At the end of Chapter 6, Pring warns us to “beware of the
-isms…”. That said, try to make sense of where you see Pring fitting in,
“-ism-wise.” Feel free to draw on Paul and 702 here (or not).
Oh those wonderful “isms”! If we attempt to peg Pring down to one spot on the “ism” wheel, will he still be our friend? One of the characteristics of his writing I like the best is his descriptions of the complexities embedded within and between concepts such as truth, reality, knowledge, theory, objectivity and understanding. They are fibrous and chewy. For example, as I read the section on common sense explanations, I chewed, stopped, chewed some more and took a final break as my jaw grew sore and tight.
Pring describes common sense explanations as something we misrepresent when we contrast it with theory, perhaps using what is common sense to question the relevance of research. Alternately, common sense explanations may stand as symbols of mistakes and perversions we make about ourselves and the world, relegating the term to yet another set of common human biases. Pring argues that common sense explanations sit within a framework of beliefs about the world that may not be explicitly theory but ARE a theory about how the world works nonetheless. Likewise, theory is most useful when it either extends or deepens common sense explanations, or challenges what we have accepted without scrutiny. Thus, common sense and theory are inextricable. We see the complexities of the relationship upon closer and deeper examination, much of which Pring thinks is missing when we use the terms he introduced in Chapter 6.
Pring himself describes his position as one of “robust realism” embedded in a “common sense language” that is admittedly socially constructed but that is also reflective of a logic (albeit one that can be debated) through which we have come to understand the world (pg. 108). Accordingly, there is a shared logic precisely because it is debatable. We also understand that the experiences and histories and socialization of individuals and groups means we interpret, respond to, and create knowledge and understanding in different ways.
So let’s take Pring at his word about where he falls. On the spectrum of “isms” presented in the Paul text, he is certainly not extreme. Rather, he falls within the valley of pragmatism and constructivism. I interpret his position as one in which knowledge is public, constructed and refined over time, but that also firmly resides in a physical/temporal world.
I describe Pring as a hidden post-positivist patriarch who wears a cloak of realism. His logical geography of education research begins with the premise that it inherits “controversies” from social science research methods. Education researchers are somehow stuck with the problem of explaining human behavior. He asks why we can’t return to the good old days of building on the work of Piaget and other cognitivists. He mentions the “sophisticated” move in cognitive psychology to a more rigorous and tightly defined discipline. If education researchers could be that motivated, we’d solve our problems, too. Wow, it’s like he was part of our quadrant discussion!
Pring keeps coming back to the idea of common sense versus intellectual, research-based knowledge; of the common person versus the intellectual researcher. Somehow, education researchers need to understand and appreciate what common sense is so that we can get past it and move on with the business of doing research—of doing “science.” Pring reveals his belief that there is a reality for researchers to discover “out there.” I was almost won over with his interim conclusion that “we cannot talk of reality independent of the researcher” (p.100). However, he quickly returned to the common sense vs. research-based knowledge dilemma. I fear his conclusion was only a tease.
I believe he reveals himself fully in the statement “common sense beliefs need to be questioned, but the language of common sense embodies a complex way of understanding the world, which at one level is not to be dispensed with and at another level is the best that we have” (p. 108). To me, this statement speaks of a hierarchy of scientific knowledge over common sense—very patriarchal. To me, he does not respect common sense or the common person (feminine) because to him they are not "scientific."
I find Pring’s ideas to be dated. He almost touches on the deeper issues of so-called common sense when he describes it as the discourse, duties, rights, and social actions of people; but, he does not fully get at the power structures that lie underneath. The common sense he dismisses as the best we have is the structure that makes education research such a complex endeavor. Common sense IS the discourse, duties, rights, and social actions that work to benefit some at the cost of marginalizing others. Pring disappoints me by ignoring how common sense is at the heart of what education research needs to study and explain rather than put up with. Perhaps it is too much to ask that he get in touch with his feminist side.
Pring appears to have a healthy sense of pragmatism about him. He is wily and versed enough with his words that everything he writes seems to be “common sense.” He is definitely tied to realism, in the sense that he makes a compelling argument that there does exist a real world, even if it is made up via social construction. He also gives a respectful nod to the value of common sense, while understanding the need to challenge the status quo. I would say that Pring is tied to the real world while still being able to untie the tether if necessitated by conflicting facts. In the conclusion of Chapter six, he neatly categorizes the chapter as one of “robust realism.” If I were forced to put Pring into one of the Paul “ism’s,” I would probably place him somewhere on the scale between post-positivism and pragmatism, positioning him closer to pragmatism. As someone who is one of those “first quadrant” educators, I confess that some of the approaches described in Chapter 6 made me roll my eyes. If I am to teach a high school student calculus or, worse yet, an SOL class like algebra 2, I really don’t have much time for worrying about the student’s social construction. I am more concerned with teaching the students mathematical rules that do a decent job of modeling the real world as agreed upon by the majority of mathematicians and scientists. As a (hopefully) future educational psychology researcher, I am concerned with social construction, but only as it pertains to how to help those mathematical rules reach the most children in the most effective way.
