus, well over half of the statements came from one university and part of another—a small portion of the sample set.
In contrast to the sampled text expressing Themisean themes is the body of sampled text expressing sensitivity to contextual and ontological issues. Accordingly, I categorized this text as reflecting Erisean meta-theory (see chapters 1 and 2). This text presents a strong countercurrent to the dominant themes emerging from metanarrative, paradigm, and episteme influences. Through this countercurrent, the text portrays education in its purest sense: education as a relational connection and service to each student in the hopes of improving the quality of life for the individual and community.
This connection, established, in part, through service, embraces diversity and synergistically thrives within its given context. Table 2 presents this information.
Table 2
Emerging Themes from Phase I and II Analysis
Themisean Meta-Theory Erisean Meta-Theory High Quality Effectiveness (Metanarrative Theme) Being Innovative Technology Integration (Metanarrative Theme) Community Service Consensus Through Research-Based Best Practices Contextual Diversity (Paradigm Theme) Disciplining Surveillance (Episteme Theme)
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Being. The being theme consists of two dimensions. The first dimension relates being to the teacher-as-educator. This dimension directly relates to Doll’s (1993) notion of recursion, through which the teacher becomes more in tune with his or her positioning with respect to pedagogy and curriculum. This recursion requires reflection and introspection so that a firm ontological foundation can be constructed. Upon this foundation, the subsequent development of teacher identity will occur. An example of being through recursion can be found on the Urban Teaching Cohort page within the
University of Miami Ohio’s (2016k) website. There, the authors wrote,
Knowledge of one’s self and one’s positionality in the world is central to ethical
and effective teaching. This knowledge comes through critical self-reflection on
oneself as a cultural being—a person situated within structures of race, class,
gender, sexual orientation, ability, nationality, etc.—and reflection on one’s
desires, values, and experiences.
Similarly, in the Conceptual Framework on North Carolina State University at Raleigh’s
(n.d.-a) website, the authors wrote, “Those who complete the programs are reflective and self-evaluative in their thinking in order to improve themselves as professionals and meet the challenges of a changing world.”
The second dimension of being reflects Doll’s (1993) relational awareness. This awareness is the means by which the teacher gains a greater appreciation for the student, as a unique individual. Often in the sampled text, this awareness is coupled with democracy and citizenship. For example, on the University of Miami Ohio’s (2016k) website, the authors wrote, “Critical knowledge rejects the simple transfer of knowledge from an authority to a passive recipient; rather, it privileges the mutual creation of
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knowledge toward shared interest (democracy).” Similarly, the authors at Montclair State
University (2016i) wrote of the importance of teachers “understand[ing] their role in preparing and supporting individuals and groups to be active and critical participants in an emerging political and social democracy.”
Community service. The community service theme, too, is conceptually associated with Doll’s (1993) relation construct. Within this theme, the sampled text conveys a strong valuation of family and community. As such, there is a putative recognition of the importance of establishing connections to social bodies outside of school building. Not only do these connections improve the education experience for the individual, they also have the potential to improve the quality of life for those who are members of these communities. For example, in Montclair State University’s (2016n)
Portrait of a Teacher, the authors asserted the importance of “building relationships with school colleagues, families, and agencies in the community to support students’ learning and well-being.” Indeed, it is these relationships that enable educators to make a difference in the lives of everyone in the community. The authors of the University of
Miami Ohio (2016k) echo this when they described the program’s responsibility of promoting student “collaborat[ion] with high-need schools and community-based organizations to prepare teachers who are grounded in the life of the community.” The text often equated this active role with service to the community. For example, the writers at Boise State University (2016c) asserted the program goal of “striv[ing] to develop knowledgeable educators who integrate complex roles and dispositions in the service of diverse communities of learners.” Similarly, the Service Learning Capstone at Arizona
State University (2016a) requires that “Students must (a) successfully assess a
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community need in education that correlates to current research and (b) collectively plan a sustainable service project that benefits high-needs children.” The community service theme and its close association to Doll’s (1993) relation is perhaps best expressed by the writers at Miami University of Ohio (2016k) when they wrote, “Ethical and effective teaching acknowledges communities as assets and seeks to work alongside communities, learning from them and with them.”
Contextual diversity. The contextual diversity theme is closely related to Doll’s
(1993) richness and rigor constructs. Richness is the meaningful appreciation and exploration of diverse perspectives, experiences and interpretations. Richness enables the learner to better engage with the other in his or her community. Richness promotes a healthy respect for individuality and helps to construct the existential bridge that allows us to relate with our students. Arizona State University offers a course entitled
Understanding the Culturally Diverse Child that reflects this richness. In its course description, the authors wrote, “[This course] surveys cultural and linguistic diversity in
American education, including education equity, pluralism, learning styles, and roles of schools in a multiethnic society” (Arizona State University, 2016c). Similarly, on the
University of Miami Ohio (2016a) website, the authors wrote, “They have high quality field experiences and immersions in urban, suburban, rural, and even international settings, working closely with diverse learners, including racial minority students, students with special needs, and English language learners.”
Doll’s (1993) rigor pertains to the depth of learning that takes place in a given program. For the purposes of this study, rigor corresponds to contextual awareness. To truly have contextual awareness, one must have rigorously pursued understanding of the
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political, historical, sociocultural and philosophical factors and influences permeating that context. Some of the sampled text from Montclair State University addressed this rigor through contextual awareness. For example, on the Educational Foundations and
Relationship of the Department to CEHS page, the authors described contextually aware education as requiring “the capacity to discern the larger forces and configurations that have shaped and continue to shape educational theory and practice” (Montclair State
University, 2016o). On the same page, the authors wrote, “These forces and configurations can be analyzed in the languages of a number of disciplines--history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology” (Montclair State University, 2016o). Similarly, on the Boise State University (2016f) website, the authors asserted that within the program, students will “study, evaluate, and develop multiple literacies as they are emerging in contemporary culture, which include among others, visual, media, information, digital, critical, cultural, and participatory literacies.” And, on the Arizona
State University (2016a) website, the authors wrote in the Culture and Schooling course description that the course provides an “Overview of the cultural, social, and political milieus in which formal schooling takes place in the United States.”
In summary. Lastly, there were three emerging themes located with the Erisean meta-theory model. The first theme is Being. This theme reflects all of the sampled text related to the awareness of self (as a learner, professional and citizen) and the other (as student, as individual, as member of a certain culture, race, gender or creed). The second theme is Community Service. This theme reflects the sampled text related to service, the family and the community. This theme reflects an awareness of the familial context surrounding each student. It also reflects an understanding of the importance of nurturing
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this context as well as those within it. The third theme is Contextual Diversity. This theme reflects the sampled text related to sociocultural and historical contexts (broader than the contexts associated with Community Service) and the diversity of cultures and worldviews (again, at a broader, more macro level than those associated with Community
Service).
Interpreting the Themes: Discerning Meaning from the Patterns
Synthesis
By using the Themisean meta-theory model in my analysis of the official text published by the six sampled EPPs, I was able to locate four, strongly supported themes.
Through the insight gained from these empirically grounded themes, I was able to construct the following statements to articulate the Themisian implications of contemporary teacher education within the sampled EPPs. These statements stem directly from the empirical evidence gleaned from the textual analysis. First, teacher education should be of high quality and it should be effective. This effectiveness not only concerns how the future teacher is educated while enrolled in the program, but it also implies his or her future effectiveness within his or her future classroom. Secondly, teacher education should enable its students to effectively and innovatively integrate technology within their future classrooms. This innovative technology integration should also be an EPP goal regarding its own program-wide curriculum and pedagogy. Thirdly, teacher education should be founded on research-based ideas regarding curriculum and instruction, and teacher education should equip its students with proficiency in a consensus-based set of best practices. Lastly, teacher education must conform to
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accreditation guidelines, uphold its program goals, and guarantee that its students meet expectations through systems of discipline and surveillance.
By using the Erisean meta-theory model in my analysis of the official text published by the six sampled EPPs, I was able to locate three, strongly supported themes.
Through these empirically grounded themes, I was able to construct the following statements to articulate the Erisean implications of contemporary teacher education within the sampled EPPs. These statements stem directly from the empirical evidence gleaned from the textual analysis. First, teacher education should center on an appreciation for being and the self. Teacher education should facilitate greater awareness of the ontological implications of educative processes and contexts. Secondly, teacher education should be service oriented. It should also instill within its students a profound respect for community context. Lastly, teacher education should provide a rich academic experience through which its students recognize the complex dynamics at work within our contemporary sociocultural context. Moreover, teacher education should serve to promote the virtues of diversity.
The Normalizing and Standardizing Roles of Consensus
In answering the first part of research question 2, I have to address the profound implications of consensus. This question relates to the “blank” and “blind” spots created by ignoring certain marginalized concepts and theories. Ultimately, “blank” and “blind” spots are reinforced by consensus. Through this analysis, I found consensus to be the paradigm related code with the largest amount of support from the sampled text. Though, initially, Kuhn (1996) strictly applied the idea of paradigm to scientists working within the various fields of the hard sciences, others (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011; Hyslop-
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Margison & Naseem, 2007; Lacey, 1990; Lawson, 2009; Stone, 2006) have extended it to the social sciences, in general, and education, in particular. As discussed earlier in the text, paradigms have power over investigatory and regulatory pursuits. While the development of a paradigm over time may be completely warranted based on the available data and technology of a given period in history, a paradigm inevitably results in myopic theory and practice. This is due to the fact that those operating within a paradigm often neglect phenomena resting outside of the paradigm’s conceptual purview.
Similarly, paradigm practitioners often dismiss incongruous observations as statistically insignificant anomalies or a result of instrument error. Within the context of teacher education, paradigms should be recognized for what they do and the potential impact they may have on future endeavors.
Within the sampled text, this paradigmatic consensus manifested in notions such as research-based best practices, policy-based standards and professionally desired dispositions, as well as in the adoption of systems of assessment developed specifically to produce the kinds of evidence deemed valid. In most, if not all cases, this consensus ignored the idea of context. As consensus continues to push contextually insensitive pedagogical strategies and contextually transcendent curricula, there will be students, teachers, schools and districts caught in the middle. For them, education will have lost its relevance while societal and institutional inequities will continue to persist. However, through the ensuing frustration and dissatisfaction, contextually aware programs will emerge over time, with greater frequency, in response to this systemic disconnect. While
NC State University and Arizona State University are focusing on STEM and quantifying performance and achievement, programs at Montclair State University and the niche
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Urban Teaching Cohort at the University of Miami Ohio are connecting with the individual, embracing the community, respecting context and equating education with service for the betterment of society.
Moreover, in answering this question, I am not attempting to generalize the existence of a universal set of “blank” and “blind” spots for teacher education in the US as a whole. Furthermore, the data emerging from the sample set does not even indicate the presence of a generalizable set of “blank” and “blind spots” within this study.
However, the data suggests program level foci that may indirectly contribute to the neglect of certain theories or concepts; and, even when the text does suggest program- level attention to such concepts, it is impossible to tell, at least from this study’s design, just how faithful a program is to thoroughly pursuing, through coursework, research and action, what it promotes.
A Shift in Consensus is Possible: There Is Hope
In answering the fourth part of question 2, I present a gloomy, short-term analysis as well as an optimistic scenario for the future. What are the possibilities for a paradigm shift in teacher education in the United States?
Given the current sociocultural context within which teacher education is situated, there is no possibility for a paradigm shift in the immediate future. There are several important reasons why. First, emerging from within this context is the demand for greater accountability. This accountability requires tools conducive for quantifying and measuring such as standardized testing, and value added teacher evaluations. Secondly, there is the current high demand for greater focus on STEM subjects and technology integration. Often this demand comes at the expense of the arts, humanities, critical
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thinking and democratic ideals. Lastly, there is the demand for generalizable and predictive research across contexts, as well as generalizable curriculum and instruction as manifested in Common Core and scripted lesson plans. Combine these demands with the neoliberal ideals of cost-effectiveness, performance-efficiency and managerial-expertise and you have a context resistant to notions of contextual contingency, individual being, and relational sensitivity. Thus a paradigm shift is unlikely to occur within such a context.
