Critical Social Research and the Academy: the role of organic intellectuals in educational research |
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| Authors: | Iram Siraj‐Blatghford |
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| Institution: | Institute of Education , University of London |
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| Abstract: | This paper is presented in two parts. The first part explores the methodological and epistemological implications of working as a black, female researcher studying issues of social justice and equality in a faculty of education. It is argued that many of those researching social issues and motivated by the desire to facilitate change are faced with an apparent contradiction between a commitment to producing objective, value free research and their commitment to equality and justice. This apparent contradiction haunts them in their negotiations with gate keepers, research funders, employers, the academic community and with policy makers and other practitioners. It is argued that the contradiction is indeed only apparent and that it is based on mistaken notions of ‘objectivity’ and ‘universal values’. I argue that as ‘committed’ researchers we need to move beyond such false contradictions while at the same time accepting a dual role, of empowerment and critical engagement. In part two of the paper, it is suggested that a radical humanist, critical and reflexive form of action research, one that is informed by a concern for social justice and emancipation, may be constructed that is grounded on Habermas's conception of a ‘pathology of communication’. Such research would be directed at the dominant mode of academic and educational production itself. The Gramscian conception of the ‘organic intellectual’ is invoked in elaborating a research model that might go beyond the kind of ‘simultaneous‐integrated’ action research that has been described by researchers such as Alison Kelly while being radically distanced from work being carried out under the rubric of ‘teacher as researcher’ or other possibly technicist and managerial action‐research models. |
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