Educational Explanations. Christopher Winch

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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.

      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

      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

      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.


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