However, this analysis does not preclude a sociocultural and/or political shift in the not too distant future. If such a shift does, in fact, occur, then the conditions, ideals and demands within the new context may be more accepting of Erisean concepts and thus, more conducive to a paradigm shift in teacher education.
In the traditional application of Kuhn’s (1996) paradigm, a paradigm shift occurs at an epistemological level when the paradigm’s theory is no longer able to effectively deal with new data resulting from new experiments. Once the preponderance of the evidence suggests the truthfulness of an alternative, competing theory, then the old paradigm’s theory is abandoned despite past efforts to sustain it through ad hoc fixes. In the case of teacher education, it is my contention after having thoroughly reviewed the data that a paradigm shift can only occur when there is a commensurable value shift within the sociocultural context. I am genuinely surprised by this finding. For, I began this study equating, conceptually, Kuhn’s paradigm with a conjectured teacher education paradigm—both resting upon a similar epistemological foundation. However, through this analysis, I am struck by the powerful interplay between metanarrative ideals, as influences, and the policing arm of the episteme, manifested as policy, both of which are
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used to enforce the adoption and adaptation of these ideals. Now, I conceptualize these influences as having emerged from values as opposed to empirical evidence. As such, I propose that the incommensurable evidence that precipitates a paradigm shift in the hard sciences (and perhaps even the social science) is analogous, when applied to teacher education, to a set of incommensurable perspectives and aims that precipitate a sociocultural value shift. This sociocultural shift has the potential to usher in a “paradigm shift” within the teacher education landscape.
Though for some, this may paint a rather dismal picture, I argue that the reality of the situation is not all that bleak. Through existing examples of Erisean teacher education, the seeds have been planted for an eventual value shift. As future generations of student teachers experience education through Erisean-styled pedagogy, with its focus on relationships, context, relevance and personal meaning, the sociocultural status quo will be in jeopardy. A values revolution could be just around the corner. Once there is change in what is valued, the possibilities, for better or worse, are boundless.
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CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION META-THEORY
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to problematize teacher education. To accomplish this, I conceptualized this phenomenon within a specific, highly complex, sociocultural context that: 1) is influenced by metanarratives, 2) that operates according to a paradigm, and 3) that is governed by an episteme. This problematization is directly related to the
Themisean meta-theory analytic model. Accordingly, I intend to gain greater insight into the extent to which the dominant ideas, philosophical and methodological orientations, and modalities control teacher education. Additionally, I explored the extent to which counter philosophical and methodological orientations and modalities exist within this sociocultural matrix. These alternative orientations, as embodied by Erisean meta-theory, are important to teacher education.
The Text Speaks Volumes: Continued Analysis of the Findings
Figure 3 illustrates the ways in which the metanarrative and paradigm codes interact dynamically within Themisean meta-theory. The outer ring of the Metanarrative diagram consists of globalization and innovation and technology. These are buzzwords that reflect the ideals and values of the current sociocultural context. They are attractive to potential students and are appealing to policy makers and benefactors. The middle ring consists of technologization and outcomes. Because these two words do not have the same positive connotations as the words from the outer ring, they are generally not touted as program goals or ideals. However, they are important in that they give rise, through
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Themisean modalities, to globalization, innovation and technology integration. What is contentious are these Themisean modalities that operate behind the scenes. Lastly, the inner ring, or core, consists of performativity, managerialism and operationalism. These are the terms that are rarely, if ever, used to market a program. In fact, these terms are most often found in the literature used to critique hegemonic models of teacher education.
Indeed, these are the core metanarrative values that give shape to the goals and trajectories of EPPs that march in lock step according to metanarrative pressures. As such, this is the metanarrative level that we should be most aware of as critics of contemporary teacher education.
Performativity, Managerialism, Consensus, Operationalism Gatekeeping
Technologization, Outcomes Prediction
Innovation, Golbalization, Metric Technology Standards
Metanarrative Codes Paradigm Codes Figure 3. Findings related to the Themisean Model.
The outer ring of the Paradigm Codes diagram consists of metric standards. This concept is an accepted expectation within the field of education largely due to the context within which it operates. Potential students and benefactors are comfortable with this concept as it is has become synonymous with quality control, standardization and uniformity. Prediction is located in the middle ring. As such it is a concept that does not necessarily have the same positive connotations as metric standards, yet it is deemed instrumental to obtaining and implementing metric standards. The inner ring, or core, 243
consists of consensus and gatekeeping. These core concepts ultimately drive paradigm modalities and establish paradigm goals. It is at this level, that subsequent analysis should focus on, as it is the level that sets the agenda permeating the paradigm. Disciplining surveillance, while not depicted in the diagram, plays the central role of enforcing compliance with paradigm level consensus and gatekeeping, as well as insuring systemic accommodation to metanarrative values and ideals.
Figure 4 depicts the findings related to the Erisean model also consists of ring- like layers. The core concepts of context awareness and awareness of self drives Erisean meta-theory. Through these core foci, Erisean modalities manifest in appreciation for cultural diversity and a heightened respect and concern for family. Lastly, core awareness spills onto the outer ring as praxis when educators reach out to serve the community.
Awareness of Self and Context
Diversity, Family
Community Service
Erisean Codes Figure 4. Findings Related to the Erisean Model.
A Closer Look at Metanarratives as Sociocultural Ideals
Part A of research question 1 relates to the existence of specific concepts or theories that currently dominate the teacher education landscape. In answering this
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question, I equate the aforementioned contemporary contextual ideals (manifested in the metanarrative codes) with “specific concepts or theories.” While I do not think that the data indicates the dominating presence of specific theories, the data does reflect a dominant meta-theoretical orientation across the sample. This meta-theoretical orientation is committed to specific contextual ideals (or specific concepts), akin to metanarratives. For example, five out of the six programs directly referenced performativity through thirty-four textual samples across the data set. As indicated earlier in this text, a commitment to performativity is a commitment to the quantification and manipulation of behavior in order to attain some predefined objective, i.e., school rating, standardized test scores, etc. This performativity has been described in the teacher education literature. Crowe (2010) argued that this performativity is closely linked to the mandates of current teacher education policy. Such policy requires “clear signals about program quality that policymakers can understand and program faculty and institutional leaders can use” (p. 3). These signals “must be empirically based, measurable indicators and should be derived from a small number of key outcomes” (Crowe, 2010, p, 3). These indicators include student learning outcomes, teacher effectiveness measured by classroom teacher performance, and teacher placement and retention rates, all of which form the basis for teacher education program accountability (Crowe, 2010). Thus, performativity has emerged as a powerful metanarrative within the contemporary neoliberal context because of its close associations with value-free/neutral measurement, quantifiability and behavior. While effectiveness, effective behavior, positive impacts, and performance demonstrations all have positive connotations, I do find the way these terms are presented within the sampled text to be problematic. Effectiveness is often treated as a
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transcendent goal that is divorced from contextual reality or any meaningful, non- quantifiable, connection to the student. However, effectiveness embedded within Erisean meta-theory is relational, contextual, ontological and meaningful—dimensions of effectiveness that were not adequately addressed by much of the sampled text.
The data also reveals a program-wide commitment to the concept of managerialism and validates some of the critiques made in the teacher education literature. For example, Tuinamuana (2011) posited that today’s policy-makers, rooted in managerialism, “see the ‘problems’ of schooling and education as fairly simple and relatively easy to solve” (p. 74). The reductionist tendencies of these orientations manifest in policies that disregard complexity and idiosyncrasies so that they can be implemented from the top down in a one size fits all manner in any educational setting
(Tuinamuana, 2011). Accordingly, five out of the six sampled programs produced text reflecting this tendency through a total of twenty textual occurrences. As presented earlier in this text, managerialism is the adoption of accounting modes of audit and control within an education context for the sake of insuring cost effectiveness, quality control and efficiency. In many cases, this concept is directly linked to the politically expedient notion of accountability. While the idea of high quality programs is something
I could potentially rally behind given a clear definition, I find its usage throughout the sampled text potentially problematic for three reasons. First, I am not entirely sure how high quality is defined. How is it recognized? How is it achieved? Does high quality look different in different contexts? Secondly, insistence on quality control assurances may not be all that appropriate or valid. If quality control equates to assurances that programs are acting ethically, responsibly and professionally, then perhaps this particular ideal is
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appropriate. However, if quality control equates to the quantification and subsequent auditing of all program activities, then I am not convinced that the labor and resources required for such accounting practices would be beneficial to the education of each program’s students. Thirdly, I do not think such accounting practices would necessarily present an entirely accurate depiction of the quality of education being offered. On the contrary, such practices may contribute to a myopic focus on non-essential functions while missing some of the truly important dimensions of educating teachers at each EPP.
Lastly, the data reveals an affinity to the related concepts of technologization and innovation across the sampled programs. Both concepts stem from neoliberal tendencies towards globalism and competition. According to Barrett (2009), today’s highly competitive global market has, in effect, reduced the political discourse related to curriculum and instruction to an affirmation of free market principles and neo-liberal capitalism. Policies guided by technologization and innovation mandate that students in the U.S. become intellectually and technologically competitive so that the country continues to be economically competitive around the globe (Cochran-Smith et al., 2013).
Accordingly, each of the six programs referenced technologization and innovation through thirty-nine and twenty-six sampled statements, respectively. Again, while these two concepts are not dominant theories, they are pervasive contextual ideals that seem to, in part, drive teacher education at the sampled programs. For the purposes of this study, I have adapted and contextualized technologization to represent any statement that is related to technology integration or technology expertise. Technologization is also a concept of degree: there is a spectrum upon which rests the forcefulness of technology integration and the degree to which this integration is an end in itself. On the other hand,
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a richer conceptualization of technology integration ties instructor technology use directly to the goal of making better connections to students in the classroom. This Erisean goal for technology integration can mitigate, at least somewhat, the seemingly pervasive drive to force the use of technology for technology’s sake (technologization). Accordingly,
Erisean-minded technology integration is relational, student-centric and context- dependent.
Moreover, innovation appeared to be a heavily adopted buzzword due to its frequent use and the ostensible lack of any contextual definition. Based on its usage in the sampled text, the findings suggest that it is closely related to managerialism.
Changing The Teacher Education Landscape
In order to answer how the inclusion of alternative or marginalized concepts might change teacher education nationally, I need to address three different dynamics at work within teacher education. The first is a macro-level dynamic that is directly linked to Themisean meta-theory. At this level, the impact of policy implementation unavoidably shapes and shifts power relations giving rise to dominant and marginalized discourses and groups (Cochran-Smith et al., 2013). The data clearly revealed the reality of this macro-level dynamic across the six sampled EPPs that represented six geographical regions. Four of the sampled programs and most of a fifth were linked to text revealing strong program level orientations in Themisean meta-theory. Integrated within this dynamic is the interplay between sociocultural metanarratives, professional paradigms and the political episteme. As such, these theoretical constructs reinforce, sustain and magnify the influence of each other. And, through the political machinations of the episteme, the power implications of this macro-level dynamic become solidified.
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So, regardless of any attempt at greater theory inclusivity at the macro level, i.e., educator-driven reform, a real, sustainable meta-theoretical shift will only come about through a reconstruction of the extant power structure(s). Thus, at this macro-level, there is no observable direct link between the inclusion of alternative theories and concepts
(countercurrents) and a systemic change in teacher education for these sampled programs.
Secondly, there is an intermediate level dynamic that exists between the macro and micro levels. It is at this level where the true tension between competing meta-theory orientations exists. This level involves the dynamics occurring at the university level. The implications of these dynamics affect the areas of curriculum, pedagogy and research. At this level, one of three things can occur. First, individual colleges and programs can choose to follow a more inclusive trajectory through which ideas such as context, being, and awareness are fully integrated and explored. Montclair State University is a clear example of this phenomenon. Secondly, colleges and programs can choose to ignore these concerns and march in lockstep with the political and socioculturally empowered status quo model—the Themisean meta-theory model. North Carolina State University embodies this type of EPP. Thirdly, there can be hybridized programs within which the two competing meta-theory orientations exist side by side. An example of this would be the Urban Teaching Cohort existing within the EPP at the University of Miami Ohio. It is at this level, where academicians can engage in constructive debate and challenge core assumptions.
While there is no guarantee that real systemic change will occur at this level, there is evidence, based on the this study’s sample set, that suggests gradual change may be occurring at the department level. Over time, such change may prove to be significant, as
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a countercurrent, in spite of the imposed power structures originating at the macro level.
