Lynn Fendler

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Michigan State University

As a way of exploring how educational research is disseminated in wider social contexts, this article focuses on antagonisms between expertise and populism as broad social discourses. Dimensions of that antagonism include rifts and bubbles, snobbery and narrow‐mindedness. The article evaluates two divergent approaches that attempt to ameliorate ant...

This article historicizes “rigor,” discipline,” and “systematic” as inventions of a certain rational spirit of Enlightenment that was radicalized during the 19th century. These terms acquired temporary value in a transition during the 19th century when a culture of research was established within a modern episteme. Beginning in the 20th century, th...

This paper has been inspired by the Research Community: History and Philosophy of Educational Research, of which I have been a member since 2000. Organisers Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe have hosted annual face-to-face gatherings of this Research Community for the past 19 years. It is in appreciation of the Research Community as a site of hospitali...

This article focuses on disciplinary interrelationships between philosophy and history within the framework of educational sciences. It deals with the epistemological, material, political, and categorical conditions of permeability, some of which initiate a separation of historical science from philosophy, whereas others allow, on the one hand, for...

Educationalization is the social tendency to behave as if social problems could be solved by educational means. Educationalization as a concept derives from the German Pädagogisierung, a term that denotes the transformation of sociopolitical issues into pedagogical issues. In particular, educationalization applies to the current condition around th...

In educational research that calls itself empirical, the relationship between validity and reliability is that of trade-off: the stronger the bases for validity, the weaker the bases for reliability (and vice versa). Validity and reliability are widely regarded as basic criteria for evaluating research; however, there are ethical implications of th...

This chapter examines the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation project, Measures of Effective Teaching [MET]. The chapter synthesizes current research on philanthrocapitalism to highlight some implications of current trends in funding for educational research. The MET project was a massive Three-year, $45 million undertaking. It studied six school distr...

This paper describes three discourses that have been mobilized in educational research for thinking about how to make a difference: agency, actors, and affect. (1) Agency in critical theory is positioned in a particular dialectical relationship to structure. The distinction between domination and agency appears to derive from pre-existing ideologic...

In educational research that calls itself empirical, the relationship between validity and reliability is that of trade-off: the stronger the bases for validity, the weaker the bases for reliability (and vice versa). Validity and reliability are widely regarded as basic criteria for evaluating research; however, there are ethical implications of th...

We are interested in contrasts between 'art for art's sake' and instrumental justifications for art in education. Surprisingly, it seems that current mainstream discourses of arts education tend to inflect the term 'art for art's sake' with instrumental qualities. This paper examines the scene of Discipline-Based Arts Education (DBAE) in contempora...

The contribution serves as an example of enabling permeability between philosophy and history within the framework of educational science. It deals with the epistemological, material, political, and categorical conditions, some of which initiate a separation of historical science from philosophy, whereas others allow, on the one hand, for history t...

Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. Language works in more complex ways, even in work that purports to be purely scientific. This article investigates the scope and limitations of language-games in educational history and theory. The study addresses concepts and pictures as examples of h...

Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. This article addresses non-representational theory. It is a branch of newer approaches to cultural geography that strive to get a handle on spatial relationships not by representing them, but rather by presenting them. In this case, present connotes sp...

Interpretation has always played a role in every imaginable dimension of historical research. First, interpretation is involved at the most fundamental level in which it is first determined what counts as an artifact of history. For example, archaeologists interpret which rocks, shards, and soil samples “count” as artifacts and which do not. Second...

Why should we care about materiality? Assuming we are not interested in pursuing ontological debates about the number of angels capable of dancing on the head of a pin, why study materiality? In what ways might materiality be an issue with ethical implications for educational research in history or philosophy? To address aspects of this question, t...

Each of these hypotheses calls for a different investigative approach. Specifically, in order to examine the efficacy perspective, I did a survey of recent literature and synthesized the findings of scientific research reports addressing the relationship of educational psychology to the quality of teaching. Second, to investigate the plausibility o...

For this chapter's approach to historicizing historiography, I consider the publication of this book to be a historical event. By regarding the publication of this book as a historical event, I can read the chapters as contributing to, and having been shaped by, a confluence (or "entanglement" per Sobe, this volume) of factors including current fas...

In ‘Material Contexts and Creation of Meaning in Virtual Places: Web 2.0 as a Space of Educational Research’ (Chap. 13), Lynn Fendler and Karin Priem offer further insights concerning the virtual space. They focus on the salient features of Web 2.0 as a space of educational research creation, distribution and interaction. Web 2.0 is a relatively ne...

For this chapter’s approach to historicizing historiography, I consider the publication of this book to be a historical event. By regarding the publication of this book as a historical event, I can read the chapters as contributing to, and having been shaped by, a confluence (or “entanglement” per Sobe, this volume) of factors including current fas...

