ÔøΩLiving Standards Of Judgement In What We Know And How We Know ItÔøΩ

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath.

Presented at AERA, Seattle, Session, Division D3, 44.09, Alternative Paradigms, Methods and Analysis in Qualitative Research in Education

14^th April, 2001

Audiences like yourselves at previous AERA conferences have been amongst the most significant influences in shaping my educational research over the past ten years. It isnÔøΩt that I know you before I came into the room. It is the fact that you are present as an imaginary audience as I write which helps me to clarify my ideas and to take my enquiries forward. The themes of AERA such as ÔøΩWhat do we know and how do we know it?ÔøΩ have also helped to focus my enquiries on significant questions The title of my paper shows this influence with my focus on what we know and how we know it.

I am hoping that the idea of living educational standards of judgement will also stimulate your interest in helping me to take my enquiry forward and that this shared time together will have an educative influence on your own enquiry. Given that, with some exceptions, I cannot claim to know you, I am wondering how to answer the question in terms of what ÔøΩweÔøΩ know and how ÔøΩweÔøΩ know it in the context of our educational research.

As one of my living standards is to try to do what I have committed myself to do, I have organised this presentation into three sections from my original AERA proposal from August 2000.

i) This presentation of living standards of judgement in what we know and how we know it, will focus on interpretations of video-images from the researchersÔøΩ educative relations with the teacher-researchers whose research programmes he is supervising or influencing. These will include Ph.D. and MastersÔøΩ degree inquiries and the interpretations will be related to these studentsÔøΩ learning in their educational inquiries.

This time last year I gave my first multi-media presentation at AERA on Ways of knowing our educative influences on our students' learning. How valid are multi-media presentations and our associated explanations? (Whitehead, 2000). The web version in the multi-media section of actionresearch.net contains a video-clip of me working as a supervisor with JeKan Adler-Collins in the final stage of his masterÔøΩs dissertation writing. Collins (2000) has documented his own learning in his successfully completed dissertation. This yearÔøΩs presentation is taking this enquiry further by focusing on the expression , definition and communication of the living standards of practice and judgement I use in testing the validity of my explanations for my educative influence in my studentsÔøΩ learning.

Let me now show you my own living standards of practice and judgement in what I do as an educator and researcher in my supervision of a Ph.D. researcher. This brings me to the part of my presentation which I think shows some of the possibilities of new forms of data storage and retrieval and of multi-media representations of educational enquiries for communicating and sharing the meanings of living standards of practice and judgement. I want to show you something that I cannot capture from within a written text. I am meaning the multiple images I can display on the screen, with the video clips and textual analyses I can call up at the touch of a button. I also believe that the clarification of the meanings of my embodied values in explanations for my educative influence, require ostensive definition to show the meanings emerging through time, practice and reflection.

(Projection of photoshop template with multiply images)

I now want to turn to the visual images and video-clips from educational conversations with Jackie Delong, a Superintendent of Schools who is researching her practice for her Ph.D. at the University of Bath, and myself, as her supervisor. In a joint presentation later today on ÔøΩKnowledge-creation in educational leadership and administration through practitioner researchÔøΩ, (Delong and Whitehead, 2001) we will be using using video-clips of our professional practices to define and communicate how our living values form the standards of practice and judgement we use in explanations of our educative influence. I also have a session on reviewing self-studies in relation to the AERA theme. My three presentations on one day of AERA is something of a record for me. IÔøΩm not sure whether you are fortunate to have me first!

The ÔøΩKnowledge-creationÔøΩ paper and this ÔøΩLiving StandardsÔøΩ paper complement each other. In the ÔøΩKnowledge-creationÔøΩ paper we focus on the living educational standards of originality of mind and critical judgement. These are two of the standards of judgement used by examiners of Ph.D. theses at the University of Bath. In this presentation I am focusing on the expression, definition and communication of the meanings of ÔøΩsystemÔøΩs influenceÔøΩ as an educational standard of practice and judgement. In the following clip I am talking with Jackie about what to my mind shows, most distinctively, her originality of mind and critical judgement. I am thinking particularly of the educational standard of practice which shows her educational leadership in the expression of her ÔøΩsystems influenceÔøΩ. Jackie was recognised for her leadership in action research in an award from the Ontario Educational Research Council in December 2000. Let me quote from the most recent draft of her Abstract to explain why I am focusing my educative influence on helping Jackie to define and communicate her values-based standards of practice and judgement which characterise her educative influence on the social formation of the Grand Erie District School Board.