Furthermore, this subsequent change in meta-theory orientation may result from, as well as drive, alternative research programs. As a result, policy makers and other power players may eventually be forced to recognize the fruitfulness of new perspectives. I will address the dynamics of the third level--micro-level or grassroots level--in the next where
I address the implications of this study.
Research Implications: Systemic, Professional and Personal Links
For the sake of conceptual continuity and didactic clarity, I will employ Doll’s
(1993) Four R’s of a Postmodern Curriculum as a means of structuring the content for the rest of the chapter. Hopefully this heuristic device will make the following treatment of research implications more engaging and compelling. What follows is a treatment of what I have learned.
Richness
According to Doll (1993), richness directly relates to the awareness of multiple layers of meaning surrounding text and other forms of discourse. Once embraced, richness leads to a greater respect for hermeneutical multiplicity. Additionally, richness, when applied to education research and education as a profession, can lead to a greater appreciation of the historical context within which curriculum, pedagogy and learning take place. Evidence of this awareness can be found in the official text of Montclair State
University. Some of the sampled text reflected an awareness of the power of language and sociocultural context to transform the self according to hegemonic influences. For example, the authors stated on the Educational Foundation Courses page that the students will “analyze and critique […] the practice of schooling from philosophical, historical,
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social, political, psychological, and economic perspectives” (Montclair State University,
2016n).
Multiplicities of textual meaning. The epitome of Poststructural analysis is the awareness of and appreciation for the utility, vagaries and fluidity of language. Due to this study’s singular focus on program text, the implications of Poststructuralism on the conclusions that I make regarding implications are, indeed, profound. With respect to the sampled data, I am well aware that the text is intended for two purposes. First, program literature must demonstrate compliance to the guidelines and standards set forth by CAEP
(2015). Secondly, the text is part of a broader marketing strategy designed to attract the best and the brightest. Accordingly, the text is carefully crafted to reflect zeitgeist and showcase today’s educational buzzwords. Evidence for this is the repeated usage of the words innovation and globalization. These terms are certainly buzzwords in contemporary education and clearly reflect the neoliberal milieu. Thus, this utilitarian modality of text is directly linked to the sociocultural context from which it is created.
Because language usage is often vague, interpretation is an essential tool when reading text critically. Moreover, many of the codes emerging from the text are often used without explicit definition or clear denotation. Therefore, when certain contextually appealing words like innovation and globalization are used to describe a program, their usage most often goes without challenge or critical interpretation. Words can make us comfortable and lull us with their familiarity. It is up to the reader to consume such text critically and with an appreciation for purposeful vagueness as a means by which to obscure true intentions and hidden realities.
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Lastly, the fluidity of language is closely related to Foucault’s (1980) genealogy.
Genealogy is the study of inherent shifts in the meaning of discourse that occurs due to sociocultural changes occurring over time. Such shifts are reinforced and perpetuated within the episteme by power structures (policy, law, institutions, etc.). Language fluidity is also associated with the appropriation of text from one intellectual domain to another.
For example, much of the language associated with managerialism in education has been adopted from business and accounting models. Language associated with effectiveness and performativity once solely existed in psychology and psychometric domains. Thus, by recognizing this fluidity, one is able to deconstruct the text to expose origins that may have little or nothing to do with education. It is important for educators to understand the limitations and hidden powers of text. Educators must be equipped with the skills to discern the richness of language, to understand the power of interpretation, and acknowledge the responsibilities inherent in consuming text.
Moreover, while this particular study may be viewed as limited and reductive due to its reliance on website literature, I assert that it is a thorough exploration of an important dimension of the teacher education phenomenon. The published, official text of a teacher education program is a valid voice to study because it is a voice that expresses at least one of three things: 1) the philosophy and modalities of the program
(metanarrative and paradigm implications), 2) how it would like to be viewed by potential admission candidates and peer programs, and 3) the extent to which the program is in compliance with governing accreditation bodies (episteme implications). Ultimately, the language employed by EPP authors reflects an official perspective on the realities of education. As such, examination of the language is paramount because, over time, it
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could directly contribute to the ways in which professors and students process and construct reality. Accordingly, this study has enabled me to locate different voices emerging from the teacher education landscape. Some echo the prevailing metanarratives while others proclaim the importance of perspective, awareness and context. Because of the highly complex nature of teacher education, both at the national level and within each program, these different voices, like different initial conditions in a chaotic system, can yield wildly different results. They can also become the impetus for radical change.
Investigations like this should be applied to a greater set of teacher education programs so that the various voices can be heard and processed analytically. As the conversation grows, more widespread appreciation for these voices may eventually precipitate change at the micro and macro levels. Lastly, I recognize that the official text may not necessarily reflect the true voices permeating each EPP. The official text may simply be constructed to placate accreditation bodies while the true voices are subversive to
Themisean orientation. Or, the text might promise inclusivity, contextual sensitivity and ontological primacy while the reality at the EPP echoes the dictates of the status quo. To adequately address these systemic discrepancies, future research would explore individual EPPs through case studies to experience the extent to which there is synchronicity between official text and program reality.
Education as a complex, chaotic system. On a personal level, this research is the culmination of a journey. When I first began this journey as a graduate student in the
College of Education, I embraced the notion that education research, as a generalizable, quantitative, and predictive enterprise, was the ultimate panacea. Accordingly, I pursued my coursework under the impression that the field of education was well defined and
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built on a foundation of well measured and well-understood system parameters and causal relationships. Consequently, the knowledge of these parameters and relationships should be used to drive policy and prescribe best practice. Neutral, value free quantitative data should be central to the decision making process at the district and state levels, and mandate the proper courses of action within the classroom.
However, towards the end of my coursework, I took Critical Foundations of
Educational Inquiry and subsequently began seeing the world of education through fresh, new perspectives. Along the way, I encountered the ideas of Foucault (2002) who argued that knowledge does not progressively accumulate to a keener understanding of reality.
He argued that, throughout history, cultures constructed unique, complete, consistent systems of knowledge. As such, one’s understanding of reality is contextual and contingent upon one’s cultural location. Thus, I began to understand that asserting the ultimacy of a singular, ostensibly objective, educational reality, discounts the experiences of those that do not share this official perspective. These ideas injected a real richness into my coursework and enabled me to look past many of the intellectual blinders that I acquired earlier on. I began to understand the importance of context and I began to recognize and appreciate the panoply of perspectives, particularly within the field of education.
During my independent research, I also encountered Kuhn (1996) and his notion of paradigms. I began to see how fields of inquiry operate as communities of practice with established rules for action and established agendas. Those working within a paradigm community are the official gatekeepers of a particular field’s knowledge and modes of practice. Additionally, the community permits only the study of phenomena
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that substantiates the paradigm’s theories and filters out all threatening anomalies. Lastly, a paradigm establishes the lens through which its adherents view reality. Consequently, I adapted these ideas to education: while education might be perceived as well-understood, generalizable and predictable in a paradigm, those outside of the paradigm may perceive it as chaotic, unpredictable and highly complex.
When integrated into my coursework, this paradigm construct provided additional richness to my program of study as it led to an awareness of the contextualized, cultural nature of intellectual inquiry. I began to realize that paradigms inform how one approaches educational inquiry. I also began to view education research as a highly complex paradigm activity. Through the richness of works by Foucault (2002), Kuhn
(1996), and many others, I conceptualized pedagogy, curriculum and education research, not as ordered, predictable and generalizable, but as chaotic, contextual and highly complex. The success of this study is due, in large part, to the rigorous exploration of interdisciplinary connections. In this study, I drew on works from the Philosophy of
Science, Critical Theory, History, Epistemology, Sociology, Political Science and
Psychology. As a result, the study’s intellectual foundation and analytic modalities are multi-dimensional and thus, more robust. This robustness is critical in light of the fact that social phenomena are rarely, if ever, one dimensional in origin or trajectory.
Ultimately, the field of education is imbued with a tremendous richness. I strongly assert that teacher education experiences be imbued with a similar richness. Those within teacher education should rigorously pursue the incorporation of a wide array of fields when approaching the task of educating future teachers. EPPs should strive to incorporate a wide array of perspectives into their curriculum including views representing diverse
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cultures and intellectual domains. Additionally, teacher educators should integrate hermeneutics within their programs. Interpretive skills will enable future educators to better assess, critique, and discern knowledge amidst indeterminacies within an increasingly complex sociocultural context. Otherwise, teacher education becomes a one- dimensional journey along a stale, normalized, institutionalized and myopic path reflecting the hegemonic theoretical, pedagogical and curricular orientations. As ambassadors of education, future teachers must be familiar with the different layers of richness that they will encounter. The contemporary movement to strip away multicultural coursework in order to make room for STEM, severely undermines program richness.
Curriculum as a complex, chaotic intellectual artifact. Through this research, I am convinced that curriculum is shaped by two powerful influences. First, curriculum is, in part, the product of sociocultural metanarrative influences as well as contemporary national and statewide political and economic concerns—the contextual milieu.
Secondly, curriculum is a reactionary product given the demands of the episteme as expressed through policy and accreditation dictates. These two influences— metanarratives and epistemal pressures--are inextricably linked as I argued in Chapter 2.
Sociocultural metanarratives give rise to the contemporary episteme and the two become synergistically fused into a systemic feedback loop. Thus curriculum possesses an inherent richness with respect to the variety of concerns and pressures leading to its development. There is also an inherent richness in the multitude of perspectives and micro-level contexts affected by its implementation. Through this research, I am convinced that education researchers and practitioners should strive for a greater
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awareness of the complexities surrounding both sides of curriculum richness. An appreciation for the context within which curriculum is constructed will enable the educator to problematize and demystify it at the macro level; and, an appreciation for the context within which it is implemented will lead to a greater awareness and respect for the perspectives of those who must engage with it inside the classroom. Such awareness is crucial if we are to adequately equip our future teachers to meaningfully educate within this complex sociocultural context.
The evolution of ideas as a complex, chaotic process. This particular study is a snapshot in time. While the conceptual framework and meta-theory models used throughout this text were the culmination of intellectual labor that occurred over time, I employed them as end products. Similarly, the metanarratives defined and discussed earlier are most certainly a product of our present time and sociocultural context. The
CAEP (2015) accreditation standards are codified artifacts that were created in time and exist in a static state. Lastly, the analyzed text culled from teacher education program websites exist statically on webpages as fixed expressions of education philosophy, meta- theory orientation and policy compliance. While upon first glance, this study appears to be trapped in time, I am struck by its profoundly dynamic nature; and, I think that this profound dynamic nature can be extrapolated to teacher education in particular and the field of education in general. As I reflect on this work, I keep returning to the Deweyan notion of learning through evolution, as discussed in Chapter 2. This evolution results from the dynamic interplay between external stimuli and internal adaptation. This interplay can be conceptualized as a cognitive dialectic in which ideas confront the learner and forcibly affect his or her reality. As such, the learner engages with these
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external ideas, analyzes them, deconstructs them and then synthesizes them in constructive ways that not only impact the individual’s subjective reality, but also has the potential to precipitate change in the reality of the context within which the learner is situated. Such a struggle has a transformative capacity. When applied to the seemingly static theoretical constructs, policy mandates and sampled text used in this study,
Deweyan evolutionary learning processes can render them pliable and fluid, and therefore perfectly compatible with intellectual and democratic processes. So while the text that I dealt with in this study is static, my struggles with that text are not. The myriad ways in which the text can be interpreted are also not fixed, but boundless.
Furthermore, while my meta-theories and the metanarratives in question are static as implemented in this study, neither my future interpretations of them, nor their future interpretations by other readers, will be static or bounded. All this to say, there is an inherent evolutionary quality to this study that is perhaps obvious yet equally profound.
Accordingly, this evolutionary quality must be seriously considered because it mirrors the educational realities outside of it. For example, classroom dynamics and classroom relationships evolve. The ways in which a student relates to curriculum, the teacher, and other students evolve over time. The context, at the micro (school, community) and macro levels (state, nation, political, sociocultural) within which such evolution takes place also evolves over time. Even the metanarratives, embedded in an ever-evolving sociocultural context, must evolve over time. Lastly, teacher education will evolve over time.