First, I would like to thank Anita for following Susan. Seriously. Thank you. And Susan, just because we have a week “off” does not mean you get to decrease the length of your post. On to why we are here, though, my overall impression of Pring’s analysis is that all of this “stuff” is messy, and yet we have attempted to classify research according to either quantitative or qualitative or based upon post-positivism, pragmatism, constructivism, or one of the perspectives from Paul’s text. I get the sense that Pring hesitates to attempt to classify himself, as if he knows that the reader is going to label him and make judgements about him based upon this classification. So, while I hate to “label” Pring, two “isms” that I see within him are post-positivism and pragmatism. I think he tries hard not to display his own views in this text, but that he cannot help himself at times.
Yet, after reading six chapters, one should already have formed an opinion of Pring, and his own one-sentence description should not change that opinion, at least not a great amount. That is what we do, though, as people and researchers. We attempt to categorize everything in which we encounter because it makes it easier for us to live. Some of these classifications are necessary – like the door and the wall – but others are harmful, including many pertaining to education.
I think Chapter Seven’s focus on some of the terms that are prevalent within research is extremely necessary because we often use them without understanding their true meaning. For example, in assessing the distinction between facts and values, Pring asserts that “no amount of facts about the real world entails how one ought to act within it” (pg. 95). When reading this, I stopped and realized that while this seems obvious, I (and perhaps many people) assume that facts dictate our behavior. However, this is not the case.
Two of the terms Pring discusses – causal explanations and explanations of human behavior – are still perplexing to me. I am going to go back and read these sections again, but I ask “where is the line of distinction between these two terms?”. At times while reading the text, with the emphasis on the complex nature of the social sciences due to human behavior, I question whether we can generate research findings that are generalizable outside of one specific setting. However, as Pring has stated on multiple occasions, as complex as individuals are, we are also similar in many ways, which creates the need and applicability of research. Understanding behavior that can be described as “cause and effect” as opposed to general human behavior, I believe, is necessary for quality research.
Reading Pring’s discussions of reality and constructions of knowledge feels like he’s hedging his bets a bit. On the one hand, he maintains that there are physical and social realities. At the same time, he discusses the complexity of our world and how we relate to and are affected by those realities. And really, this seems to be his approach so far throughout the book—demonstrating the interconnectedness of what others might pose as a dichotomy. Pring’s belief that causal relationships exist in human and social situations, however “provisional and tentative,” mirrors the postpositivist view. When I went back to re-read some of Paul, I was struck by this quote on page 56 from Carl Popper (which I tried to recall in class recently): “What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach...but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise…truth is beyond human authority.”
I see Pring as arguing from all sides of the fence. Perhaps he's trying to reflect the complexity of the issues with educational research by presenting a complex tangled web of arguments. Any stance or concept he seems to “defend” or identify with he quickly finds fault with. I don’t feel like he lets any of the perspectives off the hook with respect to their shortcomings. Because of this I haven’t really perceived him as fitting into one particular camp. I see a lot of practicality in the points he makes, so if I have to pigeon hole him, I’ll call him a real-pragmatist.
My take away of Chapter 6 had to do with the importance in understanding the role social reality has in our understanding of what happens around us. The socio-cultural environments upon which we live influence the way we conceptualize reality, and while we can make discoveries within our social world, one “cannot by choice simply create another way of conceiving the social world because” the world is already shaped by our inherited understandings (Pring, p. 78).
In trying to make sense of the world, researchers use objectivity and causal explanations to measure of find relationships of social phenomenon; however, there are a plethora of other factors influencing human behavior. Conditioning, individual motives, and personal dispositions all influence one’s behavior and not always considered or measured in educational research.
Pring discusses the role truth, facts, theory, and knowing has in one’s understanding of their socially constructed reality. He also identifies the role common sense plays in upholding our beliefs and he challenges researches to focus on these common sense beliefs as a way to improve or refute those beliefs.
As for the ‘isms, I feel Pring is warning the reader about forming false dualisms based on the “distinctions which arise from their rigid application” (p. 108). There is a danger in choosing a single paradigm or ignoring the multitude of factors influencing behavior. Building a knowledge base in education, I believe one needs utilize different lenses and consider other perspectives before a more complete understanding of social reality is obtained.
