Jack Whitehead,

Department of Education,

University of Bath.

The upsurge of interest in self-study, action research and practitioner-research has led to calls by educational researchers for agreed-upon procedures for transforming knowledge based on personal experiences of practice into ‘public’ knowledge (Snow, 2001). As education is a value-laden practical activity this will require a transformation of values into communicable standards of judgement for publicly testing the validity of educational knowledge-claims.

This paper shows the procedure through which a practitioner-researcher can use multi-media data from practice to transform values into communicable and living standards of judgement. It goes on to show how the standards of originality of mind and critical judgement can be used to test the validity of his claims to know his educative influence in student learning.

This paper also answers the criticism (Noffke, 1997) that theories from self-study research seem incapable of addressing issues of power of privilege in society.

Inspiration for this break with my traditional, text-based presentations comes from a range of sources. One was Elliott Eisner's (1993) Presidential Address to AERA in 1993 where he called for and used a multi-media presentation of alternative forms of data representation in educational research. Another was Maura McIntyre’s and Ardra Cole's (2001) performance text at the Third International Conference of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices Special Interest Group of AERA. There was also the inspiration of seeing Marion Naidoo presenting a 'performance text' (Mills, pp. 132-135, 2000) on the care of Alzheimer's patients to a group of practitioner researchers at Bath.

Because this paper seeks to characterise contributions to educational knowledge in terms of 'living standards of judgement' I will begin by distinguishing between ‘spectator’ and ‘living truth’. To avoid the unnecessary repetition of 'educational' throughout the paper I am assuming it as a prefix when I use the words influence, judgement, values, knowledge and theory:

Burke, A.(1992, p.222).

The enquiries below include insights from the ‘spectator’ and ‘living’ truths of others. Some researchers may also find unusual my use of 'I' in scholarly discourse. However, I am hoping that first person research is now sufficiently well established in the Academy (Zeichner, 1999, McNiff, 2000a, Whitehead, 2000a) to require no further justification in terms of its legitimacy. I want to be careful here because of a difference I see between legitimacy and validity. Legitimacy in particular contexts appears to depend on the power relations that sustain procedures for defining what counts as knowledge. Legitimacy may only have weak connections with validity in the sense of a knowledge-claim that can be tested for validity using appropriate standards of judgement. So, in relation to legitimacy Galileo could be shown instruments of torture as if they were to be used to make him retract a belief he knew to be true. The belief that the earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun revolved around the earth continued to be legitimated by the Catholic Church when the belief lacked validity.

The fact that some beliefs are held to be legitimate through procedures sustained by particular power relations does not mean they are valid. Validity depends upon the capacity to test the beliefs with standards of judgement. Hence my interest in this paper of defining standards of judgement by clarifying the meanings of my embodied values as these meanings emerge through practice. I have chosen to focus on my values of originality of mind and critical judgement in relation to my educative influence because they have personal, professional and social significance. They are personally and professionally significant because they are at the centre of my view of education. For me to accept something as educational it must involve someone learning something of value in a way that has engaged their originality of mind and critical judgement. They are socially significant in the context of my work in the University of Bath because every Ph.D. thesis is assessed by examiners with these standards of judgement. The importance of such standards is that their meanings can be publicly shared and hence used to test the validity of claims to knowledge.

The process of clarifying the meanings of values and transforming them into standards of judgement, involves both ostensive and lexical definitions. In the ostensive definitions shown below, experiential meanings of embodied values are linked to the words originality of mind and critical judgement through pointing to the video-images which show the meanings emerging through practice. These ostensive definitions are supplemented by lexical definitions in which words are defined in terms in other words. It is claimed below that this process of clarification transforms the meanings of embodied values of originality of mind and critical judgement in relation to educative influence into communicable standards of judgement. I will show how these standards can be used to test the validity of a claim to know my educational influence in another researchers’ explanation for her ‘systems’ influence as she researches her practice as a Superintendent of Schools.

I first want to see if I can establish with you a shared understanding of standards of judgement. As educational standards are necessarily value-laden it is important to check the extent to which an inter-subjective agreement can be established about the meanings of embodied values and their use as standards of judgement. If standards are to be 'educational' it is important to understand that they too are living and open to change and transformation (Laidlaw, 1996).