Thus, the big question is: what drives this evolution? And the simple answer is: we do. Consequently, we must control this evolution through contextually sensitive,
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adaptive and engaged, democratic processes. On a personal level, I must engage with, wrestle with, and struggle with this study so that it becomes meaningful and transformative in my own life. Hopefully, others, too, will humanize it through subjective, constructive and deconstructive interactions, and eventually instantiate it into reality. On a larger scale, we, as educators, must be active participants in the evolutionary processes. This participation can take many forms including contextually aware research, pedagogy, and curriculum construction. Whether we like it or not, evolution in education, regardless of scale, will take place. We must ready ourselves to understand its machinations and guide its trajectory. At the EPP level, the evolutionary nature of curriculum, pedagogy and classroom dynamics should become a primary focus. Deweyan models of adaptive, transformative learning should permeate program coursework.
Furthermore, democratic models of pedagogical practice should be modeled in EPP classrooms so that they can be later adapted to K-12 classrooms. These Erisean ideas of evolutionary education can coexist, subversively, alongside Themisean constructs.
Richness through pedagogical action and relational attitudes can undermine restrictive
“best practices” and policies.
Recursion
As discussed at the end of Chapter 2, Doll’s (1993) recursion can be conceptually linked to problematization. As such, recursion enables researchers and practitioners to relearn, unlearn and reflect on a given field’s knowledge and practices. Recursion, as a pedagogical modality, demands on-going dialogue and meaningful experiences. Such experiences should include system (i.e., the classroom) feedback loops so that system stakeholders (i.e., teachers and students) can continually progress, develop and transform.
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Ultimately, recursion results in positive transformation. Evidence of this awareness through recursion, particularly as it relates to community feedback loops, can be found in the sampled official text of Montclair State University. For example, Montclair State
University (n.d.-a) reflects awareness by “preparing counselors to work with marginalized people such as those with HIV/AIDS, addictions, or mental health problems.” Additionally, one of Montclair State University’s (2016m) stated goals is to
“prepare practitioners who are committed to social justice and the elimination of health disparities in their communities using advanced-level critical thinking and problem- solving skills.” Through program-wide awareness stemming from recursive relationships oriented to service, this particular program demonstrates a commitment “to preparing critical professionals who can improve the lives of children, youth, and adults by implementing effective care, education, and literacy programs” (Montclair State
University, 2016c).
A speculative third level of change. This recursion relates directly to the potential for change on the teacher education landscape. Earlier, I discussed two levels at which this change can occur. These two levels emerged from my empirical analysis. The third level is more speculative but it does emerge from my study of the extant literature.
This third level is the micro-level or grassroots level. The implications at this level directly affect each individual teacher education student. I posit that this level has the potential to contribute to the greatest change, over time, in the national education landscape. For, it is at this level that the textual descriptions and prescriptions of each program meet the realities of the EPP classroom wherein the student teacher experiences education. At this level, shifts in meta-theory orientation are potentially precipitated on
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two fronts. The first front affects the education dynamics within a classroom. On this front, change manifests as a qualitatively different educational experience for students within a classroom once the Erisean-minded teacher education student becomes a professional educator. This change also has the potential to improve the quality of life for the student outside of the classroom, as well as the lives of family members and those within the community. It is on this front that the ramifications of an EPP’s meta-theory orientation are in full effect. This is Erisean meta-theory in practice—a true praxis.
The second front of change occurring at this level is a consequence of the first. As contextually sensitive and relationship-minded teachers begin to see the positive effects of their labor, they become energetic and enthusiastic promulgators of Erisean meta- theory. Ultimately, they have the potential for becoming leaders in a meta-theory revolution. As a result, these Erisean teachers could provide the impetus for sweeping change in pedagogy and curriculum within schools across America. Such a change at the grassroots level can occur despite contemporary power structures as manifested in policy, research, and funding. Consequently, grassroots change could positively affect change in macro-level teacher education over time. Macro-level change could potentially result from the massive shift in meta-theory orientation taking place at the levels below. Change originating at this grassroots level is most desired simply because it is a bottom to top movement. This means that those at the bottom have bought into these ideas, intellectually, professionally, existentially, and recursively, as a way of approaching the world. It is when such a radical transformation recursively occurs at the system’s foundation that the power structures at the macro level (the top) begin to lose power and topple. It is up to the EPPs to champion these Erisean-style approaches to education. Of
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course, this is easier said than done given that these ideas often run counter to those emerging from our contemporary sociocultural context. Fortunately though, this approach can be embraced and recursively experimented with in spite of the context.
Recursion through future research. Admittedly, teacher education is an extraordinarily complex dynamic that is both highly contextual and multi-faceted. Yet, this study was fairly simple and one-dimensional. The study was limited by the nature of the data collection. The data only consisted of text sampled from program websites.
Furthermore, I restricted the sample size to just six undergraduate teacher education programs. At the very least, this study makes it perfectly clear that recursion through additional research is absolutely necessary for greater insight into the relationship between teacher education and meta-theory orientation, and to program text and program reality. For example, future research endeavors can examine teacher education through case studies during which the contextual richness of a single program is thoroughly experienced, analyzed and reflected upon. These studies would provide big picture analysis—a way for teacher education programs to be explored holistically. Additionally, future research could focus solely on specific dimensions of teacher education. These dimensions could include student and teacher perspectives on the official text, student and teacher perspectives on how the official text affects individual teacher program realities, and the perspectives of working graduates on the connections between coursework and professional experiences. This particular study is a first step. It is one researcher’s interpretation of the official text and how it aligns with two hypothetical meta-theory models. Recursive analysis and synthesis is critical to our understanding of the EPP landscape and the meta-theory spectrum.
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Recursion through feedback. Of Doll’s (1993) 4 R’s, my academic adventure most embodied recursion. This statement is a testimony to the high quality of education that I experienced throughout my doctoral studies. From start to finish, with few exceptions, my studies have been accompanied by a chain of continuous feedback loops.
Admittedly, the intensity and precision of these feedback loops increased as I completed my coursework and entered the proposal and dissertation phases of the program. While I am certain of little, I am certain that my level of understanding within the field of education would be woefully diminished had this endeavor taken place in an intellectual vacuum. Indeed, it was the ongoing, scholarly pushing and shoving that enabled me to sharpen my ideas and make progress through the tumultuous seas of empirical study and academic writing. Furthermore, while feedback is helpful, it was the nature of the received feedback that brought out the very best in me. My professors engaged me with insightful critique that could only come from a place rich in meaningful experiences, and founded on wisdom and genuine care. Perhaps such considerations should be the true measure of how teacher education is assessed and accredited: does a teacher education program truly result in changing the intellectual lives of its students? While this impact could never realistically be quantified, it is nevertheless real and perhaps more profound than those attributes that can be assigned a numerical value. In light of this discussion, I strongly assert the tremendous value of recursive feedback, as a systemic tool, for the education of our future teachers. Systemic avenues for multi-directional feedback should be integrated within each program: between teacher and student, student and teacher, teacher and program, and student and program. These feedback loops could potentially be the impetus for most program and institutional change. Again, this notion is rooted in the
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position taken at the beginning of this chapter: teacher education should be a bottom-top enterprise founded on the notions of autonomous accountability and self-directed change.
Moreover, I assert that these feedback loops should replace the systemic modes of surveillance and discipline. While the information obtained through surveillance is meant for preserving power, exerting control and imposing docility, systemic feedback loops capture information as a means by which to share power, promote democratic modalities and improve the overall system so that everyone benefits.
By extension, once feedback loop modeling occurs within teacher education programs, graduates would integrate such feedback loops within their own primary and secondary level classrooms. Within these classrooms, teachers and students would together grow to esteem the power and value of these loops as they are implemented into educational processes. Teacher pedagogy and student learning would improve as both parties recognize and identify patterns. Such pattern recognition naturally emerges within educational contexts that have a flexible, feedback loop-based structure. Furthermore, feedback loop integration establishes the importance of personal, subjective meaning-- particularly as it relates to learning through connections and knowledge construction.
Accordingly, the teacher becomes a partner to the student and caringly facilitates the meaning making processes that should take place during the educational journey.
Lastly, recursion played a major role in this study. As I engaged with the text, there was a continuous interplay between the sampled language and my understanding of that language, as filtered through my meta-theory models. As one informed the other, my analysis and interpretation unfolded, for better or for worse. Recursion, as it relates to this study, should continue to take place. Transforming knowledge will result as other
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practitioners engage with these ideas, and as other researchers apply these ideas to the analysis of more programs. With this transforming knowledge, the potential exists for substantive change that could perhaps unsettle the status quo.
Recursion through reflection. As a corollary to the notion of recursion through feedback, is the idea of recursion through reflection. I assert that feedback, without deeply personal reflection, has the same impact as the sound made by the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest. Recursion requires both feedback and reflection in order for true, adaptive learning to take place. Recursion is a duality that requires both the external push of feedback and the internal response of reflection. While the capacity for feedback is the responsibility of those administering a given system, and the relaying of feedback is the responsibility of system members, reflection is solely the responsibility of the recipient of feedback. As mentioned above, I was the recipient of much feedback throughout this process. Admittedly, this feedback was sometimes the source of frustration and always the source of disequilibrium. Yet, it was up to me to act on the feedback. As such, I had two options: wallow in the frustration and acquiesce to the chaos, or adapt, self-organize and transform through reflective action. Though not always easy, I opted to utilize the full power of recursion to produce the work you are now reading. Regardless of how this work is received, I am convinced of the incredible power that this recursion duality has had on transforming my professional and philosophic orientations as an educator.
As an extension, the reflection side of recursion should be incorporated in teacher education, as well as in primary and secondary education. In teacher education, reflection and self-critique should serve as major objectives. Such reflection would prompt each
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future teacher to rigorously and recursively construct his or her identity as a student, educator and person. Coursework should allow for and promote this as a central function within teacher preparation. Furthermore, in primary and secondary education, pedagogy should incorporate reflection time so that the individual student will have time to construct connections to the curriculum, thus resulting in knowledge with real meaning.
Lastly, teacher educators should reflect on their own curriculum and pedagogy. They should reflect on feedback, both the successes and failures, in order to transform their programs for the better. In the spirit of the bottom-top prescription that I am endorsing here, this transformative change may ultimately trickle up with the potential of affecting real change in teacher education policy.
Rigor
In this study, I associated Doll’s (1993) rigor with the recognition of the individual, his or her perspective, and the individual’s relation to structures of power.
Through rigor, the educator can help facilitate systemic change by challenging system equilibrium thereby upsetting the status quo. Similarly, pedagogy and research built on rigor can bring forth systemic (macro and micro level) self-organization—a process that ultimately leads to transformations resulting in higher levels of complexity. Lastly, rigor in education compels us to become master players of the language game. This mastery includes knowing the rules, knowing when and how to break the rules, knowing the origin of the rules, and knowing how these rules can be used to alter the game. Evidence of this awareness through rigor can be found in the sampled text at Montclair State
University. Much of the sampled text reflects a program-wide recognition of the profound role that context plays in teaching and learning. For example the authors wrote,
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“Educators are cultural and political workers who accept an active role in democracy and the promotion of social justice locally, nationally and globally” (Montclair State
University, 2016d). Additionally, at the macro level, the authors posited the importance of rigorous awareness through “examin[ation of] the various cultural, community, and socioeconomic contexts in which families function and study interventions used to support families” (Montclair State University, 2016f).
An important caveat here is recognizing that the meaning of text is inextricably linked to context. Thus, while my use of rigor in this section is deeply rooted in Erisean sensibilities, its usage within a Themisean context could imply one-dimensional, reductive, and measurable modalities. However, I am conformable using this term here because I have taken the time to properly define it and will subsequently properly adapt it to Erisean meta-theory.
Rigor through disequilibrium. Rigor relates directly to the research question dealing with the implications of Erisean programs on the development of an alternative teacher education landscape. Within this study’s data set, the data revealed only one truly alternative or Erisean teacher education college: the College of Education at Montclair
State University. The data also revealed an Erisean teacher education program: the Urban
Teacher Cohort at the University of Miami Ohio. Based on my review of the literature, I assert that the Erisean meta-theory model encapsulates those characteristics one would expect to find in an alternative teacher education college or program. Accordingly, I posit that the two aforementioned examples serve as powerful models for not only those colleges and programs wishing to embrace different theoretical perspectives, but also those colleges and programs fully ensconced within Themisean meta-theory.
