Disciplines of Education: Their Role in the Future of Education Research

Citation

Oplatka, I. (2013), "Disciplines of Education: Their Role in the Future of Education Research", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 92-94. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231311291459

A discipline is revealed to be an interacting system in which research tasks and specialties are created, abolished, and reshaped by internal and external forces (Klein, 1993). Philosophers of science and disciplinarity ponder about the function of a certain discipline and attempt to identify its scholarly boundaries. Furlong and Lawn's edited book follows this line of thought by assessing the current state of the disciplines of education in the modern university in terms of current institutional position, their major theoretical, practical and methodological achievements, and their potential for further contributions in the future.

The major concern of the editors – the consistent dwindling of disciplinary specialists in many schools of education worldwide – encouraged the book authors to explore the past, current and future relevance of their sub‐discipline to the field. Thus, each of the nine contributors was asked to describe and assess his/her discipline's position in the academic world and its epistemological strengths. Loyal to their frame of reference, the editors analyze the state of the disciplines of education in the first chapter, claiming that the days of disciplinary certainty in the UK are long gone due to governmental legislations regarding higher education and demographic crisis with an ageing population of education specialists in many British universities. They further use two disciplinary approaches (the epistemological vs sociological dimensions) in order to scrutinize the rise and fall of the education disciplines since the 1960s and their replacement in more practical‐oriented perspectives. The authors’ rejoinder to their own question – why most of the education disciplines have been so marginalized – is well articulated, although very sad:

[…] It would seem to us that the earlier post‐war foundational model of the patronage of key professors of education and the establishment of key journals has been replaced by a proliferation of professors of education, a disconnection between many of them and older disciplines, with a concentration on useful methods, multiple sources of publication and governmental funding (p. 10).

Bearing in mind the major changes in research orientations in the UK (and in many other western countries) in recent years, I was curious to understand how every discipline discussed in this book faces new conditions in higher education. Lauder et al. (Chapter 2) asked why the intellectual and political influence of sociology of education has declined during the last decades, and therefore, how we could best understand its disciplinary nature. Following a profound historical analysis of their discipline, the authors concluded that “it could be argued that there is an intimate connection between education and a sociology which is guided by the heuristic of redemption: a relationship which suggests that redemption is at the heart of the enterprise and will not easily be replaced” (p. 23). Accordingly, they encourage sociologists of education to explore the relationships between education and society, such that can make a moral difference with respect to freedom and autonomy.

The third chapter is intended by Ray Crozier to address the “demographic crisis” in relation to psychology by offering a brief overview of psychology's major contributions to education in the past, a description of the organizational framework of psychology and its relation to education, and consideration of the state of research in the psychology of education. The author further highlights the distinction between research in the psychology of education that is undertaken in university psychology departments and research that is located in departments/schools of education. The implications of this distinction lead the author to provocatively ask the consequences for psychological research what would be if the capacity of research undertaken within education departments were reduced. His inspiring analysis brings up to debate the unique contribution of psychology researchers who work within schools of education in terms of awareness to educational problems in practice and sensitiveness to instruction and learning.

The contribution of philosophy of education is discussed in the next chapter. Subsequent to a brief review of the historical sources of this discipline, Alis Oancea and David Bridges discuss the contribution of philosophy in terms of analysis and argumentation. In their view, “philosophy and philosophical thinking may permeate research and practice (including policy) in education not only by developing critique, analysis and argument […] but also in ways that are possibly even more organically connected to the worlds of practice and practitioners” (p. 54). They further put forwards democratic conversations about education and public dialogue. Like the other disciplines of education, unfortunately, philosophy of education is suffering scattered human resource and under‐funding.

Chapters 5‐8 present analyses of other four disciplines of education: history of education, economics of education, comparative education and geography of education, the last of which is relatively new in schools of education. For a shortage of space, I move to the last three chapters which provide the readers of the Journal of Educational Administration with depth insights into the state of their own field – educational administration (EA). The ninth chapter is a commentary written by Sheldon Rotbblatt about the book chapters in which he challenges the major conjectures of the editors and reflects on the “demographic crisis” in education. He explicitly noted:

The editors’ pessimism is not fully shared by the contributors. They conclude that their primary disciplines, or, as in the example of comparative and international education, a field of enquiry or a “knowledge domain”, remain intellectually strong (p. 144).

Additionally, Rotbblatt maintains that education needs a multi‐disciplinary approach and highlights the proliferation of many journals that promote the sub‐disciplines as a sign to intellectual growth of education in our time. In his words, “I do not sense any sentiment that the disciplines are in the doldrums or have reached a heuristic or intellectual impasse” (p. 145). Yet, the commentator agrees that there is a lack of intellectual and empirical collaboration between researchers who are located in the discipline department and those who are located in schools of education. Broadly speaking, the latter's works are less valued by the former, unfortunately. This made me ask myself, as a researcher in EA, how our works in this field are perceived by researchers from management, organization, and other disciplines whose theories are likely to influence the construction of our field.

A very challenging chapter is the tenth one, in which Edwin Keiner, analyzes the value of disciplinary self‐observation by comparing the state of education disciplines in different European countries. His analysis shows that while political systems in many Anglophone countries demand “applicable” and “useful” knowledge in order to justify public funding for higher education, political systems in many other countries encourage skepticism, doubt and questioning – the core of modern science and research – in their higher education. The author further looks at scholarly associations of education research in Europe, asks how education research is conceptualized as a unit to be investigated, and discusses the problem of “disciplinary autonomy” and the degree of self‐governance in universities today. Needless to say, many of these questions could be asked about the field of EA. Above all, his conclusion may be of much relevance to scholars in EA:

Disciplinary self‐observation may gain in importance as an instrument to productively contribute to definitions of scientific quality and education research could become stronger by engaging in this activity and defending its products (p. 171).

The final chapter, written by the editors, is a kind of reflection about the disciplines of education following the book chapters. The editors remind us that their book is focussed on the UK with very limited references to other countries, but at the same time, claim that globalization create a common ground for analysis in many parts of the world. Apart from asking myself why the editors did not invite international scholars to write in their book, I realized that what the reader learns from this book is actually the contribution of the disciplines and the intellectual controversies in the UK, although much of this can be observed also in other countries. Yet, many of the ponderings brought up in this chapter are universal as reflected from the editors’ questions in the final chapter; “is the research intended to produce normative improvement or is it intended to produce analytical explanation? Are disciplines necessary to the study and development of a field of practical action, and if so, in what ways?” (pp. 177‐8).

The editors’ attempts to shape the future of the education disciplines is also very relevant to EA: congruent with their first hope, I believe that it is imperative to open up EA much more that at present to its “parent” disciplines (e.g. management, organization, sociology, psychology), to strengthen the applied works in EA so as to increase practical improvement in schools, and to conduct more inter‐disciplinary studies as leadership and organization‐related problems have become too complex to allow one discipline‐based investigations solely. Furlong and Martin‐Lawn's book helped me very much to sharpen my understandings of EA, my own field of study.