Educational psychology is a curricular requirement for most teacher preparation programs in the world. Knowledge of educational psychology is assessed on examinations for teacher licensure in most jurisdictions, and understanding of psychology is assumed to be indispensible for effective teaching at all levels. Traditional university-based teacher-...

This paper addresses two main questions: (1) What has theory been doing? and (2) What might theory be doing? The first question is addressed historically, and the second question is addressed imaginatively. In between those two topics, I have inserted a brief interval to raise some sticking points pertaining to the question, “What is properly educa...

Edwin, a person contemplating a career in teaching, has a conversation with Phyllis, a teacher and amateur theorist, about reasons to become a teacher. KeywordsTeaching–Educational theory–Philosophy–Ethics–Democracy

For any conversation about the future of education research, it is necessary at some point to address the roles of computer-based information technology. Knowledge production, research reporting, access to information, and pedagogical design in education are now all mediated by various sorts of computer technologies. From a standpoint of critical c...

In order to provide some parameters by which I might identify characteristics of educationalisation, I have found it helpful to draw on Mary Furner´s (1975) history of the American Social Science Association and James Kaminsky´s (1993) history of educational philosophy. Furner argues compellingly that the mission of the early American Social Scienc...

El presentismo es visto generalmente como un mal necesario en historiografía. Este artículo explora lo positivo de esta inevitabilidad. Aplicando un enfoque filosófico al análisis discursivo en la tradición de la nueva historia cultural, se distingue -de una parte- entre un uso estratégico del presentismo, y -de otra- un enfoque racionalista en his...

Presentism is generally regarded as a necessary evil in historiography. This paper explores the upside of that inevitability. Using a philosophical approach to discourse analysis in the tradition of new cultural history, the paper distinguishes between a strategic use of presentism on the one hand, and a rationalistic approach to history on the oth...

This paper is a historical and critical analysis of changes in features of educationalisation focusing on how educationalisation has been characterised over time by a peculiar interweaving of knowledge and social reform. The history of the American Social Science Association provides a backdrop; drawing on the theories of Deleuze, this paper highli...

Abstract Bell-curve thinking, as a model of distribution of success and failure in society, enjoys a perennial (ahistorical, objective, and law-like) status in education. As such it provides a rationale for sorting (tracking or streaming) practices in education, which has led many educators to criticize both bell-curve thinking and associated sorti...

In this article, we critique two theoretical positions that analyze the place of emotions in education: the psychological strand and the cultural feminist strand. First of all, it is shown how a social control of emotions in education is reflected in the combination of psychological and cultural feminist discourses that function to govern one’s sel...

In the United States there is an increasing tendency to view the only educational research worthy of federal funding as that which is designed as an experiment using randomised controls. One of the foundational assumptions underlying this research design is that the results of such research are meant to be generalisable beyond any particular resear...

Drawing from literature in the social studies of science, this paper historicizes two pivotal concepts in science literacy: the definition of life and the assumption of objectivity. In this paper we suggest that an understanding of the historical, discursive production of scientific knowledge affects the meaning of scientific literacy in at least t...

Community building has been a key concern for a wide array of educational projects. Recently, educational theories concerned about social justice have begun to challenge assumptions about community in U.S. education by criticizing its tendencies toward assimilation and homogeneity. Such theories point out that a communitarian agenda excludes the Ot...

In the United States, the current federal standards for educational research are found in publications of the What Works Clearinghouse (U.S. Department of Education, http://www.whatworks.ed.gov/. Hereafter, WWC). These research standards are based almost exclusively on the book Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research by Campbell an...

This paper examines the consequences for agency that Foucault’s historiographical approach constructs. The analysis begins by explaining the difference between ‘legislative history’ and ‘exemplary history,’ drawing parallels to similar theoretical distinctions offered in the works of Max Weber, J.L. Austin, and Zygmunt Bauman. The analysis continue...

This article traces the genealogy of reflection in teacher education by seeking the conditions of its emergence through the influences of Descartes, Dewey, Sch�n, and feminism. Drawing on the critical lenses of Foucaultian genealogy and the sociology of scientific knowledge, the analysis investigates how the complicated meanings of reflection get p...

From 1989 to 1996, the Michigan Partnership for New Education (MPNE) operated as an institution that joined Michigan State University (MSU), public schools, businesses, local governments, and communities into a cooperative network. Organized around the purpose “to improve the educational outcomes for Michigan’s children,” the Partnership offered ad...

Dans une première partie, cet article étudie les significations de la réflexion dans le discours sur la formation des enseignants aux Etats-Unis, en analysant certains des facteurs qui contribuent à ce que la réflexion apparaisse comme une pratique désirable et raisonnable. Il retrace la généalogie de la réflexion dans la formation des enseignants...