David Coulter

Educational Judgment: Linking the Actor and the Spectator

The difficulty of connecting the knowledge generated by educational researchers and the practice of classroom teachers is familiar. Academics write about the importance of research for understanding and improving classroom practices; classroom teachers dismiss the academics’ research knowledge as a poor substitute for actual experience. We argue for moving from debates between spectators and actors about knowledge and practice to discussions about how all educators can foster good judgment. We outline two major accounts of judgment in Western thought, Aristotle’s and Kant’s, which ultimately privilege the spectator over the actor. We then introduce the work of Hannah Arendt, who linked thinking and acting without privileging either in her conception of judgment. Focusing on how teachers and researchers might become better educational judges is a crucial, yet neglected, agenda that promises to link these communities.

The Epic and the Novel: Dialogism and Teacher Research

Teacher research has been concerned with the generation of knowledge and voice for more than 70 years; teachers are invited to join the academic dialogue by becoming researchers themselves. Yet the promised fusion of communities seems as distant as ever. I want to suggest that for these two solitudes to be brought together, the emphasis needs to change from the generation of knowledge to dialogue about what counts as knowledge. Using the work of the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), I argue for dialogic research. In making my case, I present a research problem that was investigated by a group of school administrators and teachers, sketch the previous response of the research community to that issue, take a brief detour through Bakhtins literary theory, and then show how each of the conceptual resources that he supplies–polyphony, chronoscope and carnival–affected the research project and the ensuing dialogue about knowledge and its relationship to practice.

What counts as action in educational action research

Abstract (Action) is frequently a taken-for-granted aspect of educational action research. Proponents often focus on how research will benefit educational practice without explaining what is meant by educational practice or action. Here, the author reverses that emphasis: exploring his interest in how different conceptions of action lead to diverse relationships with research. He uses Arendts tripartite division of human action into labour, work and action to show how each version of practice involves a different link to theory, knowledge and research. Educational labour research focuses on finding better means to achieve predetermined ends and educational work research concentrates on developing new ends. Arendtian educational action research, however, attempts to use research to understand how human freedom might be exercised in dialogue with others. The argument is illustrated with examples drawn from his own practice and from articles in one issue of Educational Action Research.

Why Do We Educate? Renewing the Conversation

DESCRIPTION This book reflects the editors; concerns that too many public discussions of education are dominated by too few ideas, and is intended to serve as a kind of handbook for those who wish to enter the conversation about education • A work of impressive scholarship accessible to the general reader • A unique collection of essays written by internationally recognized and emerging thinkers from the field of education and related disciplines • Contributors, among others, include Anthony Appiah (Princeton); Seyla Benhabib (Yale); Eamonn Callan (Stanford); Joseph Dunne (St. Patrick’s College, Ireland); Kieran Egan (Simon Fraser); Ursula Franklin (Toronto); Nel Noddings (Stanford); Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) and Diane Ravitch (New York)