This thesis focuses my critical judgements on the clarification and use of the values that have emerged in my practice as I am able to construct and deconstruct the transformations that has taken place over the six years of the research and to understand what has moved me forward. The meaning of those values that I am articulating are grounded in my practice and constitute my living standards of practice and judgement in my explanations. They emerge through reading, dialogue and reflection on my experience as I account for myself in my practice by ever moving forward while holding on to the sanctity of personal relationships and democratic evaluation within a hierarchical system and power relations.

(Frames of pictures of supervision sessions and video-clip talking about her ÔøΩsystems influenceÔøΩ http://www.actionresearch.net/jdjwsystem.mov)

Here is a transcript of our conversation to enable me to focus on the additional meanings which the visual record can communicate about the nature of our living standards of practice and judgement.

Jack ÔøΩ to show how I am encouraging and supporting you, to make explicit in a way that is publicly shareable your own understanding of your standard of practice as a superintendent which is related to your systemÔøΩs influenceÔøΩ.

ÔøΩ..there is a big emphasis on relationships and connections. ThatÔøΩs a common standard that runs through almost everything I do - if I can see a way of helping people or ideas or systems to connect I think it creates a more effective system to support student learning. If youÔøΩve got people or systems going in different directions it is wasting the talent and the energyÔøΩ the other thing is that when I see people who can carry something forward I try to pull all the supports behind them so that they can do that. ThatÔøΩs two pieces of it. It doesnÔøΩt capture it all but it captures two pieces of – And my need to see things always getting betterÔøΩ

I want to focus your attention on JackieÔøΩs non-verbal expression and her verbal definition and communication of her educational standard of ÔøΩsystemÔøΩs influenceÔøΩ in her work as a superintendent. I want to focus your attention on the embodied values Jackie is expressing non-verbally when she says ÔøΩpull all the supports behind themÔøΩ and ÔøΩso that they can do that..ÔøΩ ie; carry something forward. What I am working on with Jackie is an exploration of the value of this multi-media form of communication in producing valid explanations of her educative influence on a social formation as she works at improving her ÔøΩsystemÔøΩs influenceÔøΩ.

Pull all the supports behind them So that they can do that

(carry something forward)

Still 1 Still 2

I am hopeful that this presentation, when compared with the presentation last year shows an enhanced understanding of the nature of my living standards of practice and judgement of originality of mind and critical judgement as I engage with Jackie in helping her to express, define and communicate her own.

In explaining my educative influence in relation to my values I do not want to be understood as saying that I have educated my students. The only person I claim to have educated is myself. I think that I can claim to have had an educative influence. The distinction is important to me. I think that the influence of what I do, to be educative, must be mediated by the creativity and critical judgement of those who are learning with me. Because this is part of the way I understand education, I cannot claim to have educated someone else. I do however claim that my values-based standards of practice and judgement are important in influencing student learning. Here is the second point, from the original proposal, which focuses on values.

ii) The presentation will also include the accounts of the teacher-researchers in which they analyse the way their spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values are influencing their studentsÔøΩ learning (14, 15). The multi-media presentation will focus on the communicability of the living standards of judgement in testing the validity of claims to educational knowledge (8).

Let me show you what I mean by ÔøΩThe presentation will also include the accounts of the teacher-researchersÔøΩ. I can now call up from actionresearch.net the papers and research theses of the teachers-researchers in which they analyse the influence of their values in their studentsÔøΩ learning. I want to draw attention to Ben CunninghamÔøΩs thesis with its focus on his spiritual journal. In my paper for this presentation on the web, I have also included an account from Moira Laidlaw in the paper on the web in which she describes my spiritual, aesthetic and ethical influence in response to a question I asked her about my influence.

