ERIC Number: EJ1255933
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Feb
Pages: 12
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2680
EISSN: N/A
How/Should We Generalize?
Erickson, Ainsley T.
History of Education Quarterly, v60 n1 p86-97 Feb 2020
Carl Kaestle defines a generalization as "how we know when we know." Kaestle sketches a model of increasing certainty in historical claims as they are developed and refined at increasing scales of research, from local to international. A historical claim might originate in the study of a particular place or case, but to know that the claims were true, the historian needed to move from the microlevel view to a more macro one, perhaps at the national rather than local level. Once tested and refined through comparison with other cases, possibly smoothing some of the rougher edges in the process, the claim could then be transferred beyond national borders. This essay is a selective exploration of the matter, of certainty and uncertainty within critical views of the archive, of generalizability and specificity.
Descriptors: Generalization, Generalizability Theory, Historical Interpretation, Archives, Evidence, Educational History, African American History, Epistemology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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