In this essay, Gert Biesta provides a critical analysis of the idea of evidence‐based practice and the ways in which it has been promoted and implemented in the field of education, focusing on the ...tension between scientific and democratic control over educational practice and research. Biesta examines three key assumptions of evidence‐based education: first, the extent to which educational practice can be compared to the practice of medicine, the field in which evidence‐based practice was first developed; second, the role of knowledge in professional actions, with special attention to what kind of epistemology is appropriate for professional practices that wish to be informed by the outcomes of research; and third, the expectations about the practical role of research implicit in the idea of evidence‐based education. Biesta concludes that evidence‐based practice provides a framework for understanding the role of research in educational practice that not only restricts the scope of decision making to questions about effectivity and effectiveness, but that also restricts the opportunities for participation in educational decision making. He argues that we must expand our views about the interrelations among research, policy, and practice to keep in view education as a thoroughly moral and political practice that requires continuous democratic contestation and deliberation.
The idea that professional practices such as education should be based upon or at least be informed by evidence continues to capture the imagination of many politicians, policy makers, practitioners ...and researchers. There is growing evidence of the influence of this line of thought. At the same time there is a growing body of work that has raised fundamental questions about the feasibility of the idea of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice. In this paper I make a further contribution to this discussion through an analysis of a number of assumptions that inform the discussion. I focus on the epistemological, ontological and praxeological dimensions of the discussion and in each domain identify a deficit. In the epistemological domain there is a knowledge deficit, in the ontological domain an effectiveness or efficacy deficit and in the practice domain an application deficit. Taken together these deficits not only raise some important questions about the very idea of evidence-based practice but also highlight the role of normativity, power and values. Against this background I outline the case for the idea of value-based education as an alternative for evidence-based education. As I am generally concerned about the expectations policy makers hold about what evidence can and should achieve in professional practices such as education, my contribution is primarily meant to provide educators and other professionals with arguments that can help them to resist unwarranted expectations about the role of evidence in their practices and even more so of unwarranted interventions in their practices.
In this paper I focus on a split within the field of educational research between those who approach education as an activity or practice governed by cause–effect relationships and those who see ...education as a human event of communication, meaning making and interpretation. Rather than just arguing against the former and in favour of the latter view, I outline a way forward in which the question of how education works and how it can be made to work better is considered a legitimate question, but where the answer to this question takes into consideration the specific nature of educational processes and practices. In order to do so I explore the ontology, the axiology and the praxeology of education through a discussion of the question of how education actually works (ontology), the question of what education might work for (axiology), and the question of what this means for making education work and making it work better in the everyday practice of teaching (praxeology). I preface this discussion with observations about the differing ways in which education as a field of academic scholarship has developed in Europe, in order to highlight that ‘educational research’ exists in at least two distinctively different configurations, and to show how the way in which the field has established itself in the German-speaking world might provide helpful resources for conceiving of educational research in a more educational manner.
Much work in the field of education for democratic citizenship is based on the idea that it is possible to know what a good citizen is, so that the task of citizenship education becomes that of the ...production of the good citizen. In this paper I ask whether and to what extent we can and should understand democratic citizenship as a positive identity. I approach this question by means of an exploration of four dimensions of democratic politics—the political community, the borders of the political order, the dynamics of democratic processes and practices, and the status of the democratic subject—in order to explore whether and to what extent the ‘essence’ of democratic politics can and should be understood as a particular order. For this I engage with ideas from Chantal Mouffe and Jacques Rancière who both have raised fundamental questions about the extent to which the ‘essence’ of democratic politics can be captured as a particular order. In the paper I introduce the figure of the ignorant citizen in order to hint at a conception of citizenship that is not based on particular knowledge about what the good citizen is. I introduce a distinction between a socialisation conception of citizenship education and civic learning and a subjectification conception of citizenship education and civic learning in order to articulate what the educational implications of such an ‘anarchic’ understanding of democratic politics are. While the socialisation conception focuses on the question how ‘newcomers’ can be inserted into an existing political order, the subjectification conception focuses on the question how democratic subjectivity is engendered through engagement in always undetermined political processes. This is no longer a process driven by knowledge about what the citizen is or should become but one that depends on a desire for a particular mode of human togetherness or, in short, a desire for democracy.
