David Bridges

Transferable skills: A philosophical perspective

ABSTRACT Not withstanding some discomfort with the application of the language of skills in such terms as ‘interpersonal skills˚s ‘problem-solving skills˚s or ‘management skills˚s, at least part of what is being put forward under this rhetoric should be taken seriously. This is the concern that students should not merely be able to make choices intellectually but be able additionally to pursue them practically by acting in and upon a competitive social world. The paper teases out some of the different concerns underlying the notions of cross-curricular, generic, core and transferable skills and relates these to traditional principles of curriculum selection by reference to what is in some sense most fundamental or generally applicable. Cross-curricular skills are discussed in terms of their relationship to cognitive domains, and transferable skills in relationship to social domains. In either case the notion of transfer has to be parasitic upon some theory of discrete domains. It is argued that it is not ...

The ethics of outsider research

This chapter examines criticisms made by or on behalf of ‘disempowered’ groups against outsider research into their experience: that outsiders cannot properly understand and represent their experience and are exploitative and disrespectful, and that having outsiders articulate your views for you is intrinsically disempowering. I argue that ‘outsider research’ can contribute to the better understanding of the researcher, of the community engaged in the research and of the wider community. Nevertheless the claim ‘nothing about us without us’ expresses an ethical and epistemological truth in educational research: as a statement about the kind of relationship which should obtain between researcher and participants.

The value of non‐participation in higher education

The drive to expand access to higher education (HE) in the UK assumes that it is a desirable option that will benefit both the individual and his or her wider community. There is also an assumption that low aspirations and low achievements present a barrier to increasing participation rates. Based upon a recent qualitative study of young people in the east of England who left school with little or no desire to enter HE, and drawing on the capability approach of Amartya Sen, our paper questions this assumption and posits that there is an alternative reading of low aspirations as different aspirations that lead young people away from HE and towards other valued lives and lifestyles. The life histories of 10 young people are used here to illustrate their aspirations and achievements, as well as their perspectives of HE, and to argue for the need to reconsider the practical and moral challenges confronting the current widening participation agenda.

Educational Research: pursuit of truth or flight into fancy?

This article observes the apparent determination of some educational researchers to distance themselves from any claim to the truth of their published work and poses the question: is educational research concerned in some sense with the truth in relation to the matter which is the focus of its enquiry or is it not? It argues that either it is so concerned or it probably collapses into incoherence. It explores, first the relationship between propositions (of the kind found abundantly in educational research reports) and truth claims, before exploring five classical theories of truth. Truth, it is pointed out is itself not a monolithic concept and it is possible to deny some notions of truth without necessarily denying all. It goes on to illustrate the way in which different theories of truth are associated with different paradigms of educational research and finally explores in more detail the senses in which truth claims persist in two influential pieces of writing (Guba & Lincolns Fourth Generation Evaluation and Stronach & MacLures expressly postmodernist approach to educational research in Educational Research Undone) even as their authors wrestle to deny it.

Adaptive preference, justice and identity in the context of widening participation in higher education

Cultures of low aspirations, and more particularly young peoples adaptation to them, are often presented as the major obstacle to an economic development agenda which requires more higher-level skills and a social agenda which is about enabling people from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds to go to university. The article analyses and discusses some of the different sorts of constraints on the choices which we make and which may become unconsciously internalised and so constitute our adaptive preference. It argues, however, that all choice is significantly adaptive and has its roots in a self which neither in its development nor in its current agency is detached from the social context in which it has been constructed, with which it identifies and from which that identity itself derives many of its features. Finally the article discusses briefly the grounds on which intervention in the life of such a chooser might be justified and some implications for interventionist strategies which are sensitive to such a socially embedded view of the self.

Research quality assessment in education: impossible science, possible art?

