Creating Educational Theories from Educational Enquiries of the kind, “How do I improve my educational influence?’ A response to Gorard and Nash.

Paper for submission to The Journal of Educational Enquiry

DRAFT 23 February 2005

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath

This paper seeks to clarify the nature of educational enquiry in relation to explanations of educational influence. A stipulative distinction is made between education research and educational research to argue that educational enquiries should be concerned primarily with the creation and testing of educational theories that can explain educational influences in the learning of oneself, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations. Drawing on an evidential base of 18 doctoral educational enquiries it will be argued that the logics and languages that structure education theories are too limited to be used as the grounding for forming explanations of educational influence. Attention is draw to evidence from these enquiries that shows how explanations of educational influence in self-studies of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’, in relation to educational influence, can overcome these limitations. In conclusion evidence from multi-media accounts of the growth of educational knowledge using a living inclusional logic of educational enquiry will be used to show how new values-based standards of educational judgement, that claim to be postcolonial values, can be validated and legitimated in the Academy.

The idea of educational influence

As much of the validity of what I am going to write rests on the idea of educational influence in learning I want to explain what I mean by educational influence with the help of Said’s writings. Drawing on the work of Valery, Said says that as a poet indebted to and friendly with Mallarme, Valery was compelled to assess originality and derivation in a way that said something about a relationship between two poets that could not be reduced to a simple formula. As the actual circumstances were rich, so too had to be the attitude. Here is an example from the “Letter About Mallarme”.

No word comes easier or oftener to the critic’s pen than the word influence, and no vaguer notion can be found among all the vague notions that compose the phantom armory of aesthetics. Yet there is nothing in the critical field that should be of greater philosophical interest or prove more rewarding to analysis than the progressive modification of one mind by the work of another. (Said, 1997, p. 15)

I agree about the significance of the word ‘influence’. Putting this together with educational in educational influence has the following meaning for me in relation to learning.

I am assuming that one of the characteristics of being human is that we learn. We learn from birth to death. What is of interest to me as an educational researcher are the educational theories that can explain the educational influence we have in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations. I see an educational influence as involving an intentional relationship. I am thinking of an intentional relationship that involves both originality of mind and critical judgement. I cannot claim to have educated anyone, apart perhaps for myself, in the determinate sense of an ‘if-then’ causal relationship. I am meaning in the sense that because I did something then the other person learnt something of value. For me to recognise an educational influence in the learning of another I need to see that the other has exercised some originality of mind and critical judgement in mediating between what I have done and what they have learnt. I think the significance of this point will become clearer as I draw on empirical evidence of educational influence from some 18 living educational theory doctoral theses that have been completed with my supervision over the past 10 years at the University of Bath.

The idea of living educational theory

Another idea that I use in my understanding of educational enquiry is that individuals can produce explanations for their educational influences in learning. I refer to these explanations, especially when they have emerged through some five years or more of a doctoral research programme, as living educational theories. You can check the evidence that such living educational theories have been accredited as valid in the Academy by going to the living theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net and accessing the living theory theses such as: How can I improve my practice as a superintendent of schools and create my own living educational theory? (Delong 2002). This idea of living educational theory is of course open to question, as are any of the fundamental assumptions in my educational enquiry.

I now want to distinguish between education research and educational research to make an argument about the way living educational theories can be generated and tested from educational enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’

Making a distinction between education research and educational research

I’ll begin this section by agreeing with Gorard’s conclusion that in thinking about educational theory:

“…as currently conceived, much theory writing is worse than useless. It is, like the notion of qualitative and quantitative paradigms, an obstacle to the development of theoretically appropriate mixed methods work.” (Gorard, 2004, p.1)

and agreeing with Nash that

“We can probably fundamentally agree that the defining activity of science is the investigation of events, processes and states of affairs in order to explain how they happen, operate, or come to be. But I believe that the second part of this statement, which is often neglected, requires as much attention as the first. Science is about getting to the bottom of things so that we have an explanation of how they work. For that reason, I prefer to talk about explanation rather than theory. And about how one can decide whether explanations are correct (or more or less correct) rather than whether theories are true or false. Above all, I think that explanation is a theoretical activity, science is a theoretical activity, and that the separation of science and theory can only lead to confusion.” (Nash, 2004, p.2)

