In this essay David Labaree explores the historical and sociological elements that have made educational researchers dependent on statistics. He shows that educational research as a domain, with its focus on a radically soft and thoroughly applied form of knowledge and with its low academic standing, fits the pattern in which weak professions have…

In this essay, Robert Floden reviews three recent volumes in the Philosophy, Theory, and Educational Research series that address the philosophical implications of three "isms"-- postpositivism, pragmatism, and poststructuralism--for empirical educational research. These volumes, written by D.C. Phillips, Gert J.J. Biesta, and Michael A. Peters,…

Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the declared recognition of the relativity of principles, norms or criteria so characteristic of much critical research does not prevent it from looking immediately for a way out of this uncomfortable situation i.e. to keep to the idea that comfort (for…

This article discusses sensory perception. The author reorganizes a previous conception of the interaction between sense organ and physical object and suggests how educational researchers study the perception of physical objects. (DF)

The process-product paradigm is examined as a framework for providing theoretical and practical development in teaching. The progress of this approach is explored, with the suggestion that a positive replacement for process-product research be developed. (DF)

Examines ethics in relation to postmodernism, arguing that ethics, subsumed in the ontology of situatedness, is problematic in education and could encourage reincarnation of the violence postmodernism seeks to overcome. Levinas's work is used to argue that ethics cannot be subsumed by ontology but rather precedes ontology, highlighting autonomy…