I want to begin by showing you what I do in my educative relations and asking ‘what am I doing?’. This beginning relates to an epistemological principle in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl (1931). Like me, you may find Husserl expresses himself in complex language that is difficult to understand. However, because the following principle has profoundly influenced my own epistemology I want to acknowledge its significance.

Husserl (p. 12, 1931) says that in the transcendental sphere there is an infinitude of knowledge previous to all deduction, knowledge whose mediated connections of intentional implication have nothing to do with deduction. He says that this knowledge, being entirely intuitive proves refractory to 'every methodologically devised scheme of constructive symbolism.' By this I take him to mean that this knowledge requires accessing in ways that cannot fit within pre-defined or analytic category systems.

The influence of Husserl's original formulation can be seen in my own view that in what I am doing there is an infinitude of knowledge previous to all deduction. This knowledge is embodied in practice and is in what you can see me doing. Hence I want to begin with the following video-clip because it shows you what I am doing in supervising a Ph.D. researcher as I am asking, 'How can I help you to improve your learning?'. I will return to the clip below, together with a transcript from the video, in an analysis of my influence.

The context of this first video-clip and enquiry is my supervision of Jackie Delong's doctoral research. Jackie is a Superintendent of Schools in Ontario. She is researching her ‘system’s influence’ for her Ph.D. at the University of Bath and I am focusing on a Draft Abstract of her thesis.

VIDEO CLIP 1

There are numerous narratives I could construct using this video-clip because there is an infinitude of knowledge in what I can be seen to be doing. The narrative I am going to tell is linked to the fundamental purpose of my research, which is to contribute to educational theories that can explain the influence of professional educators with their students and explain their influence on the education of social formations. In doing this I need to establish communicable standards of judgement for testing the validity of such explanations.

It may be helpful at this point to include the following assumption I bring into my educational relationships. Robyn Pound (1996), another practitioner-research I have worked alongside, transcribed a conversation with me and says that it was helpful in encouraging her to give credit to her own voice. It contains the meanings I seek to communicate to everyone I work with as I support their enquiries:

One of the difficulties of communicating the meanings of embodied values in such educational relationships is connected to the limitation of words. Some meanings, especially those involving embodied values often need non-verbal forms of expression as well as words to be experienced, understood and communicated (Hocking, B., Haskell, J. & Linds, W., 2001). Hence the importance of JIME as a forum for sharing ideas that require multi-media forms of expression in the communication of meaning.

As I have said I am taking the context of the video to be my practice as a supervisor in which I am seeking to enable Jackie Delong, a practitioner-researcher, to submit a thesis that expresses her originality of mind and critical judgement. In Jackie’s research these standards of judgement are related in an enquiry that includes an explanation of her ‘system’s influence’ as a Superintendent of Schools. ‘System’s influence’ is in Jackie's professional practice and research as a standard of judgement. This influence was recognised in an award for her leadership in action research by the Ontario Educational Research Council in December 2000.

A focus in what I am doing on the video is a draft Abstract of her thesis. I am working to enhance the clarity of its communication of originality of mind and critical judgement in relation to ‘system’s influence’. I am also focusing on 'system's influence' because of a criticism made by Susan Noffke, about a limitation she perceived in the lack of capacity of theories generated from self-study to address:

By focusing on 'system's influence' in the context of social change I believe that the theories of practitioner-researchers can provide the evidence to show that Noffke is mistaken. I will address this point more fully in the fourth video-clip below when I engage with the power relations within my own workplace. I will use this analysis to point to future possibilities for researching the education of social formations. I am thinking of research into a new scholarship of educational enquiry that engages with political, economic and cultural influences in the education of social formations.

In the second video-clip below I give attention to the tension around the silence as I wait for Jackie's response to my criticism of the first draft of her abstract. My criticism was that I was unclear about the precise nature of her claims to originality of mind and critical judgement. Through my silence and in Jackie’s response I claim that we can share meanings of my values and standards of originality of mind and critical judgement in relation to ‘system’s influence’.