Oh those wonderful “isms”! If we attempt to peg Pring down to one spot on the “ism” wheel, will he still be our friend? One of the characteristics of his writing I like the best is his descriptions of the complexities embedded within and between concepts such as truth, reality, knowledge, theory, objectivity and understanding. They are fibrous and chewy. For example, as I read the section on common sense explanations, I chewed, stopped, chewed some more and took a final break as my jaw grew sore and tight.
ReplyDeletePring describes common sense explanations as something we misrepresent when we contrast it with theory, perhaps using what is common sense to question the relevance of research. Alternately, common sense explanations may stand as symbols of mistakes and perversions we make about ourselves and the world, relegating the term to yet another set of common human biases. Pring argues that common sense explanations sit within a framework of beliefs about the world that may not be explicitly theory but ARE a theory about how the world works nonetheless. Likewise, theory is most useful when it either extends or deepens common sense explanations, or challenges what we have accepted without scrutiny. Thus, common sense and theory are inextricable. We see the complexities of the relationship upon closer and deeper examination, much of which Pring thinks is missing when we use the terms he introduced in Chapter 6.
Pring himself describes his position as one of “robust realism” embedded in a “common sense language” that is admittedly socially constructed but that is also reflective of a logic (albeit one that can be debated) through which we have come to understand the world (pg. 108). Accordingly, there is a shared logic precisely because it is debatable. We also understand that the experiences and histories and socialization of individuals and groups means we interpret, respond to, and create knowledge and understanding in different ways.
So let’s take Pring at his word about where he falls. On the spectrum of “isms” presented in the Paul text, he is certainly not extreme. Rather, he falls within the valley of pragmatism and constructivism. I interpret his position as one in which knowledge is public, constructed and refined over time, but that also firmly resides in a physical/temporal world.
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ReplyDeleteI describe Pring as a hidden post-positivist patriarch who wears a cloak of realism. His logical geography of education research begins with the premise that it inherits “controversies” from social science research methods. Education researchers are somehow stuck with the problem of explaining human behavior. He asks why we can’t return to the good old days of building on the work of Piaget and other cognitivists. He mentions the “sophisticated” move in cognitive psychology to a more rigorous and tightly defined discipline. If education researchers could be that motivated, we’d solve our problems, too. Wow, it’s like he was part of our quadrant discussion!
ReplyDeletePring keeps coming back to the idea of common sense versus intellectual, research-based knowledge; of the common person versus the intellectual researcher. Somehow, education researchers need to understand and appreciate what common sense is so that we can get past it and move on with the business of doing research—of doing “science.” Pring reveals his belief that there is a reality for researchers to discover “out there.” I was almost won over with his interim conclusion that “we cannot talk of reality independent of the researcher” (p.100). However, he quickly returned to the common sense vs. research-based knowledge dilemma. I fear his conclusion was only a tease.
I believe he reveals himself fully in the statement “common sense beliefs need to be questioned, but the language of common sense embodies a complex way of understanding the world, which at one level is not to be dispensed with and at another level is the best that we have” (p. 108). To me, this statement speaks of a hierarchy of scientific knowledge over common sense—very patriarchal. To me, he does not respect common sense or the common person (feminine) because to him they are not "scientific."
I find Pring’s ideas to be dated. He almost touches on the deeper issues of so-called common sense when he describes it as the discourse, duties, rights, and social actions of people; but, he does not fully get at the power structures that lie underneath. The common sense he dismisses as the best we have is the structure that makes education research such a complex endeavor. Common sense IS the discourse, duties, rights, and social actions that work to benefit some at the cost of marginalizing others. Pring disappoints me by ignoring how common sense is at the heart of what education research needs to study and explain rather than put up with. Perhaps it is too much to ask that he get in touch with his feminist side.
Pring appears to have a healthy sense of pragmatism about him. He is wily and versed enough with his words that everything he writes seems to be “common sense.” He is definitely tied to realism, in the sense that he makes a compelling argument that there does exist a real world, even if it is made up via social construction. He also gives a respectful nod to the value of common sense, while understanding the need to challenge the status quo. I would say that Pring is tied to the real world while still being able to untie the tether if necessitated by conflicting facts. In the conclusion of Chapter six, he neatly categorizes the chapter as one of “robust realism.” If I were forced to put Pring into one of the Paul “ism’s,” I would probably place him somewhere on the scale between post-positivism and pragmatism, positioning him closer to pragmatism. As someone who is one of those “first quadrant” educators, I confess that some of the approaches described in Chapter 6 made me roll my eyes. If I am to teach a high school student calculus or, worse yet, an SOL class like algebra 2, I really don’t have much time for worrying about the student’s social construction. I am more concerned with teaching the students mathematical rules that do a decent job of modeling the real world as agreed upon by the majority of mathematicians and scientists. As a (hopefully) future educational psychology researcher, I am concerned with social construction, but only as it pertains to how to help those mathematical rules reach the most children in the most effective way.
