Education, Epistemology and Critical Realism (New Studies in Critical Realism and Education

by David Scott

This book addresses fundamental questions in relation to education and its epistemology. The position taken by the author is critical realist; and thus throughout the relationship between education and critical realism is foregrounded. Themes and issues that surface at different times in the book are: a critical realist view of education research; a resolution of the quantitative/qualitative divide; criteria for judging the worth of educational texts and practices; differences between scientific and critical realisms; empirical research methods in education; structure-agency relationships; pragmatist views of educational research; foundations and paradigmatic differences; and educational critique and transformation.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

David Scott is a Professor of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has previously worked at the universities of Warwick, Southampton and Lincoln.

His most recent books are The European School System (coauthored with S. Leaton-Gray and P. Mehisto; Macmillan Palgrave, 2017); Equalities and Inequalities in the English Education System (coauthored with B. Scott; University College London Institute of Education Press, 2017); The Mexican Education System (coauthored with C. Posner, C. Martin, and E. Guzman; University College London Press, 2017); Education Systems and Learners: Knowledge and Knowers (Macmillan Palgrave, 2016); Policy Transfer and Educational Change (coauthored with C. Husbands, R. Slee, R. Wilkins, and M. Terano; SAGE, 2015); Roy Bhaskar: A Theory of Education (Springer International, 2015); New Perspectives on Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (Springer International, 2015); and SAGE Handbook on Learning (coauthored with E. Hargreaves; SAGE, 2015).

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title alludes to the book's own structure: fragmented, while notionally related. There are moments of clarity and 'the bigger picture' of a CR approach, yet each of the innumerable diversions into arguments for X, Y and Z and definitions for some new piece of jargon tired me out. Still, I finished the thing, and it gave me a feeling for CR and how critical realists might treat ontology, epistemology and the (ir)rational relationship between them. It did not, in any significant way, give me a sense of CR in relation to education qua discipline (I find it strange that it is the first fragment of the title, given its somewhat 'arbitrary' [cf. last chapter] series of appearances).

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

a thoroughly difficult read that delivers in initial chapters but peters out by the end