“… it is not entirely clear that Gorard does, in fact, have a coherent concept of theory at all” (Nash, 2004, p. 4)

My introduction to a coherent concept of educational theory was with a group of philosophers of education, led by Richard Peters at the London Institute of Education for the Academic Diploma, between 1968-1970. This view of educational theory, known as the ‘disciplines’ approach, was based on the assumption that it was constituted by the disciplines of education, the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. Having accepted this view of educational theory, I then went on to complete the MA in the psychology of education in 1972. However, part way through this masters degree I rejected the above assumption which grounded this disciplines approach to educational theory. The rejection emerged as I conducted my dissertation enquiry into a preliminary investigation of the processes through which adolescents acquire scientific understanding (Whitehead, 1972). In the conduct of this educational enquiry I recognised a mistake in my belief in the disciplines approach to educational theory. My mistake in 1971 was articulated better than I could myself, in 1983, by Paul Hirst as he recognised his own mistake when he wrote that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:

"… in the context of immediate practical experience and will be co-terminous with everyday understanding. In particular, many of its operational principles, both explicit and implicit, will be of their nature generalisations from practical experience and have as their justification the results of individual activities and practices.

In many characterisations of educational theory, my own included, principles justified in this way have until recently been regarded as at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That now seems to me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I suggest, must of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that are necessarily inadequate."

(Hirst, 1983, p. 18)

In rejecting the assumption that educational theory was constituted by the above disciplines of education I do not want to be taken as saying that I do not value the contributions made to my own educational insights by theorists of education from the philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, economics, politics and management of education. My writings (http://www.actionresearch.net/writing.shtml ) acknowledge the value of such insights in my own learning. However, because of my earlier mistake I now make the following distinction between education and educational theories.

I see education theorists as producing theory from the above disciplines of education.

I see educational theorists as producing theory from a discipline of educational practice formed from learning in educational enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’

An analysis of my learning, in a 32 year research programme into this educational enquiry, demonstrates the possibility of creating such a discipline of educational enquiry from the explanations that individuals produce for their own learning in such educational enquiries (http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml ). To distinguish these explanations from those generated from education theories I call them ‘living educational theories’.

My choice of ‘living’ in living educational theories was influenced by the question that the Soviet Logician Evard Ilyenkov asked but couldn’t answer before he died, ‘If an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it.’ (Ilyenkov, 1977)

The significance of including ‘I’ as a living contradiction in explanations of educational influence in learning.

In living theory doctoral theses, individuals experience themselves as living contradictions in the sense that they experience a tension of holding together the values that constitute their humanity and the experience of their denial in practice. This stimulates their imagination in action plans that are intended to enable the values to be lived more fully in practice. If psychological and social conditions permit, the actions then flow in this direction, data is gathered to make a judgement about effectiveness, evaluations about effectiveness are made, concerns, ideas and actions are modified in the light of the evaluations and accounts of learning are shared and evaluated for the validity of the explanations of educational influence in one’s own learning, the learning of others and in the education of social formations.

There are significant logical differences between the languages of education theorists and living educational theorists. Education theories have traditionally conformed to the Aristotelean Law of Contradiction in which mutually exclusive statements cannot both be true together. Popper (1963) used two laws of inference to demonstrate that any theory that contains such a contradiction must be entirely useless as a theory. Education theories avoid such contradictions. Following this law means that no theory can be accepted as valid if it contains such a contradiction.

In educational theories, ‘I’ exists as a living contradiction. A living educational theory is an explanation of a life-trajectory of learning that contains ‘I’ as a living contradiction. For example, in education theory the two statements I am free/I am not free cannot be allowed to exist as simultaneously true and must be eliminated from a theory that is valid. In living educational theory the experience of ‘I am free/I am not free’ and one’s responses to such contradictions are seen to hold vital and valid explanatory power in the theory.