For better or for worse, the assessment of research quality is one of the primary drivers of the behaviour of the academic community, with all sorts of potential for distorting that behaviour. So, if you are going to assess research quality, how do you do it? This chapter explores some of the problems and possibilities, with particular reference to the UK Research Assessment Exercise and the subsequent Research Excellence Framework, and the work of the Framework 7 European Education Research Quality Indicators project (EERQI). It begins by reflecting back on the previous discussion of generic criteria of quality which can be applied to research, and the tension between such criteria and the diverse and sometimes contradictory requirements of educational research. It then looks at attempts to identify measurable indicators of quality, including consideration of the location of the publication, citation and download counts, and approaches based on semantic analysis of machine-readable text, but finds all these quasi-‘scientific’ attempts at quality assessment wanting (hence the ‘impossible science’). This is all the more the case because of their attachment to extrinsic correlates of quality rather than intrinsic characteristics of quality, and hence the probability that the measures will induce behaviours not conducive to quality enhancement. Instead the chapter turns to a different approach. This is better expressed perhaps as quality ‘appreciation’, ‘discernment’, or even ‘connoisseurship’, and is rooted in the arts and humanities rather than in (quasi) science. It considers whether this might offer a better approximation to the kind of judgment involved in quality assessment of a piece of research writing than the sort of metrics approaches favoured in current discussion.

Philosophy and Educational Research: A Reconsideration of Epistemological Boundaries.

Abstract This paper examines what logically is or ought to be the relationship between philosophy and educational research. It explores the sense in which philosophising itself constitutes a form of research and notes the role of philosophy in addressing the ethical, epistemological and political issues which underpin other forms of educational research of an empirical character. The paper goes on to examine more fully the role of philosophy in empirical research. It explores the complex interplay of logic and psychology in the history and biography of the development of ideas and suggests that this picture argues for freedom of movement between the two in academic lives and institutions. It then takes a step further and, drawing on Quine and Kuhn, challenges the epistemological status of the dichotomy between a posteriori and a priori reasoning.

A Philosopher in the Classroom

Abstract This article picks up on John Elliotts interrelated interests in curriculum and philosophy of education and argues for the centrality of philosophy and indeed, philosophising, in action research. It offers a distinction between (i) philosophy of action research, which refers to the ideas rooted in epistemology, ethics and social philosophy which might underlie the idea and practice of action research, and (ii) philosophy in action research, which refers to the ways in which action researchers need to engage more self-consciously with philosophical questions. The two main parts of the article explore these two dimensions of the relationship more fully and, in the second part, with particular reference to Elliotts own writing.

Education and the Possibility of Outsider Understanding.

In education issues to do with insider and outsider understanding arise in debates about religious education and about certain areas of research, and in argument about education for international understanding. Here I challenge the dichotomy between insider and outsider, arguing that a more collectivist view of human identity combined with elements of ‘the self which we share with our fellows’ means that we always stand in part as an insider and in part as an outsider in relation to others. I argue further that ‘understanding’ needs always to be thought of in the plural, as a matter of ‘understandings’, since members of any community, and even any one individual, have different understandings at different times. Against what may seem the strong case in favour of the superiority or exclusivity of insider understanding, I note the force of claims in a variety of theoretical traditions (expressed notably in the Marxist tradition in the notion of ‘false consciousness’ and in psychoanalytic attention to the unconscious) concerning the limitations of the exclusively insider perspective and in contrast the particular authority of the outsider perspective. Finally, I acknowledge the discomfort with which people respond to outsiders’ claims to understand them, especially where such understanding fails to support their own self-understanding, and identify ethical considerations, which might shape sensitive negotiation between insider and outsider perspectives.

Philosophy of education in the UK: the historical and contemporary tradition

Questions of a philosophical nature are central to every significant debate in the field of educational theory, policy, practice and research. Of all disciplines, philosophy is perhaps the one in which analysis, argumentation and critique are given most central, systematic and comprehensive attention. In addition, philosophy is connected with practice and policy through nurturing democratic conversation about education, and supporting practical deliberation at all levels and on all aspects of educational practice. In the UK, although systematically excluded from initial teacher education and much reduced in masters level programmes under the current funding regimes, the discipline has maintained considerable vitality and international reputation. Using data from the RAE and PESGB, supplemented with bibliometric data, we note that the important contributions from philosophy of education to education and education research do not, however, always reflect a thriving infrastructure. We conclude with a brief discussion of a number of key relationships which the philosophy of education community needs to develop further: with teacher education, educational research, ‘mainstream’ philosophy and educational policy communities.