In the third video-clip I want to focus attention on the expression of pleasure (Foucault, p.89,1985) and humour (Bateson, p.124,1980) between us as we share our understandings of the 'improvements' in the second draft of her abstract. I also want to consider the possibility that pleasure and humour can be used as educational standards of judgement.

Finally I want to meet Noffke’s criticism about power relations and privilege by moving onto an analysis of a fourth video-clip that is focused on my engagement with the education of the social formation of the university. Here are the two drafts of the Abstract produced within 5 days of each other. I have placed them together so that you may get a clearer understanding of the differences between them in the clarity with which they express the precise nature of the claims to originality of mind and critical judgement in relation to ‘system’s influence’. On reading the first draft I could not see clearly the precise nature of the claims to originality of mind and critical judgement.

Here is the first video-clip again, and a transcript of the conversation. I want to focus on the additional meanings which the visual record can communicate about the nature of our embodied values that we are using as our educational standards of practice and judgement.

(Video-clip 1 on ‘systems influence’ ajwsys.mov)

I want to focus both on the embodied values in Jackie’s non-verbal expressions as well as her statements about her ‘system’s influence’.

I am thinking of the embodied values Jackie is expressing non-verbally when she is saying

i) if I can see a way of helping people or ideas or systems to connect I think it creates a more effective system to support student learning.

ii) when I see people who can carry something forward I try to pull all the supports behind them so that they can do that.

In her thesis Jackie writes about the importance for extending her system’s influence of supporting people who she believes have the talent, energy and commitment to improve student learning. To understand what Jackie is meaning by her value of pulling all the supports behind them it is necessary to experience the sustained commitment she expresses over time in the organisation of this support. This in turn rests on her passion to improve learning with students.

All I want to do with video-clip 1 is to make my point that multi-media forms of communication are significant for the definition and communication of the embodied values that help to constitute the unique individual ‘I’ of each of us in enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’. I will now go on to justify my claim that they can also help to transform values into communicable standards of judgement.

To emphasise the importance of this process I think the following point from Jackie’s second draft Abstract bears repeating:

In explaining my educational influence in relation to my values I want to be clear that I am not saying that I have educated my students. The only person I claim to have educated is myself. This distinction is important to me. I think that the influence of what I do, to be educative, must be mediated by the creativity and critical judgement of those who are learning with me. Because this is part of the way I understand education, I cannot claim to have educated someone else. I do however want to show below that my values are important in explanations of my influence in supporting student learning. I believe these explanations of my influence include my embodied values, as distinct from the values of others, in ways that are open to public tests of validity.

I now want to consider a second clip of a conversation with Jackie Delong. This shows her responding to my ‘critical’ judgements on the first draft abstract, above. As I have said above in relation to the first abstract I could not see clearly what she was defining in terms of her originality of mind and critical judgement. Do focus your attention on the non-verbal communications which you feel and see taking place. You may find it helpful to move the digital images rapidly backwards and forwards across the screen. Just be prepared for a period of silence at the beginning of the clip which marks Jackie's response to my 'critical' response to her first draft. As I wipe my brow I think you will vicariously experience my tension. Both of us live with the 'wait time', after my response. In my ‘wait time’ I am valuing and have faith in Jackie’s capacity to exercise her originality of mind and critical judgement in responding to my concerns. After the silence, Jackie then moves on with an acknowledgement, through her acceptance of the criticism and exercise of her imagination, of what needs improving in her abstract. As the second draft shows (above) this explicitly refers to, and more clearly communicates, the nature of her originality of mind and critical judgement in her thesis.