Given that the logic which eliminates contradictions between statements in education theory rejects the validity of living educational theories, with their ground in living contradictions, no living educational theories can be included as valid within education theories. They have to be excluded on logical grounds. Living educational theories however, show that they include insights from education theories and acknowledge their educational influence in the learning of individuals. By making this distinction between education theories and educational theories I think much conflict between so called incommensurable paradigms dissolves as could Gorard’s legimate anxiety about the three abuses of theory that he distinguishes as getting in the way of mixed-methods education research. I am thinking here of the theory of incommensurate qualitative and quantitative paradigms, the needless deification of past theorists, and the insistence by peer-reviewers on an explicit theoretical framework for all empirical work. (Gorard, 2004b)

I agree with Gorard that for the present we could do worse than adopt a position of being ontologically largely realist (there must be something for us to research), epistemologically somewhat relativist (trying to make sense of and unify different perspectives), and methodologically fairly pragmatic (using whatever methods it takes to get the job done) (Gorard, 2004a, p.6)

However, I do differ from Gorard in seeing the value of being able to use three different kinds of logics, propositional, dialectical and inclusional, in the generation and testing of educational theories as distinct from the one logic that is used in education theory as defining ‘reason itself’.

“Rather than specifying in advance the conditions under which a theory would be deemed to be false (however, unlikely that might appear in prospect), adherents of theories often defend their position in advance by arguing against logic itself….. this is a theory that can be defended against contrary evidence because it rejects the very notion of logic on which contradiction is based by conflating reasonable doubts about certainty in social science with doubts about reason itself” (Gorard, 2004a, p.7)

In this paper I am making my argument using both propositional and dialectical logics to explain why education theorists must eliminate living educational theories from their theories, while living educational theories can include insights from education theories within their dialectical explanations of educational influences in learning. In the final part of the paper I will explain how a living inclusional logic can be used in the creation and testing of living educational theories through multi-media accounts of educational enquiries.

For an education theorist such as Gorard:

“… theory is a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predications about natural phenomena.” (p.8)

This appears to conform to the view of theory in the philosophy of education(al) research of Pring:

" 'Theory' would seem to have the following features. It refers to a set of propositions which are stated with sufficient generality yet precision that they explain the behaviour of a range of phenomena and predict which would happen in the future. An understanding of these propositions includes an understanding of what would refute them." (Pring, pp. 124-125).

For me a living educational theory is an explanation of an individual’s educational influence in their own learning, in the learning of another and in the education of a social formation. Living educational theorists have demonstrated how they use mixed methods in the generation of their theories. Finnegan (2000) in his doctoral educational enquiry, ‘How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations as an action researcher and as a teacher?’ http://www.actionresearch.net/fin.shtml

explicitly draws on qualitative and quantitative research methods in the generation and testing of his own educational theory. Church uses a range of qualitative research methods in the generation of her living theory of her educational influence in the generation of her own identity in her doctoral enquiry, Creating an uncompromised place to belong: why do I find myself in networks? (Church, 2004) http://www.actionresearch.net/church.shtml

What I am suggesting is that the distinction I have outlined, between education theory and educational theory, might dissolve the apparent conflicts in the Gorard-Nash debate. My own focus on explanations has involved accepting Nash’s point about the significance of focusing on explanations in moving on our understandings of the nature of educational enquiry. I also accept Gorard’s points about ontology, epistemology and methodology. These provide a focus for my enquiry into the nature of educational enquiry and the creation of a discipline of educational enquiry. It may be that my own doctorate, How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry (Whitehead, 1999) http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml could be seen as already grounded in these insights and could be helpful in moving this understanding forward. Other doctorates, such as:

Cunningham, B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living educational theory. http://www.actionresearch.net/ben.shtml

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shtml

show in their titles the emphasis on the generation of living educational theories. To be legitimated in the Academy examiners have had to recommend the acceptance of these theses on the grounds of their originality of mind and critical judgement, as well as their extent and merit and their matter worthy of publication.

I have given stipulative definitions to distinguish between education theory and educational theory in order to explain how educational theory and educational enquiry can be reconceptualised. I have directed your attention to the evidence of an educational knowledge-base flowing through web-space http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml . In this knowledge-base, living educational theories are not grounded in lexical definitions, where words are defined in terms of other words. These educational theories are grounded in the experience of living contradictions where words express explanations of educational influence in learning. The explanatory principles are embodied values that have been transformed into communicable standards of judgement in the process of their emergence and clarification in the practice of enquiry. In this process lexical definitions are useful but need to be supplemented by ostensive definitions in the communication of meaning. I will explain below how such ostensive definitions of standards of judgement can be generated with the help of video-clips in visual narratives that can be accessed through e-media. In any educational research that claims to be offering an explanation of educational influence, it is of epistemological significance to be clear about the standards of judgement that are appropriate for testing the validity of the claim.