I am associating my spiritual values with assenting to life up to the point of death, to the life-affirming energy I feel in my educative relations and to the state of being grasped by the power of being itself.

I am associating my aesthetic values with my capacity to give form to whatever medium I am working with. In relation to education I am thinking of my capacity to give a virtual form to the values I see my students holding and to bear this form in mind in a way which doesnÔøΩt impose on the studentsÔøΩ creativity in forming their own lives and yet does have an educative influence. I think of my aesthetic values as being expressed as we work together on giving a form to the studentÔøΩs life, through learning, in ways that are mediated by the studentÔøΩs creativity and critical judgement.

I am associating my ethical values with value-words such as freedom, justice, democracy, care, compassion and enquiry. I also associate my ethical values with my embodied values, which I clarify in the course of their emergence through practice, and through which I explain why I do what I do. I think of values as human goals for the sake of which I act as I do.

In analysing my own spiritual values in my explanations of my educative influence I want to turn to the second clip of a conversation with Jackie Delong as I am responding to the draft abstract, discussed above. I want to ask you to focus your attention on the non-verbal communications which you feel and see taking place as I move the digital images rapidly backwards and forwards across the screen.

(Video-clip of supervision session http://www.actionresearch.net/jd2ndAbsm.mov)

Can you take a minute to share with your neighbour the most significant meaning (s) you give to your experience as you watch the clip. Here it is again.

All I want to draw your attention to here is what I am calling the spiritual energy in my assenting to life up to the point of death (Bataille, 1990). I believe that this spiritual energy is a vital ingredient in explanations for my educative influence and I am simply drawing attention to what I see as a significant area for further exploration. Here is the clip again that, for me, carries this energy:

In the course of my life in education, I have come to understand through experience and the writings of others something of the importance of ÔøΩregimes of truthÔøΩ in legitimating what counts as knowledge in particular contexts. I have also come to understand something of the power of economic forces to influence regimes of truth. I now want to turn to my living educational standards of practice and judgement in relation to power relations and economic rationalism.

iii) Other research on standards of judgement has focused on the power relations which determine what counts as knowledge and the crises of legitimation and representation (16, 17). The analysis in the presentation will examine how the meanings of the spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values, in the researcherÔøΩs discipline of education (18), have been clarified and evolved in the course of their engagement with the institutional power relations over a period of some 27 years. It will take account of the way these power relations have been influenced by economic rationalism (19). The analysis will also show how such values and insights have been integrated within 8 successfully completed doctoral inquiries over the past six years.

I am purposely ending this presentation with some sense of fragmentation, with a feeling that the piece doesnÔøΩt satisfy my aesthetic sensibilities. I am doing this to stress that authentic accounts of my own educational development are anything but a smooth story of self. I am hoping that you experience this kind of ending as an invitation to join in the creation of an as yet unfinished story of a life in education.

I have examined elsewhere how the meanings of my ethical value of academic freedom were clarified and evolved in the course of my engagement with institutional power relations over the period 1973-1993 (Whitehead 1993). The period 1993-2001 has been marked by the successful completion of the living theory theses in actionresearch.net. This accumulated knowledge base was created at a time when the globalisation of capital movements was linked in the UK to the implemention of government policies which were explicitly grounded in economic rationalism. McTaggart (1992) describes the influence of economic rationalism in terms of devaluation and demoralisation in a way which resonates with my own concerns:

ÔøΩEconomic rationalism is not merely a term which suggests the primacy of economic values. It expresses commitment to those values in order to serve particular sets of interests ahead of others. Furthermore, it disguises that commitment in a discourse of ÔøΩeconomic necessityÔøΩ defined by its economic models. We have moved beyond the reductionism which leads all questions to be discussed as if they were economic ones (de-valuation) to a situation where moral questions are denied completely (de-moralisation) in a cult of economic inevitability(as if greed had nothing to do with it).ÔøΩ (McTaggart, p. 50, 1992)

Educational enquiries of the kind, ÔøΩHow do I live my values more fully in my practice?ÔøΩ and ÔøΩHow can I help you to improve your learning?ÔøΩ, carry for me a range of values, including economic value. I hold a tenured appointment at the University of Bath until August 2009 and this has, so far, ensured my economic well being together, I must add, with the additional economic security provided by being in a two income family.