(Video-clip 2 of supervision session in which Jackie is responding to my own 'critical' response to her first abstract ajwjdabs.mov)

I now want to draw your attention to two qualities I think I bring into my supervision. Researchers I have supervised tell me that these have had a positive influence on their learning. They tell me that I communicate a live-affirming pleasure in both their knowledge-creating capacities and faith in the embodied knowledge they already possess. Here is a video-clip and still which shows me expressing my pleasure with Jackie's second abstract and Jackie expressing pleasure in my response in a way which carries, for both of us, this life-affirming energy. I don’t want to ignore the significance of humour. The pleasure is accompanied by humour. Jackie had heard me complementing another researcher on the wisdom of his practice and commenting that I hadn’t used this term with her. I think you will experience the pleasure and humour at this point in the video-clip. These qualities, when seen in relation to the tension involved in receiving and responding to criticism, we have agreed help to explain the sustaining and sustained relationships over the 6 year period of the Ph.D. research programme.

(Video-clip 3 of a supervision session at the end of a week working on the drafting and redrafting of the abstract for Jackie's Ph.D. Thesis ajwjdwis.mov)

I will now use multi-media to answer Noffke's (1997) criticism, that theories generated from self-studies do not seem capable of addressing issues of power and privilege in society. To answer this criticism I offer a self-study of my learning from experiences with a 1990 Working Party of the Senate of the University of Bath. This was established to investigate a claim from the Board of Studies of the School of Education that there was prima facie evidence of a breach of my academic freedom. This study is part of my research programme into the disciplinary foundations of a scholarship of educational enquiry (Whitehead, 1999, 2000b) and marks my move from solely text-based representations into multi-media.

The close connection to the first part of this paper, on values and living standards of judgement, is established through the idea of influencing the education of social formations through living values more fully in practice. If self-studies do not connect directly with the education of social formations then I believe Noffke’s criticism stands.

I am approaching my self-study through Mitchell’s and Weber’s (1999) notion of ‘theorising nostalgia’ and McIntyre’s and Cole’s (2001) concept of a ‘performance text’. The study includes an analysis of values of academic freedom, justice, power and privilege in the education of the social formation of my workplace. This education also includes my developing understanding of the influences of political economy in my workplace. The understanding develops as I engage with concepts of mythologising discourse, economic rationality, globalisation, communication, collective responsibility, collective intelligence and habitus in the work of Bernstein (2000), Danaher (2001), McTaggart (1992), Habermas (1976, 1987), Whitty (1997), Brown and Lauder (2001) and Bourdieu (1990).

Mitchell and Weber (1999) recognise that the term nostalgia can lead us into an arena laden with competing ideologies and perspectives. As they use it, nostalgia can be a liberating concept in the sense of a reinvention which uses what we know now to inform and critique what could have been. Much of what they explore involves a reclaiming of the past that acknowledges the fact that it is gone and can never be relived in the same way. Indeed, as they say, it may never have existed in exactly the way that we think it did. This does not mean that it is of no use, for memories can evoke a utopia towards which we can work. As they say, that's not how it was but how I would have wanted it to be, and how I want to make it for others:

Reinvention through self-study can be a powerful and highly effective means of self-transformation and a catalyst for professional growth. It can strengthen or weaken hidden bits of self, challenging us to incorporate certain ignored elements into our professional identity, or forcing us to wrap our imagination around a different image of ourselves in action. It can be wonderfully motivating in its ability to bring home a painful or a beautiful truth, and help us appreciate and even bring about our most meaningful moments as teachers. Studying ourselves does not always involve major change; sometimes it is just about revaluing what was already there and using it in new ways that are informed by both the personal and the social. (Mitchell and Weber, p. 232, 1999)

This is how I see myself revisiting and learning from the experiences of power relations in 1991 when I was invited to meet a Senate Working Party to discuss a matter of academic freedom (my own). It involves a combination of my nostalgic revisiting of my experience of the university working party with the idea of a performance text:

Whenever I seek to make my own contribution to educational knowledge (Whitehead, 1999, 2000b), I find myself remembering the history of the power relations and regimes of truth which have shaped the growth of my theory and knowledge. In the process of ‘legitimating’ my original ideas on the nature of educational theory and educational knowledge, I have been subjected to pressures which 'could have constrained a less determined individual'. These are not my words. They come from a report made to the Senate of the University of Bath in May1991 by a working party established by Senate to investigate evidence concerning a matter of my academic freedom.