In the next section I introduce the idea of inclusionality and draw your attention to the evidence which shows how living standards of judgement are being clarified in the course of their emergence in the practice of inclusional educational enquiries. I will also explain how they can be used to test the validity of explanations of educational influence in one’s own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations.

Living standards of judgement in inclusional educational enquiries.

Inclusionality (Rayner, 2004) in educational research is a newly emerging awareness of educational influences in the evolutionary relationships between physical space and boundaries. Inclusionality is a form of awareness of space and boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative. It has educational implications for understanding how human beings relate with one another and their environmental living space as distinct but necessarily interdependent identities. Explicating the meanings of inclusional, living standards of judgement in educational enquiries is in an embryonic phase of development. However, some progress has been made in the accounts of learning in recent doctoral submissions (Hartog, 2004; Church, 2004; Lohr, 2004) to the University of Bath. Some progress has also been made in accounts of learning emerging from China’s Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching (http://www.actionresearch.net/moira.shtml )

Communicating the meanings of inclusionality in living standards of judgement rests on ostensive definitions of meaning with visual narratives. A change in the University of Bath regulations during 2004 allowed the submission of multi-media accounts on e-media. Mary Hartog’s thesis ‘A self study of a higher education tutor: how can I improve my practice?’ was the first thesis, under the new regulations, to submit a visual narrative and analysis of educational relationships. The explanation of learning connects, in the visual narrative, ostensive definitions of loving and life-affirming educative relations with lexical definitions:

Evidence is drawn from life-story work, narrative accounting, student assignments, audio and video taped sessions of teaching and learning situations, the latter of which include edited CD-R files. These clips offer a glimpse of my embodied claims to know what the creation of loving and life-affirming educative relations involves. (Hartog, 2004, http://www.actionresearch.net/hartog.shtml )

Madeline Church (2004) in her doctoral enquiry, ‘Creating an uncompromised place to belong: why do I find myself in networks?’ has successfully defended her thesis, in her viva-voce examination, which included the following claims to know:

I show how my approach to this work is rooted in the values of compassion, love, and fairness, and inspired by art. I hold myself to account in relation to these values, as living standards by which I judge myself and my action in the world. This finds expression in research that helps us to design more appropriate criteria for the evaluation of international social change networks. Through this process I inquire with others into the nature of networks, and their potential for supporting us in lightly-held communities which liberate us to be dynamic, diverse and creative individuals working together for common purpose (Church, 2004, http://www.actionresearch.net/church.shtml )

Eleanor Lohr’s (2004) prologue to her doctoral enquiry, ‘Love at Work’ presents a visual narrative and analysis of her inclusional value of loving. In the thesis submitted for examination, Lohr makes the claim:

In this thesis I represent the meanings of love as I experience love at work in my life.   By writing, I learn how to craft the words to express that knowledge.  By seeing the visual images, I begin to understand the power of loving presence.  By listening to the reverberations of my body, I bring critical judgement into my action and articulate this judgement as living epistemological standards of love.  These loving standards enable me to judge the value of my practice, and to be better accountable for what I do. (Lohr, 2004, http://www.jackwhitehead.com/elFront%202.htm )

The experience and expression of a loving, life-affirming energy is an inclusional standard of judgement. Because it is also used as an explanatory principle in accounts of learning it is important, as a knowledge-claim, for its validity to be open to question.

Testing the validity of explanations that use inclusional standards of judgement

In October 2004 I became a visiting professor at Guyuan Teachers College in China. The College hosts China’s Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching. Moira Laidlaw, a VSO Volunteer for the past four years at the College and Adviser to the Centre, teaches English Methodology to Chinese student educators. The video clip below was made, during this visit, at the end of a class and is included to communicate the meaning of an inclusional value of loving, life-affirming energy.

The following still images provide some sense of the classroom context.

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/moira151004/moira151004.html

The following 9 MB video clip will take several minutes to download using Broadband (10 minutes on my system) and opens in Quicktime.