ReplyDeleteWritten like a true pragmatist!
DeleteFirst, I would like to thank Anita for following Susan. Seriously. Thank you. And Susan, just because we have a week “off” does not mean you get to decrease the length of your post. On to why we are here, though, my overall impression of Pring’s analysis is that all of this “stuff” is messy, and yet we have attempted to classify research according to either quantitative or qualitative or based upon post-positivism, pragmatism, constructivism, or one of the perspectives from Paul’s text. I get the sense that Pring hesitates to attempt to classify himself, as if he knows that the reader is going to label him and make judgements about him based upon this classification. So, while I hate to “label” Pring, two “isms” that I see within him are post-positivism and pragmatism. I think he tries hard not to display his own views in this text, but that he cannot help himself at times.
ReplyDeleteYet, after reading six chapters, one should already have formed an opinion of Pring, and his own one-sentence description should not change that opinion, at least not a great amount. That is what we do, though, as people and researchers. We attempt to categorize everything in which we encounter because it makes it easier for us to live. Some of these classifications are necessary – like the door and the wall – but others are harmful, including many pertaining to education.
I think Chapter Seven’s focus on some of the terms that are prevalent within research is extremely necessary because we often use them without understanding their true meaning. For example, in assessing the distinction between facts and values, Pring asserts that “no amount of facts about the real world entails how one ought to act within it” (pg. 95). When reading this, I stopped and realized that while this seems obvious, I (and perhaps many people) assume that facts dictate our behavior. However, this is not the case.
Two of the terms Pring discusses – causal explanations and explanations of human behavior – are still perplexing to me. I am going to go back and read these sections again, but I ask “where is the line of distinction between these two terms?”. At times while reading the text, with the emphasis on the complex nature of the social sciences due to human behavior, I question whether we can generate research findings that are generalizable outside of one specific setting. However, as Pring has stated on multiple occasions, as complex as individuals are, we are also similar in many ways, which creates the need and applicability of research. Understanding behavior that can be described as “cause and effect” as opposed to general human behavior, I believe, is necessary for quality research.
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Reading Pring’s discussions of reality and constructions of knowledge feels like he’s hedging his bets a bit. On the one hand, he maintains that there are physical and social realities. At the same time, he discusses the complexity of our world and how we relate to and are affected by those realities. And really, this seems to be his approach so far throughout the book—demonstrating the interconnectedness of what others might pose as a dichotomy. Pring’s belief that causal relationships exist in human and social situations, however “provisional and tentative,” mirrors the postpositivist view. When I went back to re-read some of Paul, I was struck by this quote on page 56 from Carl Popper (which I tried to recall in class recently): “What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach...but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise…truth is beyond human authority.”
ReplyDeleteI see Pring as arguing from all sides of the fence. Perhaps he's trying to reflect the complexity of the issues with educational research by presenting a complex tangled web of arguments. Any stance or concept he seems to “defend” or identify with he quickly finds fault with. I don’t feel like he lets any of the perspectives off the hook with respect to their shortcomings. Because of this I haven’t really perceived him as fitting into one particular camp. I see a lot of practicality in the points he makes, so if I have to pigeon hole him, I’ll call him a real-pragmatist.
ReplyDeleteMy take away of Chapter 6 had to do with the importance in understanding the role social reality has in our understanding of what happens around us. The socio-cultural environments upon which we live influence the way we conceptualize reality, and while we can make discoveries within our social world, one “cannot by choice simply create another way of conceiving the social world because” the world is already shaped by our inherited understandings (Pring, p. 78).
ReplyDeleteIn trying to make sense of the world, researchers use objectivity and causal explanations to measure of find relationships of social phenomenon; however, there are a plethora of other factors influencing human behavior. Conditioning, individual motives, and personal dispositions all influence one’s behavior and not always considered or measured in educational research.
Pring discusses the role truth, facts, theory, and knowing has in one’s understanding of their socially constructed reality. He also identifies the role common sense plays in upholding our beliefs and he challenges researches to focus on these common sense beliefs as a way to improve or refute those beliefs.
As for the ‘isms, I feel Pring is warning the reader about forming false dualisms based on the “distinctions which arise from their rigid application” (p. 108). There is a danger in choosing a single paradigm or ignoring the multitude of factors influencing behavior. Building a knowledge base in education, I believe one needs utilize different lenses and consider other perspectives before a more complete understanding of social reality is obtained.