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A large-scale, systematic change in the dominant meta-theory orientation of contemporary American teacher education will not occur overnight. There is too much power invested in the status quo for this to happen. However, the very existence of these two Erisean examples gives voice to marginalized perspectives, theories and practices. It brings an opposing viewpoint to the teacher education conversation. It provides resistance to the modalities of the status quo. And, it creates a stark contrast that either has to be dealt with intellectually or blindly dismissed. Thus, one powerful implication of this alternative, Erisean teacher education landscape is that a real alternative does, in fact, exist. The existence of alternative EPPs inject rigor, as a means of disrupting the status quo, at the macro level.
Furthermore, substantive change in teacher education is precipitated at the micro level when alternative, Erisean ideas such as context, awareness and being, are fully explored, embraced, implemented and reflected upon by individual classroom teachers.
When education becomes relational, meaningful and transformative, both teacher and student enthusiastically support it. This buy-in becomes the catalyst for bottom-to-top change and creates the potential for a gradual shift in power. As teachers graduate from alternative EPPs, they challenge the status quo through rigor manifested in relational pedagogy and multi-perspectival approaches to curriculum.
Rigor through conversation. Through this study, one thing has become abundantly clear: certainty in education is a mirage. The theoretical framework, upon which I conducted this study, compelled me to link knowledge to context, and conceptualize research as a cultural activity. Often, the presuppositions embedded within a specific sociocultural context can overwhelm any neutral or objective reading of the
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data. Thus two observers, operating within two different intellectual contexts (i.e., paradigms or epistemes), can have vastly disparate interpretations of the same evidence.
This is a consequence of the Kuhnian paradigm. This point is crucial as it relates to this study. Am I certain that my interpretation of the evidence is somehow transcendentally or universally correct, or that it perfectly corresponds to the true reality of the situation? At the risk of paradox or postmodern irony, I am certain of my uncertainty. However, this does not discount the fruits of my labor. It is my hope that the ideas presented in this work are rigorously read, processed and challenged. It is my hope that the ideas herein provoke additional rigor in conversations about teacher education. And, I hope that through rigorous contemplation, introspection and reflection, these ideas will resonate with some readers so that additional dimensions of the teacher education phenomenon can be explored, and so that transformations, spawned through democratic processes, will ensue. At the same time, I hope that through rigorous contemplation, introspection and reflection, these ideas will provoke push back—push back that will challenge me to adapt, rethink and re-search. Ultimately, I desire rigorous conversation.
Rigor through trial and error. This research is a trial in the sense that it is my first empirical look at teacher education in the United States. Perhaps it is also error.
Time (and critics) will tell if my analysis is worthy of academic consideration. However, this trial is absolutely associated with error and doomed to fail if one attempts to generalize or base predictions upon my conclusions. To truly appreciate the immense complexity inherent in the teacher education phenomenon, there must be a multitude of repeated analytical attempts. Consequently, greater understanding will be reached inductively, one trial at a time. While the teacher education picture will never be
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complete, awareness of it and sensitivity to it are potentially boundless. Thus, I hope that this research is part of a much larger set of rigorous trials prompted by similar ideas and forged in the same spirit of awareness and contextuality.
Additionally, the findings suggest that the two meta-theory models, employed throughout this study, can serve as powerful lenses through which researchers can rigorously and critically survey the teacher education landscape; and, as change occurs within this landscape and as new ideas emerge, these models should be modified for the sake of greater adaptation as well as faithfulness to high standards of rigor. While these two models necessarily crystallized for the purposes of timely analysis, they should not remain in this crystallized form. Through rigorous and repeated use, they should conform to the realities of the contexts to which they are applied as well as to the perspectives and understandings of the researchers instantiating their applications.
Rigor through shared accountability. Rigor enables increased levels of understanding and the establishment of meaningful connections to external objects and phenomena. However, throughout this process, I have learned that rigor must be willfully and autonomously adopted. While it can be encouraged, modeled and promoted by external influences or governing bodies, true rigor cannot be authoritatively imposed.
Such an externally imposed demand for rigor results in hollow masquerades designed to mimic rigor so that those who are in positions of power will believe the charade. Thus, it is my contention that in this age of heightened accountability, there should be a commensurate increase in teacher education autonomy. While upon first glance this may seem paradoxical, greater autonomy will enable individual teacher education programs to create curricula, procedures, pedagogies and standards that they truly believe in and thus
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rigorously pursue. This rigorously forged autonomy will most likely result in both successes and failures; however, I posit that, with greater autonomy, there will also be a newfound, empowering sense of accountability. This heightened, autonomous accountability, over time, will insure that programs capitalize on successes and learn from mistakes. Perhaps there should be some degree of external accountability, particularly when public funding is involved. I argue that this level of accountability should focus on the proper appropriation of funds and the level to which consensually defined duties are carried out; however, external accountability should end when it obstructs the educator’s ability to educate in meaningful ways—particularly when meaning is acquired through rigorous practice and reflection. I advocate policy changes that will lead to greater appreciation for structural and philosophic diversity. I also advocate policy changes that will enable individual programs to develop their own contextually sensitive accountability measures. Ultimately, this goes back to what I discussed at the beginning of this chapter. There, I argued teacher education should not be locked in to top-down accountability and accreditation approaches. Rather, teacher education should be forged in the fires of democratic processes and rigorous conversations among professional educators. Sadly, given our present sociocultural context, I fail to see the level of respect for the education profession that would be required to allow for this bottom-top approach.
Relations
Doll’s (1993) notion of relations provides the intellectual bridge that connects the educator to deeper cultural and contextual experiences through activities of dialogue, interpretation and narrative discourse. Furthermore, this idea of relations facilitates a
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more robust recognition of the self. This recognition occurs within the context of community as well as within the global matrix of diverse cultures and perspectives (Doll,
1993). Educational modalities developed through the relations construct are subject- oriented, and are concerned with selfhood, what it means to be human, and existential struggle. Evidence of this awareness through relations can be found in the sampled text from Montclair State University. According to the text, the central mission of teacher education is a “mission [that] unites all of us in the College as we work within and beyond CEHS to make a difference in the lives of children, families and communities”
(Montclair State University, 2016h). Thus, the program is rooted in a relational focus.
Additionally, the authors presented the professional goal of “building relationships with school colleagues, families, and agencies in the community to support students’ learning and well-being” (Montclair State University, 2016p). Such measures promote awareness through building relationships.
Curriculum relations. Curriculum is a product of culture and time. It is embedded within a complex context constructed, in part, by prevailing metanarratives, and sustained by the inherent power of the episteme. Consequently, curriculum should not be related to as fixed, timeless, universal or authoritative. Our relation to curriculum should be one of critique, demystification, challenge, and transformation. We should relate to curriculum as a construct that should be studied just as much as the contents of that curriculum. Curriculum should be related to as a tool with which to empower ourselves, not as an instrument that wields power over us. As a result of this study, I have come to appreciate the power of orientation when establishing a relationship with an artifact of discourse. I positioned myself in relation to the sampled text, through a highly
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informed, highly perspectival orientation. I approached the text as an intellectual object that is both vulnerable and subject to scrutiny. Within the context of teacher education, such a stance will allow future teachers to maximize their experiences with the official curriculum of a selected program. Furthermore, future teachers should introduce this orientation to primary and secondary students once they become professional educators. I posit that the art of relation is too often neglected by contemporary education policy and procedures. If students are not properly equipped to relate to curriculum, how can they possibly be expected to relate to the world?
Moreover, this study needs to be related to. The same level of scrutiny applied to curriculum, should also be applied to this dissertation. This text should not be approached as some mystical authority, but rather as a work, rooted in context and bias, created by one individual who is neither omniscient nor omnipresent. As such, this text should be relationally adapted and transformed by the individual reader so that meaningful connections can be made and transformative knowledge can result. Ultimately, this study will not be complete until it has been critiqued, modified and processed by those who wish to explore the ideas herein. This is only one step in the direction of greater understanding in the domain of teacher education. The journey requires myriad steps taken as part of a relationship with this text as well other research associated with teacher education.
Pedagogical relations. The idea of pedagogical relations is the crowning achievement of my study. If nothing else, I am a much more relational teacher than I was prior to my work as a doctoral student—particularly prior to my work in Critical Theory and the Postmodern perspective. If I could sum up the entirety of this text in one word, it
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would be relations. While relation to curriculum is crucial to the education process, I assert that relation to the other is far more important. For as educators, we are necessarily involved in relational activities involving other people. The power of our pedagogy is inextricably linked to our power to relate to the other. Moreover, this ability to relate to the other is contingent upon our awareness of, and sensitivity to, sociocultural context.
For, this sociocultural context forms the matrix within which pedagogy and curriculum are firmly embedded. If the teacher is to truly connect with a student relationally, the teacher will need to have a sincere and profound appreciation for the student’s complete self (past, present, future; family, community, culture; beliefs, knowledge, perspectives).
In light of this discussion, one might ask: how is such a relation possible? I posit that the answer is two-fold. First, teacher education should fully immerse itself in this concern for the other. Such a concern manifests in community outreach, studies abroad, relational pedagogy, and a curriculum that explores the human condition. Programs focused on quantitative assessment techniques, STEM curriculum, maximizing efficiency and heightening accountability run the risk of missing this human, relational element.
Secondly, education must be reconceptualized within the context of Erisean meta- theory. Education is not intrinsically about the linear relationship between system inputs and outputs. It is not about guaranteeing high paying jobs upon completion. It is not strictly about saving money through capitalistic efficiency models. It is not about the managerial expediency with which it takes place. However, education is about the relationship between two people. It is about respect for personhood and being, and an appreciation for the human condition and existential struggle. It is about developing the whole person, facilitating meaningful connections, and promoting cognitive discovery.
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And, it is accomplishing all of this in an ever-changing, highly complex sociocultural context (both at the micro and macro levels). The realities of uncertainty, complexity, intricacy, and alinearity should permeate teacher education.
It is my contention that those teacher educators who are truly aware of their field, as well as its context (metanarratives, the episteme) and the paradigms under which it operates, will naturally present education faithfully in light of these realities. From a policy standpoint, these educators should be allowed to teach accordingly without obstruction from non-educational forces. Neo-liberalism extolls laissez-faire capitalism-- why not laissez-faire teacher education?
Final Thoughts
Throughout this study, I have made extensive use of my two meta-theory models:
Themisean and Erisean meta-theories. After having worked extensively with them, I feel that I now have a much clearer sense as to their roles and powers. The Themisean meta- theory model is primarily an analytic tool. There are three major constructs within this model. The first, metanarratives, has been conceptualized from the work of Lyotard.
Metanarratives are the sociocultural values, goals and concepts that give meaning to intellectual, economic and professional endeavors. As such, this construct enables the researcher to explore the sociocultural context within which education, at the macro level, takes place. This exploration reveals those external forces that act on pedagogical, curricular, and programmatic decisions that ultimately shape contemporary education in general and contemporary teacher education, in particular. As an analytic tool, the metanarrative component reveals those highly esteemed contextual values and ideals that are imposed on education. It is important for those in the field to be aware of these
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contextual dictates, where they came from, and why they are so influential. Such awareness leads to the deconstruction and the demystification of these contextual forces, as well as the ability to circumvent their reach. Through this study, I found that the metanarrative component had the greatest overall impact on teacher education as compared to the other two Themisean components. This conclusion reveals the profound importance of the sociocultural context within which we practice. As members of this context, it is critical that we become more aware of those central concepts that play a major role in constructing the aims and values that most of us take for granted.
I developed the second construct, paradigm, from Kuhn’s (1996) ideas. This model component enables the researcher to explore teacher education as occurring within a professional community or culture of research and practice. Such a culture is driven by consensus, which ultimately allows for gatekeeping structures that could potentially stifle or marginalize alternative ideas and perspectives. Furthermore, this construct enables the researcher to reveal theoretical presuppositions and commitments, as well as the protocols that protect the theories central to the paradigm. Through these revelations, the researcher gains insight into why those in a particular field operate in a certain way.