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/mlendSorenson.mov

As with any standard of judgement its validity and legitimacy in a social context rests on intersubjective agreement. The validity and legitimacy of inclusional standards of educational judgement require such agreement. Laidlaw and I are agreed that as we watch the clip we experience Laidlaw expressing a loving flow of life-affirming energy in the channels of space and dynamic boundaries of the educational relationships with her students. One of the tests of the social validity of our use of such an inclusional standard of judgement, in the growth of educational knowedge, rests on your response. Do our shared meanings resonate with your own? Can the uniqueness of our individual intuitive responses to the video-clip, be communicated as shared meanings in a shared language? If the responses and our use of language for communicating meaning are not shared, this raises questions about the social validity of the inclusional educational standards of judgement we are using. Such questions about the validity of claims to be contributing to educational knowledge can be raised and debated in forums such as this Journal.

For example, in my account of the growth of my educational knowledge 1973-1993 (Whitehead, 1993, http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/geki.htm ) I analysed my existence and learning as a living contradiction as I encountered the disciplinary power of the university in relation to my employment, knowledge-creation, activities and writings. In my most ambitious multi-media publication (Whitehead 2004) I developed a ‘performance text’ to show how an individual’s explanation of educational influence in the education of a social formation could be represented. All I wish to do here is to direct your attention to my evidentially-based claim to educational knowledge about the significance of multi-media representations in educational enquiries in explaining educational influences in learning.

Do action researchers' expeditions carry hope for the future of humanity? How do we know? An enquiry into reconstructing educational theory and educating social formations. This is a multi-media account of the growth of educational knowledge in Action Research Expeditions on (Whitehead, 2004 http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=80 )

"How Valid Are Multi-Media Communications Of My Embodied Values In Living Theories And Standards Of Educational Judgement And Practice?"

http://www.actionresearch.net/multimedia/jimenomov/JIMEW98.html

Here is the extract from the account which takes you directly into the video-clip which is an integral part of the performance text:

“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. I had been invited to discuss the draft report with the working party. 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 at the University (http://www.actionresearch.net/monday.shtml ). The clip begins with my reconstruction from the feeling of defeat as I started to walk from the room.

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

Academic Freedom http://www.actionresearch.net/multimedia/jimenomov/ajwacf.mov

Transcript:

Because I turned to walk from the room and here I paused and then I turned and I said:

"If you allow that report to be made public you are denying some of the fundamental values of what it means to be a scholar and an academic. If you don't recognise the pressure to which I've been subjected in this institution since I came here in relation to my research, you are opening the doors for other abuses in relation to this institution. Now, that is all I have got to say to you but if you permit that report to go to Senate in that form you are denying the fundamental responsibilities of being an academic."

Right, and then I went.

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

"The Working Party did not find that, in any of Mr. Whitehead’s seven instances, his academic freedom had actually been breached. This was, however, because of Mr. Whitehead’s persistence in the face of pressure; a less determined individual might well have been discouraged and therefore constrained."

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

I am connecting this last point about persistence in the face of power relations that influence what counts as educational knowledge in the Academy, to my explanation of the educational influence of my educational enquiry in the education of a social formations. As an example of what I mean by the education of a social formation I usually give a change in the regulations that govern the social order of the University. The change occurred in 1991. Until 1991 the regulations were interpreted as meaning that no questions could be raised about the examiners’ judgements of research degrees under any circumstances. I imagine that I don’t have to convince the readers of this journal that such a regulation, about not being permitted to question judgements, violates academic freedom. In 1991 the regulation was changed to permit questioning on the grounds of bias, prejudice and inadequate assessment. I see such a change as embodying a value of humanity more fully within the regulations of the social formation. This is what I mean by influencing the education of a social formation.

In conclusion I want to focus on the inclusion of postcolonial values in explanations of educational influence in the education of social formations through educational enquiry.

I am associating postcolonial values as those that carry hope for the future of humanity. Hence my interest in educational enquiries that are focused on living more fully postcolonial values in the education of social formations. As an example of such educational enquiries I draw your attention to Sussex University’s enquiries into

Translating Diversity Policy into Practice. Responsibilities and Opportunities for Transforming Our Living Practices of Inclusion in British Higher Education of 10 March, 2005 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/equalities/1-5-5-3.html with the following information about Paulus-Yaqub Murray:

Paulus-Yaqub Murray is a Progressive Muslim and "Mixed-Race" educator, researcher and Diversity advisor at the Royal Agricultural College, UK. His teaching and research interests include organization studies, postcolonial theorising, and critical pedagogy. In his PhD thesis he is accounting for his contribution to British  higher education over an eighteen year period in the form of a living educational theory that shows how the boundaries between disciplines, spectator theories of 'mixed-race' identity, and a living theory of  'Mixed-Race' educational identity can be performative, permeable, inclusional and transformational. 

