that the advocate of common sense deploys against EER can justifiably be directed with even more force at the deliverances of this form of common sense. To see this, consider a famous quotation from Keynes concerning the ‘common sense’ of businessmen:
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. (Keynes 1936, p. 383)
Quite independently, Gramsci had developed a similar account of how beliefs developed in ‘high culture’ or within science or systematic enquiry come to be distilled and often distorted into a form of folk belief. Like Keynes, he thought that far from being a sure guide to action, such beliefs were often irrational. Thus he writes of common sense that
its most fundamental characteristic is that it is a conception which, even in the brain of one individual, is fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential, in conformity with the social and cultural position of the masses whose philosophy it is. (Gramsci 1971, p. 419)
The thought of both Gramsci and Keynes is that there is a sedimentation of ideas based on philosophical, theoretical or scientific thinking. These ideas or theories may be true or false. But as they are sedimented in the circles of the non-philosophical, non-theoretical or non-scientific they become fragmented and lose coherence. Their influence is often uneven. Thus if they are congruent with the prejudices (in Burke’s sense) of a particular group, they can become underpinnings for those very prejudices and any critical appraisal of the evidence or presuppositions on which they are based is not even regarded as an option.
How are these considerations relevant to the EER sceptic? One version of the EER sceptic prides himself on the primacy of common sense and the irrelevance of EER. But he cannot deny that the practice of EER takes place and that its results are disseminated and often influential. The provenance of beliefs that may have had an origin in EER are often dimly, if at all, understood. The history of EER over the last century is full of examples of the assumptions and results of EER which have contributed to popular and professional belief about educational potential and achievement: IQ theory, developmental theories, verbal deficit theories and psycholinguistic accounts of how children learn to read and write – to name but a few of the more prominent of these.
Thus, EER has a powerful (and often malign) effect on educational practice through a dysfunctional mode of dissemination into the profession. Craft theories of teaching (Winch, C. 2017) are particularly susceptible as they rely so heavily on an uncritical and untheorised conception of common sense which fails to separate out the various elements described above.
The conclusion of this part of the discussion is that the advocate of EER scepticism has completely undermined the ground on which he stands by failing to take account of the fact that even if EER is ignored and dismissed as irrelevant it often re-appears in the often incoherent but strongly held views of teachers. The result of this is that ‘craft knowledge’ ends up having a profound and undesirable effect on educational practice through being a distorted and partial version of a theory which may well not have been true in the first place.
Education Is Value-laden and Hence Cannot Be Studied Empirically in a Value-neutral Form
The final objection to EER relates to the fact (acknowledged and emphasised in this book) that educational practices are concerned with the expression and transmission of values considered to be desirable for educatees by educators. One may ask why this self-evident fact should pose a problem for the very possibility of EER (Clark 2011) as is sometimes claimed. Upon examination, it appears that there is a clear distinction to be made between a social phenomenon and value-laden practices: ‘As we have seen education is a good. Social phenomena are not… Second “education” being value-laden does not denote a range of empirical phenomena which is its proper domain as “social science” does’ (Clark 2011, p. 50). Consequently, according to Clark, educational practices cannot be studied as social phenomena. If this is so, then EER is clearly impossible, since it is the very attempt to do just that. However, the only plausible way in which one could arrive at such a conclusion would be if one held that social phenomena are by definition value-free. But only some conceptions of social science would be committed to such a view, notably those within the behaviourist tradition, or perhaps a form of hermeneutics that sees values excited within the imagination of the researcher in rather the same way as Hume envisaged ethical and aesthetic judgment to arise (see for example Hume [1757] (2008)). This is a way of conceptualising social phenomena which is rejected in this study, and there is little evidence that Clark himself subscribes to it either. By their nature, educational practices are value-laden. They are also phenomena in the world, albeit not ‘raw’ physical phenomena. An educational researcher may not identify with the values that are expressed in an educational practice, but s/he is entititled to explore what values are expressed in a practice whether or not s/he agrees with them.18
Needless to say, there are preconditions for any successful investigation of educational practices if one wishes to understand them. These are not always easy to obtain. First, the researcher has to recognise that what he regards as a good may not be by the participants in the researched practice. He cannot judge the value of the practice by his own standards if doing so entails that he rejects its character as an educational practice. Second, he will need, if this is the case, to have the patience and imaginative sympathy to try and understand what the values expressed and goods aimed for in such practices actually are, and how they relate to other values held within the society.19 Third, he will need to be able to look back on his own values and to see if what he has learned about the practice being studied tells him something about himself, the values that he espouses and the practices and the society in which he originates. This last requirement might seem strange. However, a researcher who is unable to develop in this way is one who is also unlikely to develop the sense of detachment and imaginative sympathy required by the first two conditions. In particular, such a researcher will lack the ability to make crucial connections between the attitudes and practices of his own society and that of the society or practices that he is trying to understand. None of these desiderata can be assumed to be easy to achieve. Nevertheless they are essential to successful EER.
CONCLUSION
We have looked at six different ways in which the value of EER can be called into question.
It is inadequately conceptualised.
1 It uses inappropriate methods and flawed explanations.
2 It has difficulties generalising beyond particular contexts and in establishing the continuing identity of particular phenomena.
3 Most of the findings of EER are false.
4 Common sense can do just as good, if not better a job than EER.
5 EER is irrelevant to value-laden practices such as education.
We have seen that although 1–4 are often true of EER, they do not constitute sufficient grounds for abandoning it. The incoherence of objection 5 shows that we need more than ever to ensure that EER is of good quality. 6. depends for its plausibility on the view that one cannot systematically research value-laden practices, a view which is highly implausible.
Notes
1 1 E.g. Barrow 1976; Carr, W. 2006.
2 2 Clark’s arguments are somewhat different and will be dealt with later in this chapter.