Earlier in this presentation I included video-footage of my relationships with a practitioner-researcher which others have said shows something of the life-affirming energy and my passion for learning they experience with me. As I break with my traditional, text-based presentations in this submission to JIME, I now want to communicate the meanings of my response to the feelings of humiliation/defeat in the context of the Senate working party on a matter of academic freedom. I am thinking of a response which I characterise as the forceful assertion of scholarly values of freedom and justice. I am seeking to clarify the meanings of these values, in explanations for the education of the social formation of the university, in the course of their emergence from engagements with institutional power relations. In this way I am seeking to answer Noffke’s criticism by showing that it is possible for self-studies to engage with issues of power and privilege in the education of social formations.

I now ask you to accompany me into a performance text of a meeting with the four university colleagues who formed, in 1991, the Senate Working Party to investigate a matter of academic freedom in relation to my own work. The context was that the Board of Studies for Education had passed by one vote a recommendation to Senate that such an investigation should be carried out on the grounds that there was prima-facie evidence that my academic freedom had been breached.

A preliminary report had been produced which concluded that my academic freedom had not been breached. There was no mention in the draft report that I had been subjected to any pressure. Here is a video-taped reconstruction, with a transcript of the 56 second clip of my 'reliving' of my passionate response to this preliminary report. The clip, made in 2001, begins at the point where I am finishing a description of the context of my meeting with the Senate working party, to a group of practitioner-researchers that meets weekly in the Department of Education:

(Video-clip 4 of reconstruction of my response to the Working Party on

Academic Freedom ajwacfr.mov)

Transcript:

My meeting with the committee to discuss the draft was followed by an inclusion in the final report which referred to pressure:

This report was 'received' by Senate in May 1991.

At this point in my multi-media presentation I am drawing attention to the value of a visual medium and of 'theorising nostalgia' in understanding the education of social formations in facing the power relations that support the truth of power and the power of truth. For me, the education of social formations involves learning what it means for individuals to live their values in relation to the social formation more fully. It also means learning more about how to modify or transform the existing formation in order to support these living values more fully. By engaging with such power relations I think it is possible to meet Noffke's criticism and to show how living theories can engage with issues of power and privilege in society. The power relations I have in mind are those which Foucault (1980, p, 133) describes in terms of regimes of truth. He writes about the regimes of truth in terms of the power relations which influence the procedures which determine what counts as truth in specific contexts. The contexts I have in mind are the Western Academies within which power relations work to give higher status to propositional theories of professional knowledge, over the theories of practitioner-researchers generated from their self-studies. As an important aside, in relation to the education of the social formation of my University, I will mention that until 1991 research students were not permitted to question the competence of their examiners ‘under any circumstances’ once they had been appointed by Senate. In 1991 the regulation was changed to permit questions to be raised on the grounds of bias, prejudice and inadequate assessment. This are the kind of changes I am referring to when I write about the influence of self-studies in educating social formations.

Following Lomax (1997) I now want to take account of the way my enquiries engage in both an inter-subjective and intra-subjective dialectic. When she writes about representing action research she means more than finding a new way of presenting data. By ‘form of representation’ she means a dynamic way of presenting the meaning of one’s research that has two components: an inter-subjective dialectic and an intra-subjective dialectic.

She defines the intra-subjective dialectic as the process through which ones understanding is transformed as one engages in the struggle to represent what one means. This is the process I have been engaged in above. She defines the inter-subjective dialectic as an engagement with the imagined or actual responses of others where the very act of representing is an invitation to others to engage. Lomax uses the word dialectic, because its implied ‘openness’ to learning is accompanied by purposeful self knowledge that encourages argument rather than capitulation (Lomax, 1997).

In meeting Noffke’s criticism I think it is important to show such an inter-subjective engagement with the contributions of social theorists as I seek to enhance my understanding of the influence of my self-study on the education of a social formation.

