Educational Explanations. Christopher Winch
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research. It is fair to say that the importance of educational research is growing, alongside the debates about its value. The questions that it raises, however, are complex and not fully understood either within the world of educational research itself or within the communities that commission, evaluate and use it.
In Teachers’ Know-How (Winch, C. 2017), I argued for a preferred conception of teachers as those who, among other things, bring to bear the fruits of the systematic study of education and educational practices on their own work. This systematic study includes but is not exhausted by empirical research in the sense described above. It is now time to further substantiate that claim by showing whether and how such research can positively inform teachers’ work. Within philosophy of education this is a problematic claim. The dominant conception of the teacher within the discipline is that of a craftworker whose primary assets are experience, intuition, commonsense, situational judgement and subject knowledge (e.g. Carr, D. 1999; Carr, W. 2004, 2005, 2006; Dunne 1993; Barrow 1984 for representative examples). On the other hand, there are also commentators who take a more positive view of the deliverances of educational research (e.g. Pring 2015). Like Pring I take the view that substantial philosophical work has to be done in order to intelligibly formulate questions amenable to EER. It follows therefore that in order to make out a case for the potential usefulness of such research, philosophical clarity about its possibility, scope and limits needs to be achieved. This is one of the main objectives of this volume, mainly concerned with question (1). Empirical educational research is enormously varied and, in order to answer (2) we will need to consider a variety of styles of EER in order to arrive at a balanced picture of its value and limitations for the work of teachers and educators more generally. This latter objective will be achieved in no small measure by examination of a series of case studies, which will occupy Chapters 9–12.
Before we arrive at that point however, some substantial philosophical issues, located broadly within the philosophy of the applied social sciences, will need to be addressed. These issues can be summarised as follows:
(i) Does it make sense to talk of an educational reality?
(ii) Does it make sense to talk of educational truth and falsity?
(iii) If there are such things as educational truths, is it possible for us to know them?
(iv) If we can know them, can they be used in educational practices such as teaching?
The first claim needs to be answered before the second can, the second before the third and the third before the fourth. Failure at any point in the chain of justification will jeopardise the overall claim of the book.
A STRATEGY FOR ADDRESSING THE CLAIMS
In Chapter 2, we will address the most fundamental issues at stake in the enterprise, namely whether it makes sense to talk of educational reality and the closely associated question as to whether there are truths about educational practices and whether we can know them? In order to get clearer about what is at stake, it is helpful to distinguish between perception-independent reality and conception-dependent reality (e.g. McNaughton 1988). We presuppose a world which continues whether or not we are aware of it and indeed whether or not we have the sensory or cognitive ability to be aware of or to understand it.2 Even if our ‘knowing our way around’ in such a world makes certain aspects of it rather than others salient to us as human beings with particular interests, needs and abilities, that does not alter the independence of that world from us in most, if not all, respects.3
As creatures with conceptual cognitive equipment (e.g. the ability to make judgements – Geach 1957), we relate to the world through our conceptual as well as our sensory abilities. However, some features of our world cannot intelligibly be considered except as in some sense products of our conceptual abilities. These include the practices, customs and institutions of our societies. Were we not to conceive of these in certain ways (i.e. to have practices of judgement and action associated with them), it would not make sense to say that there were such practices, customs and institutions. They constitute a social reality which is conception dependent. This social reality is the one that we make for ourselves through our practices of judgement within which we employ the concepts that constitute our understanding of our world. Naturally, we also see the non-social world conceptually as well and it is intimately related to our social world. However, while it might exist without us, our social reality is constituted by our conceptual abilities exercised in everyday social practices.
SOME BASIC IDEAS ABOUT EDUCATION
All human societies need to renew themselves. Bringing up the young and preparing them for adult life is a fundamental practice everywhere, however it is done. In this book, this practice is what will be called ‘education’ in its broadest sense. There is not much else that one can say about education in this categorial sense, but it is important.4 Education is concerned with learning: both knowledge of the propositional and acquaintance kinds and various kinds of know-how. It also aims to prepare young people for something worthwhile, either from the point of view of themselves, their parents or their community.5 We should merely note at this point that what a community sees as worthwhile for that community may not be seen as worthwhile from the point of view of the parents or young people. We could also add that what is seen as worthwhile by the state (if one exists within such a society) is not necessarily seen as such by the community, the parents or young people. We will often return to this point.
CATEGORIAL CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS
So much for the categorial conception which has minimal although significant content. As to education in any particular society or community we can, however, say much more. Education is intimately connected with the society in which it takes place. This cannot be otherwise, since education is primarily concerned with preparing young people for life in that society and must reflect its main features, concerns and priorities. We can add that in societies with any significant degree of complexity, there will be different kinds of preparations for different kinds of roles within that society. Societies with gradations of social class, caste, division of labour, religion, regional variation, will tend to differentiate education according to preparation for living within (and occasionally between) these gradations. The education offered to young people within these different gradations of society will also differ, often to a quite striking degree. One only has to look at Plato’s Republic and Laws (Plato 1950, 2016) to note the radically different education proposed for future citizens and workers or helots, for whom a form of industrial training was deemed appropriate.
If this is true for any particular society, then the differences between educational aims and practices in different societies are also likely to be very great. The question arises then as to whether we have any useful overarching concepts that can at least allow us the beginnings of a conceptual framework for thinking about, comparing and studying the vast variety of educational practices that exist in the world. A tentative answer to this question is ‘yes’, that there is such a categorial framework available if we use it with care.
We have already mentioned the constraints of human biology which guarantee the existence of educational practices in any society. But we can add more. Any society has non-negotiable conceptions of the good and the worthwhile which it regards as non-negotiable because constitutive of what a worthwhile life is in that society.6 These are its values. And, given these values and the exigencies of life in that society, concerned with making a living and getting one with one’s fellow humans, the aims of education would normally be expected to reflect these values and exigencies. It is important to note that such aims may be implicit rather than explicit, more often than not, the former. They may also be variegated, some applying to one group within the society rather than another, while others apply to other groups. Aims of education are nothing more than the