Issue: In medical education, teaching is currently viewed as an intervention that causes learning. The task of medical education research is seen as establishing which educational interventions ...produce the desired learning outcomes. This 'medical model' of education does not do justice to the dynamics of education as an open, semiotic, recursive system rather than a closed, causal system. Evidence: Empirical 'evidence' of 'what works' - that is, what is supposed to affect 'learning' - has become the norm for medical educational improvements, where generalized summary outcomes of research are often presented as must-follow guidelines for myriad future educational situations. Such investigations of educational processes tend to lack an explicit engagement with the purposes of medical education, which we suggest to understand in terms of qualification (the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and understanding), socialization (becoming a member of the professional group) and subjectification (becoming a thoughtful, independent, responsible professional). In addition, investigations of educational processes tend to rely on causal assumptions that are inadequate for capturing the dynamics of educational communication and interaction. Although we see an increasing acknowledgement of the context-dependency of teaching practices toward educational aims, the currently prevailing view in medical education and educational research limits understanding of what is actually going on when educators teach and students participate in medical education - a situation which seriously hinders advancements in the field. Implications: In this paper, we hope to inform discussion about the practice of medical education by proposing to view medical education in terms of three domains of purpose (professional qualification, professional socialization, and professional subjectification) and with full acknowledgement of the dynamics of educational interaction and communication. Such a view implies that curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment, and evaluation should be reoriented to include and integrate all three purposes in educational practice. It also means that medical education research findings cannot be applied in just any teaching context without carefully considering the value of the suggested courses of actions toward the particular educational aims and teaching setting. In addition, medical educational research would need to investigate all three purposes and recognize the openness, semiotic nature, and recursivity of education in offering implications for teaching practice.
What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives?
Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning?
Based on data gathered for the ...Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world.
The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum.
The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning.
Ivor F. Goodson is Professor of Learning Theory at the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, UK.
Gert J.J. Biesta is Professor of Education at the Stirling Institute of Education, University of Stirling, UK.
Michael Tedder is an honorary Research Fellow in the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, UK.
Norma Adair is a former Research Fellow at the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, UK.
1. Introduction: Life, Narrative and Learning 2. John Peel 3. Marie Tuck 4. Maggie Holman 5. Diogenes 6. Christopher 7. Paul Larsen 8. Eva 9. Russell Jackson 10. Towards a Theory of Narrative Learning
Adult learning matters. There is now widespread agreement that modern countries depend on the creativity, skills and knowledge of the entire population for their prosperity. Many people talk of our ...future well-being in terms of a 'knowledge economy' or a 'learning society' in which every person's ability to develop new capabilities will provide them with resources that will help them and the wider community to adapt and thrive. While in theory this makes lifelong learning into an exciting prospect, in practice this broad agenda is often reduced to a narrowly economic conception.
This book reports on one of the largest research projects into lifelong learning conducted in recent years. Through over 500 in-depth interviews with a cohort of about 120 adults who were followed for three years, the Learning Lives project has built up a detailed understanding of what learning means and does in the lives of adults. The project has generated insights in how learning has changed over time and across generations, what the connections are with the changing world of work, what differences learning makes for life chances, how we can learn from life and for life, and how people's prospects of learning can be improved. Combining life history and life-course research with analysis of longitudinal survey data, this book provides important insights into the learning biographies and trajectories of adults.
The book shows that learning means and does much more in people's lives than is often acknowledged by current education policy and politics. In doing so, it is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the role and potential of learning through the lifecourse.
Philosophy of education that wants to be philosophy for education needs to engage with educational matters and things that matter educationally, rather than just philosophically. There is, therefore ...a distinctive responsibility for philosophy of education to contribute to the public good that education is. This article outlines five educational issues to which philosophy of education has a contribution to make. These issues are: education not learning; weakness not strength; existence not essence; soul not the brain; and truth not perspectives. It argues that there is a need to focus on education, not learning, in order to be able to account for the teleological character of education. It argues there is a need to focus on weakness, not strength, in order to capture the open nature of educational processes. It argues there is a need to focus on existence, not essence, in order to give place to the singularity of the human subject. It suggests to engage with the idea of soul, not the brain, in order to account for interiority and intersubjectivity; and it argues for a focus on truth, not perspectives, in order not to totalise communication and interaction.
In previous publications, Gert Biesta has suggested that education should be oriented toward three domains of purpose that he calls qualification, socialization, and subjectification. Many educators, ...policymakers, and scholars have found this suggestion helpful. Nonetheless, the discussion about the exact nature of each domain and about their relationships to each other has been ongoing, particularly with regard to the domain of subjectification. In this article, Biesta revisits the three domains and tries to provide further clarification with regard to the idea of subjectification. He highlights that subjectification has to do with the existence of the child or student as subject of her or his own life, not as object of educational interventions. Subjectification thus has to do with the question of freedom. Biesta explains that this is not the freedom to do what one wants to do, but the freedom to act in and with the world in a “grown‐up”
way.
Jacques Rancière Bingham, Charles; Biesta, Gert; Rancière, Jacques
2010, 2010-08-26
eBook, Book
Winner – AERA 2011 Outstanding Book Award Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation demonstrates the importance of Rancières work for educational theory, and in turn, it shows just how central ...Rancières educational thought is to his work in political theory and aesthetics. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta illustrate brilliantly how philosophy can benefit from Rancières particular way of thinking about education, and go on to offer their own provocative account of the relationship between education, truth, and emancipation. Including a new essay by Rancière himself, this book is a must-read for scholars of social theory and all who profess to educate.
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