In particular I want to explain how I am seeking to avoid the kind of mythologising discourse described by Bernstein (2000) by which he claims schools disconnect the hierarchy of success internal to the school from social class hierarchies external to the school. He says that this involves the trick of creating a mythological discourse and that this mythological discourse incorporates some of the political ideology and arrangement of the society:

By creating a fundamental identity, a discourse is created which generates what I shall call horizontal solidarities among their staff and students, irrespective of the political ideology and social arrangement of the society. The discourse which produces horizontal solidarities or attempts to produce such solidarities from this point of view I call a mythological discourse. This mythological discourse consists of two pairs of elements which, although having different functions, combine to reinforce each other. One pair celebrates and attempts to produce a united, integrated, apparently common national consciousness; the other pair work together to disconnect hierarchies within the school from a causal relation with social hierarchies outside the school." (p. xxiii)

What I am seeking to do is to show that my developing understanding of political economy in my self-study of my influence on the education of social formations, can engage with issues of power and privilege in society. I am thinking of forms of engagement that avoid the creation of a mythologising discourses while contributing to the education of social formations. I believe that the following ideas on globalisation, economic rationality, communication, decision making and collective intelligence are helping to develop these forms of engagement.

Danaher (2001) has articulated two varieties of globalisation in a way that clarifies my own understandings:

There are really two varieties of globalisation: élite globalisation and grassroots globalisation . The top-down globalisation is characterised by a constant drive to maximise profits for globe-spanning corporations. It forces countries to 'open up' their national economies to large corporations, reduce social services, privatise state functions, deregulate the economy, be 'efficient' and competitive, and submit everything and everyone to the rule of 'market forces'. Because markets move resources only in the direction of those with money, social inequality has reached grotesque levels….. But there is another kind of globalisation that centres on life values: protecting human rights and the environment. Grassroots globalisation comprises many large and growing movements: the fair trade movement, micro-enterprise lending networks, the movement for social and ecological labelling, sister cities and sister schools, citizen diplomacy, trade union solidarity across borders, worker owned co-ops, international family farm networks, and many others. (Danaher, p.25, 2001)

McTaggart (1992) explains how economic rationalism can lead to devaluation and demoralisation:

"Economic rationalism is not merely a term which suggests the primacy of economic values. It expresses commitment to those values in order to serve particular sets of interests ahead of others. Furthermore, it disguises that commitment in a discourse of ‘economic necessity’ defined by its economic models. We have moved beyond the reductionism which leads all questions to be discussed as if they were economic ones (de-valuation) to a situation where moral questions are denied completely (de-moralisation) in a cult of economic inevitability(as if greed had nothing to do with it)." (McTaggart, p. 50, 1992)

From Habermas (1977) I use ideas on the validity claims we make in reaching mutual understanding and, I would add to avoid mythologising discourses. That is, our communications should be comprehensible. We should provide evidence for our assertions. We should reveal the normative background of our communication and we should reveal our authenticity in interaction through time.

From Habermas’ (1987) view of the tasks of a critical theory I use the following point about the importance of focusing on learning at a given time:

"A theory developed in this way can no longer start by examining concrete ideals immanent in traditional forms of life. It must orient itself to the range of learning processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained level of learning. It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively ordering totalities, forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs as a whole." (Habermas, p. 383, 1987)

I also identify with Whitty’s (1997) analysis of quasi-markets in education with his call for collective responsibility:

"Part of the challenge must be to move away from atomized decision making to the reassertion of collective responsibility without re-creating the very bureaucratic systems whose shortcomings have helped to legitimate the current tendency to treat education as a private good rather than a public responsibility." (p. 37)

Where I differ from Whitty is in the belief that it is important not to move away from atomized decision making but to deepen and extend this decision making in the reassertion of collective responsibility. I am thinking of deepening an appreciation of individual decision making and responsibility in relation to one's own values, while at the same time working to strengthen forums for the development of collective responsibility.