Institutionally, he is working in collaboration with a diversity team to develop action plans for culture change to include academic staff training for race awareness, the implications of race legislation for higher education practices, and he has embraced the challenge of engaging the imaginations of white colleagues to explore the notion of whiteness for its explanatory force in exploring  institutional conservatism concerning race and equality in British higher education. By visiting the web space

http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm

you can find out more about his educational life project as a practice of Diversity.

In addition to this information I think the following communication grounds the dialogic and dialectical nature of our lives as educational enquirers:

"In preparing for the Sussex University Diversity Week, Jack and Paulus would appreciate a dialogue of question and answer in which we are encouraged to explore and account for what we believe is important for us to convey, and be open to sharing with participants on the 10th March in respect of translating diversity policy into practice as a living form of diversity & inclusion in british higher education. If we could be asked questions from the grounds of your own living subjective experiences of diversity and inclusion (or the lack of those qualities of existence) in the University system in the UK we might better be able to identify, discipline and focus what we have to offer Sussex university's impetus & desire to 'transform' itself from being a 'white campus'. For our part we would like to suggest the project we have been conducting since 2000 in identity, 'race' and 'post-race' as white and mixed-race' colleagues in British HE could act as a filip for the kind of living research among HE academics that could stimulate critical and compassionate enquiry into what would count as evidence of a livingtheory & practice of diversity? Many thanks!" (Murray e-mail, 21/02/05, http://www.actionresearch.net/monday/mon210205.htm )

I want to finish with this invitation to dialogue to stress the importance for educational enquiry of being open to the possibilities that life itself permits. For me, a distinguishing characteristic of educational enquiries is that they carry hope for the future, through their openness to these possibilities. It may be that a future issue of this journal will include an analysis of an educational enquiry into learning to live more fully postcolonial values in the social formation of higher education institutions. I am thinking of an analysis that is connected to the above invitation.

I have suggested that much current debate about conflicts between different views of theory in education, could be dissolved through a clear distinction between education and educational theories and with the development of inclusional, living standards of judgement in living educational theories. In presenting the evidence from living educational theory accounts of learning to live values more fully, I am claiming that the generation and testing of these theories, from the educational enquirers listed above, carry hope for the future of humanity. This was one of the points made about educational theory by Kilpatrick (1951) when he said in the first issue of Educational Theory that it was a form of dialogue that carried profound implications for the future of humanity. It is this hope that continues to fuel my desire to contribute to and to understand the nature of the educational theories that can explain educational influences and that are being created and tested through educational enquiry. No one is doing more to extend the influence of such educational theories than Jean McNiff and I will leave you with the educational enquiries she is developing with others in South Africa.

How do we develop a twenty-first Century knowledge base for the teaching profession in South Africa? How do we communicate our passion for learning? McNiff (2003).

References (Incomplete)

Gorard, S. (2004a) Sceptical or clerical? Theory as a barrier to the combination of research methods. Journal of Educational Enquiry, Vol. 5, No1, pp. 1-21

Gorard, S. (2004b) three abuses of ‘theory’: an engagement with Roy Nash. Journal of Educational Enquiry, Vol. 5, No. 2.

Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines. London;RKP

McNiff, J. (2003) How do we develop a twenty-first Century knowledge base for the teaching profession in South Africa? How do we communicate our passion for learning? A paper presented at an invitational seminar, The University of Stellenbosch, November 10th, 2003. Retrieved on the 23 February 2004 from http://www.jeanmcniff.com/21.php

Nash, R. (2004) Science as a theoretical practice: a response to Gorard from a sceptical cleric. Journal of Educational Enquiry, Vol. 5, No.2, 2004.

Pring, R. (2000) Philosophy of Educational Research. London; Continuum, 2000

Said, E. W. (1997) Beginnings: Intention and Method. p. 15. London ; Granta.