Through this study, my use of paradigm as an analytic tool has shifted. Initially, I operationalized paradigm as being very much in line with Kuhn’s meaning of the word.
As such, paradigm was closely related to theory, epistemology and empiricism.
However, the findings reveal that paradigm, within a teacher education context, has more to do with the means by which professional educators distill and implement metanarrative influences. For example, consensus-driven best practices are those practices, championed by the teacher education paradigm, because they are compatible with metanarratives. As
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such, they are highly effective, performance based, can be operationalized and are generalizable. Thus, the model’s paradigm component is closely related to metanarratives and how these metanarratives affect consensus within the paradigm.
The third construct, the episteme, has been conceptualized based on the work of
Foucault (2002). This model component enables the researcher to better understand the power implications of a sociocultural context. It reveals the disciplining, surveilling and regulatory technologies that function within a given episteme in order to insure that the dominant power structures and the status quo are protected and perpetuated. Such regulatory technologies manifest as accreditation guidelines, teacher education policy, program checkpoints and dispositional evaluations. The episteme component within the
Themisean model has remained in tact from its original conceptualization.
Over time, metanarrative values, paradigm commitments and episteme power modes will change. However, these constructs are real and will never go away. There will always be sociocultural ideals. There will always be communities or cultures of practice with consensual rules and regulations and theoretical commitments. And, there will always be power implications within any social and political context. All three components inevitably result from the human condition. So, while the three components of the Themisean model are ever-present, regardless of time and context, their modalities and influences are ever changing and intrinsically linked to time and context.
On the other hand, while the Erisean model, too, can be used analytically, I assert that it is perhaps most useful as a prescriptive device. For, the Erisean model helps us recognize the importance of context, the self, diversity, interpretation, meaning and relations. Ultimately, the Erisean model is all about awareness. In a sense, this
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awareness, or at least the need for awareness, is transcendent. While metanarrative values evolve, paradigms shift and the episteme power struggles ebb and flow, there will always be a need for awareness.
Metanarrative influences and episteme systems of discipline typically exist outside the field of education as externally imposed, regulatory forces. It is the paradigm component within the Themisean model that has the potential to be a purely educative construct. By this, I mean that those within the field of education could ultimately control the trajectory of education. As such, I assert that it is possible, and desirable for Erisean awareness to permeate the various fields within the domain of education. As seen in
Figure 5, when metanarrative forces are blindly accepted and episteme discipline acquiesced to, the field of education is severely restricted, anemic and myopic. However, through an Erisean orientation, those within the field of education can reassert themselves as the masters of their profession. They can deconstruct and problematize the metanarratives and subversively resist the episteme. It is my contention that education can operate under an Erisean paradigm in spite of the ever-present matrix of metanarratives and technologies of power. Such a paradigm would be a fluid, evolving and adaptive mode of being. It would not be describable as a static set of parameters or as a checklist of things to do or not do. I assert this Erisean paradigm to be a pure Education paradigm. As such, those operating within this Erisean paradigm would be keenly aware of metanarrative influences and the sociocultural context. They would be keenly aware of the pitfalls of blindly accepting consensus and the myopia resulting from unchallenged theoretical presuppositions and commitments. They would be keenly aware of structures of power designed to limit autonomy and creativity and learn how to subversively resist
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such measures. Lastly, they would recognize the richness of meaning, interpretation and subjective experience. They would appreciate the rigor and relations inherent in micro level contexts. And, they would embrace learning experiences that recursively evolve from dialogue and systemic feedback loops.
pressures from the episteme resisted episteme
education is sensitive to contex, self and education is restricted diversity and hegemonically controlled
metanarrative metanarrative awareness pressures
Metanarrative influences ignored Metanarrative influences recognized Episteme power structures control Episteme power structures resisted Education paradigm is restricted and externally Education paradigm is aware (Erisean paradigm) controlled
Figure 5. Erisean Paradigm.
The Implications of Disciplinary Surveillance
Evidence for disciplinary surveillance emerged during CAEP analysis and analysis of individual EPPs. In general, education accreditation guidelines mandate the implementation of disciplinary surveillance measures for the sake of greater accountability. While this greater accountability is commensurable to the managerial values inherent within the neoliberal sociocultural context, its implications on teacher education are, indeed, problematic. As a monitoring system, disciplinary surveillance
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strips away pedagogical and curricular authority from the professional educators at colleges of education across the country. Disciplinary surveillance, in its current manifestations, is externally imposed and thus rarely bought into by those working under it. This can have dire consequences on morale, as well as the ability to practice freely.
Furthermore, disciplinary surveillance has real consequences on the educational experiences of students learning at EPPs. It has the potential of diminishing the individuality of the learner through forced conformity to pre-defined sets of appropriate dispositions or contextually transcendent modes of behavior. Student disciplinary surveillance can result in low morale, lack of respect, joyless practice and paranoia. The empirical evidence combined with the pervasive philosophical inquiry of this study, while not conclusive, reveal profound insights regarding the very real power implications of CAEP accreditation standards.
The Reality of Erisean Commitments
Erisean meta-theory orientation is one of autonomous, passionate commitment and transformative awareness. Erisean orientation cannot result from externally imposed mandates, nor is it realized through hollow words in a mission statement or a superficial marketing campaign on a website. Because the presence of Erisean accreditation standards did not emerge from this empirical analysis, I want to address what I interpreted as the superficial treatment of Erisean concepts here. In doing so, I will be making a very important assumption: those who are reading this are truly convinced by, and have sincerely bought into the importance of Erisean meta-theory. If that assumption is not correct, then the following words will have no impact since Erisean orientation cannot be forced.
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While I have said much about the power of bottom to top or grassroots movements as the impetus for real change, there is also much to be said about the power of modeling and leadership influences held by those in administrative positions. Deans of
Colleges of Education who are committed to Erisean meta-theory orientation possess tremendous potential for positively shifting the orientation of individual colleges and
EPPs. Such a shift can come about through hiring contextually aware instructors, modeling mutually empowering feedback loops, and promoting relational-minded democratic processes. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of EPP leaders to insure that program literature accurately reflects the true philosophy that permeates EPP classrooms.
As an EPP’s meta-theory orientation changes over time, as evidenced by the reality of
EPP program goals and instructor praxis, then and only then should the literature be modified to capture these changes. Lastly, EPP leaders are responsible for internal, program-wide accountability to Erisean meta-theory commitments. Such accountability is not one centered on metrics, but one centered on values: valuing the context, valuing the individual, valuing awareness and valuing relations. With an Erisean-minded dean at the helm, the college would be a community dedicated to the same values. Thus, accountability to Erisean values would emerge naturally from within.
Likewise, EPP instructors also have tremendous power and responsibility.
Erisean-minded instructors bring contextual awareness and relational appreciation into the classroom regardless of the macro-level or administrative level orientations. Teacher education faculty members have the potential to subversively undermine stated
Themisean goals and trajectories. They also have the potential to faithfully uphold stated
Erisean values and commitments. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of the study. For,
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while the official text describes program ideals, requirements and goals, and advertises to potential students, it does not necessarily reflect EPP reality. Ultimately, it is the actions of the teachers that dictate EPP reality. Erisean faculty should practice, publish and instruct according to their convictions and commitments, regardless of what the official text states. Lastly, Erisean teacher education instructors have the power to shift a program’s meta-theory orientation, in time, through bottom to top mechanisms. Such mechanisms require coordinated actions and building recursively strong, professional relations.
Lastly, potential students and their families present, perhaps, the most complex set of implications regarding Erisean education. Ultimately, the most important question is why do young adults choose to become teachers. If young adults and/or their parents have adopted Erisean meta-theory orientation, then possible answers to this question include: to make a difference in the lives of children and their communities, to promote greater equality and social justice, and/or to empower the marginalized through meaningful knowledge construction. Future students holding these educative goals should seek out those EPPs offering curriculum and instruction most commensurable to insuring that its students meet those goals. This seeking out process may be more rigorous than the traditional college search. It will mean carefully reading mission statements, required course descriptions and program requirements. But, it will also mean searching for evidence that mission statements are being lived out, professors are contextually aware and positive changes are occurring within the community outside of academia. Such evidence may be found in published research, the existence of supported outreach programs, and dialoging with faculty and current students. This future student dimension
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is yet another example of bottom to top processes of change. As young adults become more informed consumers according to Erisean sensibilities, there will be a greater demand for teacher education that embodies a sincere concern for context and the individual.
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APPENDICES
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Appendix A. Critique of Positivism
Believing what you read in a book on epistemology is like believing that the
action on the stage of a theatre is all there is and that there are no people behind
the scenes turning on the lights, changing colours, putting items where they are
supposed to be, a jug for example, or a telephone, ringing the telephone and
bringing down the curtain. (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011, p. 113)
While positivism and the age of science have ushered in an era of tremendous technological advancement, healthcare innovations and a deeper, fundamental understanding of the natural universe, positivism, as an epistemological orientation, is not above critique. I will spend the next several paragraphs offering what I believe to be the strongest criticisms against positivism, particularly in regards to its use within a social science/education research context. Ultimately, a scientist or researcher’s “dedication to the pursuit of truth, openness to counter evidence, receptiveness to criticism, accuracy of measurements and observations, honesty and openness in reporting results” is the perceived reality for positivists but for others, like Kuhn, it is an unapproachable ideal
(Phillips & Burbules, 2000, p. 71).
The first criticism of positivism is the issue that all perception is inherently theory-laden. Observation, as an epistemological act, is not neutral for it is necessarily influenced by the common, background knowledge of the community within which the observer is situated (Phillips & Burbules, 2000). Similarly, Feyerabend and Oberheim
(2011) asserted, “Theories involve idealization which means that the evidence is being selected and processed in a special way” (p. 108). Wray (2011) observed that logic does not play a straightforward role in science. He argued that scientists are reluctant to
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abandon or replace a theory even if it conflicts with observation because scientists evaluate competing theories based on accepted beliefs (taken for granted assumptions, presuppositions, normalized assertions). Similarly, Phillips and Burbules (2000) argued that the value orientations permeating research communities tend to become subconsciously internalized thus invisibly affecting theory development and implementation. They posed the question that since research decision criteria is influenced by extra-scientific value orientations, do those orientations also affect how the research act is conducted. Thinkers such as Kuhn (1996) and Feyerabend (Feyerabend &
Oberheim, 2011) answered that question affirmatively by arguing that research is inherently a social act that cannot be stripped from its communal, fundamentally human tendencies. In response to the reductive modes of thinking inherent in research activities that are rooted in contemporary positivist social science theories, Feyerabend posed the question “How did it happen that nature was gradually dehumanized until humans themselves were no longer viewed in a humane way?” (p. 94). I think the answer to that question lies in the reality that the a priori theories that influence observation are seldom unchallenged or critiqued once they have become normalized within a particular research community.
The second major critique of positivism concerns the underestimation of theory by the extant evidence. Phillips and Burbules (2000) argued that it cannot be claimed that, “observational or other evidence unequivocally supports a particular theory or fully warrants the claim that it is true because there are many other […] theories that are also compatible with the same body of evidence” (p. 22). Similarly, they asserted, “A phenomenon does not have associated with it anything that determines that we must
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conceptualize or describe it in a particular way” (Phillips & Burbules, 2000, p. 23). Wray
(2011), too, suggested that research within a particular scholarly community is not as straightforward as positivists would lead us to believe, for according to him, observations can result in multiple interpretations corresponding with multiple theoretical frameworks used to conduct science. Wray also discussed what determines how the gaps between data and the theory used to conceptualize it are filled within a research community: the evidence, embedded power structures, or a combination of the two?
The third critique is the social nature of scientific research. This particular critique will play a major role in this study through the analytic construct of research paradigms.
First, Feyerabend (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011) asserted that even scientific research conducted within a positivist framework is not free of values for within that framework, a fact if not a science fact until it has passed the metaphysical assessment of being purely objective (p. 94). Furthermore, Feyerabend (Feyerabend & Oberheim, 2011), through
Agassi (2014), argued that science is inherently political and that as it becomes more deeply rooted in the context of neoliberalism (a political and economic system explored further at the end of this chapter), it becomes less democratic. Phillips and Burbules
(2000) posited that empirical evidence must be “accepted by the appropriate research community as actually warranting the [truth] claim in question” (p. 12). It is my assertion that researchers rely on the taxonomic and lexiconical structures within the existing research paradigm to provide what can be construed as the necessary warrant equating theoretical understanding with knowledge rather than false belief.
