An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 320 pages
• Published by: University Of Chicago Press May 15, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0226467732
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0226467733
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 13.6 ounces

From Library Journal
Lagemann, who is chair of humanities and the social sciences at New York University and president of the National Academy of Education, has a long history in the field of higher education. In this candid and incisive study, she looks at how Americans perceive the people who practice education and explains why their low-status work has undermined the possibilities for developing a strong professional community and a generative scholarly tradition. Weak financial support led to weak research, which in turn led to continued weak financial support. This catch-22 situation has also contributed to the lack of public support and respect. Taking a historical perspective, Lagemann critically looks at problems associated with educational scholarship and argues that federal requirements for program evaluation have resulted in an improved understanding of the education policymaking process. She considers not only where education research may have gone astray but also the promising directions it may be taking in the future. A stark yet enlightening look at American education, research methodologies, and federal government funding agencies and their practices, this book is recommended for academic and greater public libraries.DSamuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Since its beginnings at the start of the 20th century, educational scholarship has been a marginal field, criticized by public policy makers and relegated to the fringes of academe. An Elusive Science explains why, providing a critical history of the traditions, conflicts, and institutions that have shaped the study of education over the past century.


Reader Reviews
Lagemann's book is a well-documented and researched look into American higher education, particularly with the rise of colleges of education within universities in the late 19th century. Prior to this time, the field of "education" lay strictly within the confines of the separate disciplinary domains, and was not considered as a subject in itself. Lageman is able to use this historical context to illuminate the struggles that theorists and psychologists at the time experienced as they attempted to determine if "education" could - or should - be deemed a science, and the subsequent role such decisions play in today's educational context. And although the author may focus much of her book on the problem of funding (she describes the common cycle of insufficient funding, leading to less research, in turn leading to less funding, and so on), in my mind the most interesting part of her story is the description of those seminal events when the field of educational psychology was born, and the disputations for and against the pronouncement of "education" as a unique field. Although at the start of the 21st century we now rarely question the result of these 19th-century decisions, Lagemann's text is nevertheless a reminder that it was not always so. Perhaps more importantly, her text allows us to re-examine the issues surrounding the types of education-related questions that, even now, are not truly settled: Does an instructor need to be a subject matter expert in order to meaningfully teach students, or are there specific instructional principles and techniques that are more critical than an instructor's personal subject matter knowledge as determinants in student achievement? Are subject matter experts the best teachers, or are experts in educational processes the best teachers? What combination of these skills should there be for one to be considered a "premier" instructor? Is education really a "science" like the natural sciences, or is there too much of "education" that is based on personal styles, learner preferences, and the intimate human relationships between instructors and students to prevent it from ever becoming a fully empirically-validated field? What type of educational research is more meaningful: quantitative or qualitative? These are just a few of the many issues surrounding Lagemann's history (and I look at this book almost as much as a history book as a position piece), and the author does a wonderful job of bringing all these historical events together and allowing us to reconsider such basic issues. It may not result in agreement between readers, but it certainly drives us to consider once again what's most important in the field of educational research.