Freedom Research in Education

186 Pages·2018·1.533 MB·English

by  Karen McArdle

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS
Karen McArdle
FREEDOM
RESEARCH IN
EDUCATION
Becoming an Autonomous
Researcher
Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods
Series Editors
Patrick Danaher
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Fred Dervin
The University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Caroline Dyer
School of Politics and International Studies
University of Leeds
Leeds, UK
Máirín Kenny
Wexford, Ireland
Bobby Harreveld
School of Education and the Arts
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton, QLD, Australia
Michael Singh
Centre for Educational Research
Western Sydney University
Penrith, NSW, Australia
This series explores contemporary manifestations of the fundamental
paradox that lies at the heart of education: that education contributes to
the creation of economic and social divisions and the perpetuation of
sociocultural marginalisation, while also providing opportunities for
individual empowerment and social transformation. In exploring this
paradox, the series investigates potential alternatives to current educa-
tional provision and speculates on more enabling and inclusive educa-
tional futures for individuals, communities, nations and the planet.
Specific developments and innovation in teaching and learning, educa-
tional policy-making and education research are analysed against the
backdrop of these broader developments and issues.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15092
“There is a crisis of credibility in today’s world … Prof. McArdle skilfully exposes the cause of
our current malaise as being a lack of attention to values. It is who we are as researchers and
our moral intention which determine the quality and worth of what we do. Her antidote is a
rigorous and vigilant reflexive stance which frees us to call into question all scientific norms,
holding them to the standard of how they can in any given context help us promote social
justice and equality in the lives of those we research.”
—Prof. Michael T. Wright, LICSW, MS, Catholic University of Applied Social Sciences Berlin,
Germany and International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research
“Freedom Research in Education challenges the reader to embrace the tensions and assumptions
inherent yet often invisible in current orthodoxies in educational research. It emphasises courage,
confidence, creativity and a sense of moral purpose in making explicit and transparent the essence
of researcher ‘Values’, i.e. morality, ethics, values and virtues—which lie at the core of research.
Freedom Research identifies the responsibilities of developing autonomous researchers and
co-researchers who, through alternative approaches in research purpose and design, provide
transparency, openness and robustness. This book invites the reader to think deeply about self
and personal beliefs and about how they influence and are influenced by research communi-
ties. It raises awkward questions in an open and accessible way. It is a thought-provoking read
which will not only trigger debate, critique and discussion but contributes to reshaping the
educational research trajectory. I strongly recommend this book for beginner as well as more
experienced researchers.”
—Prof. Do Coyle, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange,
Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh
Karen McArdle
Freedom Research
in Education
Becoming an Autonomous
Researcher
Karen McArdle
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, UK
Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods
ISBN 978-3-319-69649-2 ISBN 978-3-319-69650-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69650-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018932985
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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Acknowledgements
A number of people have assisted through reading this text in draft form.
I wish to thank Janeen Leith and Mary McAteer for their helpful com-
ments on very early drafts. Above all I wish to thank Alison Hurrell for
her continuing insightful critique and intelligent reading. All my stu-
dents over the years have taught me what is interpreted, I hope accurately,
in this book, in particular I wish to thank students of the MRes at the
University of Aberdeen who helped me to formulate and develop my
ideas.
v
Contents
1 Introducing Freedom Research 1
2 Th e Social Context of Research and Inquiry 13
3 Freedom from Orthodoxy 23
4 I dentity and the Freedom Researcher 45
5 C reativity in Freedom Research 67
6 Educational Values and the Link to Methodology 83
7 Creating Meaning and Communication 103
8 Ethical Education and Research 127
vii
viii Contents
9 Validity and Freedom Research 145
10 Conclusion and Reflexivity 157
Index 171
Introduction
Freedom Research seeks to challenge, and to encourage others to chal-
lenge, ideas that have become orthodox in the research community. Many
individuals, research groups, communities and educational journal edito-
rial boards are open to creativity, but the link to ethics, values and virtues
is missing—a morality that needs to govern the creative research in order
to ensure honesty, truth and authenticity.
The crisis of validity that has been apparent for many years in qualita-
tive research seeks a certainty that cannot and perhaps should not be
achieved, but we need benchmarks for our research methodological and
ethical choices. Freedom Research seeks to fill that void through proffer-
ing an approach to research that is fully aware of the assumptions and
values that underpin the research. So, nothing or very little is implicit or
hidden from the researcher or from those who would be influenced by
the findings, thus taking us closer to the truth about education.
The book is for those who have some experience of research to under-
stand the key processes and to be familiar with common discourses of
research theory and practice. It also is for those in the field of education
as researchers in higher education or in professional practice. Becoming
an autonomous researcher suggests a confidence and maturity of position
in relation to research. This book seeks to present a new approach to
research, which will generate not only new confidence and trust, but also
research that is more authentic and closer to the truth. The book should
ix
x Introduction
also be of interest to those who review or write for journals, supervise
postgraduate students or are on editorial boards, as Freedom Research
demands different ways of conducting research, supporting students and
writing our research texts.
The book takes the reader on a journey through the research process
that is often understood, in the research community with which I am
familiar, as a sequential process. This journey, however, is usually iterative
and non-sequential and at worst predictable, but in this text, for ease of
understanding, the journey is presented as a sequence of chapters. This
journey seeks to make explicit and to assist the reader to understand the
ways in which one’s own values, or in a broader sense, morality, underpin
and influence the choices and assumptions one makes in research. The
book seeks to give the educational researcher confidence to become
autonomous in bucking the trends of orthodoxy and to become more
vigorous and creative in his/her research. It also seeks to give the reader a
justification for this type of different but robust research.
The words morality, values, ethics and virtues are used in this book. I
am using the term ‘Values’ to embrace the constellation of morality, eth-
ics, values and virtues. Where this refers to values alone it is written as
‘values.’ It is not a simple matter to give discrete definitions as these are
contested terms, but I have sought to provide some clarity in this intro-
duction by defining the terms simply to assist the reader to travel the
journey I wish him/her to take in the main text. I have to apologise to the
educational philosopher who may read this book. I am not a philosopher
myself and do not seek to contribute to the understanding of these ideas,
but I am an educational researcher and wish to use these interrelated
concepts to underpin my contention that ideas of morality have been
given insufficient status in educational research in particular and, indeed,
social science research in general. As previously discussed, I have chosen
to use the word ‘Values’ to communicate the combination of ethics, val-
ues and virtues when used collectively and the word ‘morality’ to embrace
the discipline of considering our ethics, values and virtues as individuals
and as a community of researchers. Morals, as Driver (2007) explains,
comprise those things one ‘ought’ to do. Moral norms with which this
book is concerned primarily, as Driver explains, link to interactions with
others in ways that have significance to their well-being. If we do