The fourth critique of positivism, particularly regarding its applications to social science contexts, is Smedslund’s (1979) argument of the analytic and arbitrary.
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According to his argument, theories that aim at being testable and empirically valid must be contextualized in order to be adaptable to the local cultural conditions of the testing site, thus rendering the theories non-generalizable. Similarly, theories that aim at being generalizable cannot fit particular local conditions, are not testable and empirically valid, and thus validity has to be purely formal. Smedslund argued that “the analytic element is incompatible with the aspiration to empirical testability and the arbitrary (sociocultural and historical) is incompatible with the aspiration to generality and timelessness” (p.
140). With this powerful critique in mind, I assert that while descriptive statistical analysis is helpful in gaining a better understanding of context, applying the results of quantitative analysis to other contexts, using quantitative analysis to prescribe empirically tested interventions to other contexts, or employing quantitative analysis to answer why certain phenomena occur may be quite impotent theoretically.
Related to the notion that social contexts can be quantitatively studied, generalizable and predictable, Phillips and Burbules (2000) asserted, “all of us influence others and find them understandable and predictable” (p. 102). While I agree that this may be true, I argue that it is only true when we share a specific context with the “others” and have intimate knowledge about them through the establishment of a contextual relationship with them as humans, not as research subjects. I also assert that researchers and theorists would have great difficulty in predicting or inferring an individual or population’s future actions. We can observe present causality and describe it through interpretation and by establishing a relationship with the actor(s). But due to the inherent uncertainty of human agency, human relationships and social contexts, extrapolation of the present into the future is an endeavor fraught with limitations. Lastly, Phillips and
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Burbules (2000) posited, “Without causal mechanisms and attendant regularities, there could be no educational planning, no educational reform, and indeed no social life” (p.
105). While there are causal mechanisms and attendant regularities, I argue that social phenomena are highly, contextually layered and that as theorists and researchers, we must understand the limitations of education reform and policy at both the micro and macro levels. I fear that the ostensible regularity of human action on a large scale has become an excuse to forsake creating educational relationships that recognize self and the subjective in favor of creating reductive and normalized conceptual objects with quantifiable behaviors.
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Appendix B. Erisean Meta-Theory in Practice
Educators dissatisfied with the present state of education research and practice should be compelled to create their own discourses that challenge hegemony, offer new perspectives that might contribute to greater insight, and create opportunities for exploring other research models. Erisean meta-theory serves as a powerful guide for those educators that have decided to follow this path. Fortunately, as will be demonstrated in this final section, the literature is rife with scholarly articles that articulate the perspectives and alternative approaches deeply rooted in Erisean meta- theory. It is up to the educator, whether already a practitioner or enrolled in a teacher education program, to explore this area in order to challenge deep seeded assumptions and to become more aware of the research blank or blind spots that result from
Themisean meta-theory.
Perhaps it would be wise at this juncture to reflect on the purposes of education before reflecting on one’s own conceptualizations of research and practice within the field of education. Biesta (2010) suggested that the aim of education is threefold. First, education exists for the qualification of students by equipping them with knowledge and skills. Secondly, education exists for the socialization of students--an act that prepares them for membership within their local social, cultural and political contexts. This act also instills within each student an appreciation for social norms and values. The third aim of education is the subjectification of the student. This is a process by which the individual gains the potential for independence from the social and cultural norms. Biesta argued that this subjectification is often at odds with the act of socialization, but that they are both warranted within the education process. Ultimately, Biesta contended that the
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notion of good education is contingent upon the acknowledgement of these different functions of education and the potential aims for these functions within a particular societal context. Consequently, Biesta asserted that education decisions should not be based solely on measurable outcomes that typically only address the qualification role of education. Biesta called for evidence-informed education as opposed to evidence-based education. Within such a conceptualization, the evidence guides; it does not dictate. In the same spirit, St. Pierre (2012) lamented the dearth of philosophy and history instruction found in most education research and teacher education programs. St. Pierre argued that such disciplines should accompany methodology courses so that the “students understand that any science claim they make is thinkable only within a specific language game that has very real, material consequences” (p. 499). Philosophical and historical investigations of theory and methodology will help students understand the centrality of context and presuppositional thinking to the domain of education. Therefore, St. Pierre called for “philosophically informed research” (p. 500) as a means to uncover the norms and hidden assumptions of the particular research paradigm in which the practitioner operates.
The rest of this Appendix section is divided into three parts, each corresponding to an Erisean model of education research and practice that emerges from an Erisean meta-theory orientation. The first section discusses a model heavily influenced by Post- structural and Post-Modern thought. This model directly incorporates many of the ideas of Lyotard (1984) and Foucault (2002) and reflects some of Doll’s (1993) ideas regarding the Post-Modern context. The second section explores education models that are informed by philosophic analysis. The third and final section examines a democratic
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model that embraces some of the tenets of pragmatism and endorses many of the ideas offered by John Dewey (1938).
Post-structural and Post-modern Models
Peters and Burbules (2004) discussed the integral roles that power and knowledge play in Lyotard’s (1984) Post-Modern society. According to Peters and Burbules (2004),
Post-Modernism is a societal condition in which reason and technology are inextricably linked. In a Post-Modern society, the state controls, through funding and other resources, the types of knowledge that are pursued and how the knowledge is ultimately used and disseminated. Thus knowledge becomes commodified and technologized according to prevailing metanarratives. Furthermore, Peters and Burbules (2004) defined Post- structuralism as a sociological perspective that “aims to expose the structures of domination by diagnosing power/knowledge relations and their manifestations in our classifications, examinations and institutions” (p. 5). Additionally, they posited the centrality of language to the Post-structural analysis of social and cultural activities.
According to the authors, such an analysis begins with the questioning of cultural norms, values and assumptions. Lastly, they suggested that Post-structuralism has two key assumptions: there is no universal common denominator for discourse and the formation of sociocultural structures/institutions, all human systems operate through self-reflexive, not referential, language. Therefore knowledge production, especially as it relates to teacher education for the purpose of this study, is socioculturally and historically contingent. This implies that knowledge is a product of discursive practices of the culture
(or episteme, as discussed in a previous section) from which it emerges.
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According to Burnett (2012), an education theory model based on Post-structural analysis “takes the socially constructed nature of all truths as [its] starting point and thus interrogate[s] the ways in which truths, particularly dominant truths, have been constructed” (p. 485). Humes and Bryce (2003) asserted that such a model situates the researcher within three specific locations: immersed in the problems identified by educators within a wide range of contexts, engaged in professional dialogue with stakeholders both within education and within the broader sociocultural context, and involved in “political processes that serve to challenge the dominant configurations of knowledge, power and discourse” (p. 185). Peters and Burbules (2004) suggested that the education theorist should “explore the historical conditions that make possible certain kinds of subjectivity and agency and also the production of modern individualized subjects in institutions” (p. 22), like the modern school or university. They also posited the importance of emphasizing differences, self-reflexivity, contextual determinacy, and the socio-cultural forces that shape the individual.
Moreover, because they assert that only through knowledge of power relations can there be a proper understanding of social phenomena within the human sciences,
Peters and Burbules (2004) advocated the use of deconstruction in education theory.
They defined deconstruction as a critical literary technique that reveals, unravels and reverses hegemonic hierarchies. Deconstruction allows the researcher to determine the origins of norms, classification systems and perceptions of reality within a given sociocultural context. When applied to education theory, such techniques can expose the close relationship between education research methodologies and theories, the power- knowledge dynamic that permeates the inner workings of the field, and the sociocultural
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context within which it operates. Education researchers can use these techniques to explore how their field has become a classification system through which the normalizing gaze of testing instruments and outcome-based measurements sort and objectify individuals into certain categories of teachers and students. At the micro level, these techniques can be used to decenter teacher authority in the classroom so that the learning environment changes from a closed system to a chaotic and open system—a system sensitive and welcoming to the knowledge originating outside of it. Peters and Burbules argued that such open systems of learning are conducive to an influx of diverse perspectives and a greater respect for cultures and knowledge traditions that are often marginalized within a closed system. It also opens up the potential for student discovery and meaning making during the learning process. The authors posited that within the open learning system, “the centrality of the other [exists] as a challenge to and a reflection upon one’s self-awareness” (Peters & Burbules, 2004, p. 74). In fact, this exploration of other cultures and knowledge can help us better understand ourselves.
In describing this Poststructuralist model, Peters and Burbules (2004) contended that understanding is of greater importance than explanation. In order to bring about this greater understanding, they suggested that education theorists adopt the philosophically derived methods of phenomenology, existentialism-informed analysis and hermeneutics.
By adopting these new philosophical approaches, theorists will be able to gain a keener insight into the meanings of human interactions and the intentionality behind these interactions. They cited the Post-Modern analysis of pop culture as an example of how these philosophical perspectives are being applied to an educational context. Historically, this analysis situated pop culture as a site of important pedagogical and political
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interactions that is often ignored by education practitioners and researchers. Practitioners employed cultural hermeneutics as a means by which to “critique the dominant modes of social integration including education in the widest sense of not only schooling, but neighborhoods, media and popular culture” (Peters & Burbules, 2004, p. 93). Similarly,
Maclure (2006) argued that this type of reflexivity should be a process of defamiliarization that forces us to critically examine the context within which we work because “our ways of seeing education are so deeply ingrained with familiarity […] that we are more-or-less insulated from surprise and wonder” (p. 229). Furthermore, she asserted the importance of resisting the tendency “to build hierarchies, frameworks, abstractions or other methodological crows’ nests from which to look down from a distance on the details or the data” (Maclure, 2006, p. 230). A Poststructural education theory model would intensify “the complexity of the specific” rather than attempt to
“converge on generalities or coalescing within boundaries” (Maclure, 2006, p. 230).
Lastly, Maclure argued that such a model “would respect the recalcitrance of the object of study—not only its complexity but also its capacity for resisting social explanation and for unsettling the composure of researchers” (p. 231). Researchers working within an education theory model that adheres to the central critiques of Post-Modernism and Post-
Structuralism would reflexively investigate phenomena with a respect for context, perspective, culture, history and idiosyncrasy.
Philosophic and Analytic Approaches to Education Research
According to Thompson (2012), “The ‘philosophical method’ [in education research] is about an openness that even transforms the grounds on which we start to engage with the known or with what we wish to know” (p. 240). Thompson contended
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that philosophy-guided education research “transforms the researcher’s relationship to the present” and is also a “practice of dislocation” and “defamiliarization” through which
“the location of the thinking subject [is] the position of ignorance: I may not understand what I deem understood” (p. 241). Thompson presented education theory and research as a critical practice with an ethical significance in that it should change the researcher’s view of the world and the self within it—a view that problematizes the “outside- spectator” perspective common to traditional science-based education research (p. 242).
Additionally, Thompson conceptualized education research and theory “not as a movement to the answer but as a way to pose more adequately the questions that concern us” (p. 245).
Likewise, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem (2007) suggested adopting moral, philosophical, and analytic methods supplemented by a hermeneutical approach when investigating the sociocultural contexts of education. In such a framework, these methods would be applied to the analysis of educational means and ends—both of which are highly contested by different stakeholders. Furthermore, this analysis would necessarily involve focusing on the different aims and purposes that drive policy and research.
Lastly, Hyslop-Margison and Naseem urged education researchers to embrace the central tenet of phenomenology: allowing the data and observations to be free from forcefully imposed presuppositional lenses and paradigmatic frameworks. They argued that education theorists and researchers, operating within a Themisean framework, often seek to confirm existing theory by ignoring the facts that might challenge them.
Additionally, Egan (2002) called for a complete reconceptualization of the learning process. He argued that learning should no longer be viewed as a superstructure built on a
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foundation of psychological functions but rather as a process that relies on the powers of cultural cognitive tools (p. 100). According to Egan, oral language and written language literacies are two fundamental cultural cognitive tools. He contended that it is through pedagogy and curriculum that educators foster these cultural cognitive tools vital to the student’s ability to learn. Within this reconceptualization of education, Egan defined
“mastery and exercise of particular cognitive tools” (p. 176) as the new units of education. In order to promote this mastery of the cultural cognitive tools, Egan suggested the use of narrative frameworks in pedagogy and transcendent, humanizing qualities within the curricula, in order to appeal to the imagination. Egan viewed imagination as the key that unlocks a student’s true learning potential via its natural link to the cultural cognitive tools.
