Practitioner-based Inquiry: Theoretical Probings.

Abstract

Overview The Critical Theory of Carr and Kemmis Deweyan Pragmatism Conclusion References Adult Basic Education Volume 10, Number 3, 119-146 Practitioner-Based Inquiry: Theoretical Probings George Demetrion Abstract Building on Kurt Lewin’s maxim that there is nothing more practical than a good theory, this essay examines the theoretical underpinnings of Carr and Kemmis’s (1986) Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research in light of the pragmatic epistemology (theory of knowing) of John Dewey. Carr and Kemmis’s work, a landmark study in support of practitioner-based inquiry, is grounded in the communicative theory of Jurgen Habermas in his search for the “ideal speech act.” Carr and Kemmis link this vision to the neo-marxist Critical Theory of the Frankfort School of Social Research which provides the political underpinning to their call for “action research.” Dewey builds on the more reformist temperament of the American pragmatic tradition, which has also influenced Habermas. Specifically, Dewey’s instrumental logic provides a compelling trajectory in moving from a problem identified in experience to an “endsinview” as its temporal resolution through a “means-ends continuum” that guides the focus of inquiry. Unlike Carr and Kemmis whose action research is linked to the “emancipatory” political ideology of critical theory, despite the authors’ more pragmatic intent, Dewey’s logic is grounded in the social ecologies of actors that require no redemption beyond what they are able to visualize and enact themselves. While this essay remains focused on the abstract plane of theory, its ultimate objective is quest for a more viable praxis that will require practitioners working through its premises in order to demonstrate its viability. Educational problems, however, because they arise out of practical educational activities, are not determined by the rules and norms governing the practice of the educational researcher. Rather, they occur when the practices employed in educational activities are in some sense inadequate to their purpose. They arise, in other words, when there is some discrepancy between an educational practice and the expectations in terms of which the practice was undertaken. Now the fact that educational problems occur because of this kind of non-fulfillment of expectations is informative; for to have expectations for a practice necessarily implies the possession of some prior beliefs and assumptions by virtue of which these explanations are explained and justified....An educational problem, therefore, in denoting the failure of a practice, thereby implies a failure in the theory from which a belief in the efficacy of a practice is derived. By undermining the expectations of an educational practice, an educational problem undermines the validity of some logically prior theory or interpretation of an educational practice (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p. 100).