I see the exercise of both individual and collective responsibility as being intimately linked to Brown and Lauder’s (2001) call for the development of collective intelligence:

" Collective intelligence can be defined as empowerment through the development and pooling of intelligence to attain common goals or resolve common problems….. the struggle for collective intelligence therefore involves more than a democratization of intelligence, it involves making a virtue of our mutual dependence and sociability which we will need to make a dominant feature of post-industrial society based on information, knowledge and lifelong learning". ( pp. 218-219)

In developing educational theories that include collective intelligence in explaining the education of social formations I am wondering about the validity of the claim that ‘No sophisticated theory of education can ignore its contribution to economic development’ (Halsey, Lauder, Brown & Wells, 1997, p. 156.). The theories in the living theory section of actionresearch.net acknowledge the influence of economic forces without engaging with their contribution to economic development. My present position is that it is possible to create sophisticated and valid theories of education that acknowledge the influence of economic development without engaging with the contribution of education or educational theory to that development. I also want to respond with the additional claim that no sophisticated theory of education can ignore the embodied knowledge in educational practice. In making this point I want to stress that I see fundamental differences in the logic and language between the ‘outsider’ researcher’s theories and those of ‘insider’ self-study researchers. I am making a distinction between philosophical, sociological, psychological, historical, economic, political and management theories, and educational theories that can explain the educational influence of educators with their students and can explain the education of social formations. I am thinking of the contributions to educational theory being made by professional educators as they engage in disciplined forms of self-study of their own professional learning (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998; Ghaye & Ghaye, 1998; McNiff, 2000b).

Working with Bourdieu’s (1990) ideas I live with the following tension between an insider practitioner-researcher, who integrates insights from 'outsider' social theorists into his 'insider' living theorising of the education of social formations:

"An agent who possesses a practical mastery, an art, whatever it may be, is capable of applying in his action the disposition which appears to him only in action, in the relationship with a situation (he can repeat the feint which strikes him as the only thing to do, as often as the situation requires). But he is no better placed to perceive what really governs his practice and to bring it to the order of discourse, than the observer, who has the advantage over him of being able to see the action from outside, as an object, and especially of being able to totalize the successive realizations of the habitus (without necessarily having the practical mastery that underlies these realizations or the adequate theory of this mastery). And there is every reason to think that as soon as he reflects on his practice, adopting a quasi-theoretical posture, the agent loses any chance of expressing the truth of his practice, and especially the truth of the practical relation to the practice." (Bourdieu, pp. 90-91, 1992).

When I see this word, 'totalize', used in the context of theory generation I pay attention to Habermas' point above, about avoiding such a tendency and about the importance of focusing on a range of learning processes:

Finally, I pay attention to Bourdieu’s insights that a conformity to objective demands, through the habitus has nothing to do with rules and conscious compliance with rules. On this point Bourdieu is critical of social science theories in analysing social formations:

"The objective adjustment between dispositions and structures ensures a conformity to objective demands and urgencies which has nothing to do with rules and conscious compliance with rules, and gives an appearance of finality which in no way implies conscious positing of the ends objectively attained. Thus, paradoxically, social science makes greatest use of the language of rules precisely in the cases where it is most totally inadequate, that is, in analysing social formations in which, because of the constancy of the objective conditions over time, rules have a particularly small part to play in the determination of practices, which is largely entrusted to the automatisms of the habitus."

(Bourdieu, p. 145; 1990)

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This paper is based on the assumption that the expression, definition and communication of living standards of practice and judgement, through multi-media communications, could hold the key to the development of a new epistemology in the new scholarship of educational enquiry (Schon, 1995). I am thinking of an epistemology that integrates the life-values of individuals and groups into the living standards of practice and judgement they use in both creating themselves, their social formations and their educational knowledge.

I have argued that a serious limitation of text-based presentations is that the meanings of embodied values and their inclusion in explanations of educative influence, tend to be eliminated in propositional forms of communication. JIME offers a forum that enables a critical and creative engagement with the visual records and explanations of what practitioner-researchers are doing in their own educational enquiries of the kind, 'How can I help you to improve your learning?' and 'How can we enhance our influence in the education of social formations?'. This multi-media forum offers a unique opportunity to reconstruct educational theory through the expression, definition and communication of a values-based approach to living standards of judgement. It also offers a public forum for testing claims to educational knowledge that can relate practitioner-research to both the education of individuals and the education of social formations.

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The original ideas in this paper were presented at AERA, Seattle, Session, Division D3, Session 44.09, Alternative Paradigms, Methods and Analysis in Qualitative Research in Education, 14^th April, 2001