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Positivist Dogmas, Rhetoric, and the Education Science Question

KENNETH R. HOWE is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, School of Education 0249, Boulder, CO 80309–0249; Ken.Howe{at}Colorado.edu. His research focuses on education policy, professional ethics, and philosophical issues in education research.

Explicit versions of positivism were cast off some time ago in philosophy, but a tacit form continues to thrive in education research, exemplified by the "new scientific orthodoxy" codified in the National Research Council’s Scientific Research in Education (2002) and reinforced in the American Educational Research Association’s Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications (2006). The author rehearses previous critiques of positivist "dogmas" in education research and applies them to the new orthodoxy. Then, borrowing from the emergent field of the "rhetoric of science," he explores how pursuit of the education science question has nourished a positivist conception of education research. He concludes by suggesting that the education science question should be reframed and briefly suggests how.

Key Words: philosophy • politics • research methodology

Educational Researcher, Vol. 38, No. 6, 428-440 (2009)
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X09342003


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