In summary, a philosophical approach to education theory and practice enables the researcher to transform his or her field by altering the fundamental relationships between the investigator and the world, the investigator and theory, and among pedagogy, curricula and the student.
Habermas (1971) called for education research and pedagogical practices, rooted in philosophy and informed by rational thought, in order to promote democracy.
According to Habermas, rational thought should be central to approval processes. This idea is especially relevant to the study as it pertains to those processes related to education policymaking, funding decisions, and curriculum selection. Habermas’s communicative action is rooted in rational thought and relies on clear and logical argumentation in order to strengthen the various positions surrounding an issue.
Habermas also contended that this democratic form of decision-making must be
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integrated within scholarly endeavors such as education theory and research. This means that a theorist must critically examine the presuppositions within his or her field in order to discover their influencing power on the way that he or she views the world.
Accordingly, Habermas argued that this philosophical reflection allows the theorist to be more than just an instrument of techno-rationalism. It brings a new level of consciousness to professional practice, encourages critical discussion of the political motives behind policy and research practice, and offers the potential for greater levels of societal and economic democracy. Democracy is enhanced when there is a “politically effective discussion that rationally brings the social potential constituted by our technical knowledge and ability into a defined and controlled relation to our practical knowledge and will” (Habermas, 1971, p. 69). As argued throughout this review of the literature, our society in general, and education in particular, are driven by metanarratives that determine societal structures, generate cultural norms, legitimize knowledge and promote certain modes and methods of research. One of the more dominant metanarratives related to education research, is technical rationalism or technologization. Habermas asserted, “If the rationalization of the technocratic society is to occur, it requires free public dialogue/discourse that is not fettered by ‘action-orienting principles’ or social norms that have emerged from within the technocratic society and its developing subsystems of purposive-rational action” (p. 130). Habermas made an appeal for communicative action that is built on rational thought and that is able to escape the ideological and methodological stranglehold of the techno-rationalist episteme for the purposes of democracy.
Bogotch (2014) argued along similar lines with respect to the link between
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education theory and research, and the potential for democracy or what he labels “social justice as an educational construct” (p. 54). He contended that “educational researchers come to know social justice through consequences experienced by participants” and not by a priori theoretical concepts, the well-intentioned dispositions of researchers, or researcher awareness of inequities (Bogotch, 2014, p. 59). Whereas Habermas (1971) called for communicative action to be part of a democratic decision making process
(particularly in education research and policy), Bogotch (2014) looked to the “outcomes, opportunities, and dispositions experienced by others” (p. 61) in order to validate the democratic or social justice worth of the policy or intervention after it has already been implemented. Ultimately for Bogotch, education theory and research are “about improving the quality of people’s lives” (p. 61); education researchers and policymakers
“must privilege consequences, not dispositions or theoretical concepts, and it is on these criteria that we ought to hold ourselves accountable” (p. 71).
Elliott (2006) described education research as a means by which to “[open] up new practical possibilities for creating a better link between research and educational practice”
(p. 170). Elliott claimed that, in general, the context within which education researchers operate and generate theory is “one that is distanced and divorced from the practical context of teachers work” (p. 171). In other words, many education theorists and researchers work within a paradigmatic sphere where only the initiated are qualified to fully understand and judge the knowledge being produced. Typically, such knowledge is disseminated and implemented without any input from those who will ultimately be most affected by it—the teachers and their students. Moreover, according to Elliott, “many education practitioners are skeptical about the grand theories generated by researchers in
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the field of education […] because such theories attempt explanations that tend to reduce everything that happens in schools and classrooms to a single cause” (p. 175).
Consequently, Elliott suggested that what is needed from educational theory is knowledge that enables education practitioners “to discern the practically relevant features of the complex situations they have to handle on a day-to-day basis” (p. 175); these theories would offer more practical insight by being situated in, and emerging from the complex situations inherent in education. Ultimately, education theory can become more democratic once researchers decide to forego pursuing predictive generalities and begin to pay greater attention to “practitioners’ insights into their particular situations”
(Elliott, 2006, p. 175). Once this occurs, education theorists can help to establish research communities in which both researchers and practitioners can share “these insights [… and] become capable of recognizing commonalities in their experience that can be cast in the form of generalizations” (Elliott, 2006, p. 175). Elliott posited practitioner development of “a reasoned capacity for action in the service of [his or her] educational values” (p. 178) as a primary function of a democratic form of education research. Elliott stated, “A democratic process of inquiry determines […] which descriptions of the human environment, natural as well as social, best enable human beings effectively to interact with it to satisfy their needs and desires” (p. 179). In such an education theory model, Elliott claimed that there is no room for a science that is purely theoretical and removed from the practical considerations within the context being researched. Similarly, there would be no need for the methodological justification of the research act, for the only legitimate justification is whether or not the knowledge that is produced enables the researchers and practitioners “to describe educational situations in ways that open up new
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and interesting possibilities for educational practice” (Elliott, 2006, p. 184).
Dewey (1938) argued in Experience and Education that education research and policies should serve the purpose of establishing a better social order. Throughout this work, Dewey described the model that is perhaps best suited for accomplishing this stated purpose. Such an education theory model constructively develops purposes, methods and research questions on the foundation of experience. This model must also be reflexive for
Dewey asserted, “Any theory and set of practices is dogmatic which is not based upon the critical examination of its own underlying principles” (p. 18). Within this model, the knowledge that is produced through theory and research are not conceptualized as an end but as an instrumental means by which practitioners are equipped to adapt more successfully to their ever-changing academic environments. Dewey contended that the value of an experience should only be judged according to where it leads; its assessment should not be based on the effectiveness of the initial research intervention. He further suggested that observation and interpretation are essential activities in making a research experience valuable. Observation is key to establishing a purpose to a given experienced activity. Interpretation or understanding of the significance of the experienced activity also helps the researcher establish purpose. Education research, according to Dewey, should consist of two parts: the recollection of old knowledge or previous research, and the judgment of the new experiences based on observation and interpretation in light of the old knowledge.
Biesta and Burbules (2003), in Pragmatism and Educational Research, built on
Dewey’s ideas concerning research, experience, observation and interpretation, and the ways that they work together to add value to old knowledge and produce new practical
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knowledge that is specific to a particular context. They discussed Dewey’s crisis of rationality or the “realistic interpretation of the mechanistic worldview” (Biesta &
Burbules, 2003, p. 17). According to the authors, this crisis emerged when the scientific worldview became the exclusive way to view reality due to its ostensibly neutral perspective. Inherent in this crisis of rationality are two unfortunate consequences: the dominance of an inhuman rationality or techno-rationalism ushered in by scientism, and the perceived irrationality of human thought, common sense and values. Biesta and
Burbules suggested that education theory and research have been affected by this crisis in that rationality has been restricted to facts while values and purposes--components essential to any discussion of education--have been excluded from rational deliberation
(p. 17). In reaction to this crisis, Dewey (1938) championed the experimental method of empiricism and its removal of the boundary between doing and knowing. However, he had great disdain for what he perceived to be a modern science operating within the intellectual context of an archaic philosophy built on the existence of dualisms (physical and metaphysical, body and spirit, mind and matter, etc). In reaction to this, Dewey eventually overcame the idea “that rationality only has to do with questions about the most effective means for bringing about pre-determined ends” (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 22), and replaced it with the new idea that rationality ultimately concerns intelligent human action and human cooperation.
In light of Dewey’s (1938) philosophical labor, Biesta and Burbules (2003) discussed education research by determining its role. They suggested the existence of two contemporary schools of thought regarding education research. The first school argues that education research should specify best practices. This role is based on the assumption
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that there are educational truths that are produced or discovered by others in a different spatio-temporal context and that can later be applied universally to bring about greater effectiveness and higher achievement. The other school and the one endorsed by the authors, argues that knowledge is produced by what people do and emerges from the interactions between teacher and student, student and student, and teacher, student and curriculum. This mode is based on two assumptions: there are unforeseen, context- specific possibilities that can result from education research experiences, and there cannot be one set of universally applicable best practices. The authors suggested that this second model of education research embraces some of the central tenets of pragmatism including the idea that objects and concepts are defined by their effects and the different modes of action they generate, as opposed to theoretical or a priori definitions. This model also embraces the notion that a particular concept only has meaning when it is applied to experience. In discussing this, the authors cited one of Quine’s (1951) challenges to
Logical Positivism in which he rejects the notion of reductionism by arguing that concepts exist in a web of truth, and as such, they cannot be reduced to single, isolated statements or expressions. This implies that observations can become meaningful only through their conceptual positioning on this web of truth—a web formed through past and present experiences. Lastly, the authors described the pragmatic model of education research as one in which knowledge is approached from a practical perspective. This model also rejects the notion that knowledge results from a theoretical position in which there is a mind matter dualism—an epistemological stance developed by Descartes. They argued that the mind is not at the center of this model’s epistemology; it is the indefinite
303
interactions between man and the environment that occupies this location. Biesta and
Burbules (2003) defined this epistemological approach as transactional realism.
When describing the specifics of this pragmatic education theory model, the authors began by defining the key concepts within transactional realism. Interaction or transaction is defined as an indefinite process that is adaptive and dynamic, and occurs when the individual tries to maintain balance with an ever-evolving environment. During these transactions, knowledge is constructed from the precipitated changes in the environment due to human agency. Within this context, the research act becomes an interactive process resulting in knowledge that is inextricably linked to changes in reality.
Practical intersubjectivity, an extension of this concept, is the notion that an intersubjective world is created through action and not through the passive transfer of theoretical knowledge or old research knowledge. The inter-subjective world arises when researchers and practitioners, experiencing similar environmental challenges, share insights gleaned through transactional and experiential knowledge construction. Thus knowledge becomes appropriated, re-contextualized and experientially modified as it is disseminated throughout this inter-subjective world. However, Biesta and Burbules
(2003) pointed out the importance of recognizing that there will always be uncertainty of knowledge in that we can never be certain “that the pattern we have developed in the past will be appropriate for the problems that we encounter in the future” (p. 13). Lastly, within this model, transactional knowledge is not knowledge that results from external observation, but a knowledge that emerges from “an intervention into nature and hence as a natural event” (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 27).
304
Within this pragmatic theory model, practice and research are two parts of the same process. Biesta and Burbules (2003) suggested that educational practice is both the beginning and the end of education research, and it ultimately establishes the value of the knowledge that is being produced. Biesta and Burbules asserted, “Educational problems are always unique and for that reason always require unique responses, tailored as best as possible to the idiosyncrasies of the actual unique situation” (p. 81). Therefore, education theory and research cannot be used to prescribe future action or rules for best practice.
Instead, they require practitioners to become education researchers so that transactional knowledge can be created within specific contexts in meaningful ways. Subsequently, research should be used as an instrument that can help practitioners locate the meaning of their immediate problems or situations so that they are better able to adapt dynamically to the complex domain of education. Consequently, this model is less authoritarian and more democratic than Themisean meta-theory that dominates policy, theory and research today. This pragmatic research empowers the practitioner by enabling him or her to achieve desired pedagogical goals; it does not impose outcome-based stipulations authoritatively mandated by external authorities. In fact, Biesta and Burbules (2003) argued that the knowledge produced by professional theorists and researchers should not be prioritized over the knowledge produced by practitioners through interactions, transactional experiences and reflection. In the end, education can only be improved when its practitioners are equipped to approach and adapt to educational situations more intelligently and more meaningfully. Themisean meta-theory exalts the educational intervention that worked during a specific period of time within a specific context by placing it within the pantheon of universal best practices. The pragmatic model of theory
305
and research espoused by Dewey (1938), as well as Biesta and Burbules (2003), embeds the knowledge of what has worked in the past within a web of inter-subjective knowledge. Consequently, this knowledge can be used by a community of researchers and practitioners as a guide for intelligently approaching their environments in order to successfully adapt to and change reality for the good of pedagogy and the student.
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