As I move to the limit of my understanding I want to focus on how the values in my discipline of education (Whitehead, 2000) have been clarified in the course of their engagement with institutional power relations. I also want to take account of how the power relations have been influenced by economic rationalism in relation to my living educational standards of practice and judgement.

Whenever I write papers such as this about the nature of educational theory and knowledge, I find myself remembering this history of the power relations and regimes of truth which have shaped the growth of my knowledge. When I say remember, I donÔøΩt mean in that nostalgic way analysed by Weber and Mitchell. I am meaning it in the sense they describe where new learners take place with each act of remembering. I now want to face and respond to a piece of my history in the here and now in a way which takes my own learning forward.

In the process of ÔøΩlegitimatingÔøΩ my original ideas on the nature of educational theory and educational knowledge, I have been subjected to pressures which could have constrained a less determined individual. These arenÔøΩt my words. They come from a report made to the Senate of the University of Bath in 1991 by a working party established by Senate to investigate evidence concerning a matter of my academic freedom. My response to these pressures has been whatever I considered necessary to defend my creative space in the University (Whitehead, 1993). When attacked in the past, I have tended to defend myself by acting in ways which are intended to deter further attack with the certainty of a very damaging response. MAD comes to mind – as in mutually assured destruction!

The working party on a matter on academic freedom also concluded that:

ÔøΩThe Working Party therefore concluded that, as far as the UniversityÔøΩs formal procedures are concerned, Mr. WhiteheadÔøΩs two Ph.D. examination results, and the competence of otherwise of his examiners, are dead issuesÔøΩ.

There is something about someone telling me that something which affects me is a ÔøΩdead issueÔøΩ which helps to keep it very much alive for me. This is particularly true when the statements are made with the support of institutional power relations.

My tension and curiosity are now focused on how to analyse the clarification and evolution of the meanings of my values in the course of their engagement with the education of social formations. This will include an engagement with institutional power relations. I tend to think that it is worth keeping open, as live issues, an engagement with the UniversityÔøΩs formal procedures! I have an intuition that it might be evidence of the education of the social formation of the University, if the University recognises formally, the importance of my own contribution to my field of research as I keep alive issues around the UniversityÔøΩs formal procedures, and the explicit recognition of injustices.

Just to add a bit of ironic humour to this last point I want to say that as I was reading an earlier draft of this paper to give to Professor Bill Scott, our Head of Department of Education, a colleague popped into my office to let me know that the activity I had been associated with (creating living educational theory) had been removed from the latest draft of the UniversityÔøΩs submission for our National Research Assessment Exercise! . I had just got to the point in the paper where I was reading ÔøΩif the University recognises formally the importance of my own contribution to my field of researchÔøΩ! Living Theory has now disappeared as an activity – it came to light briefly and has now been extinguished! Perhaps you might ensure it continues to live within a wider international research community.

Here is what I donÔøΩt know. I donÔøΩt yet know how to include a representation of my emotional responses which help to characterise the meanings of my values in the course of such engagements with the influences of regimes of truth on my enquiry. I found it relatively easy to include video-footage of my educative relationships with my students which showed something of my life-affirming energy and my passion for learning. I am finding it difficult to communicate how fury, anger, disgust, humiliation and aggression, and my responses to these emotions, are also part of the clarification and evolution of the meanings of my values in the course of their engagement with institutional power relations. Perhaps I could communicate something of these meanings through a dramatic form of presentation in the here and now, by asking you to accompany me into a meeting in 1991 with four colleagues who formed the Senate Committee that was set up to investigate a matter of academic freedom in relation to my own work. The context was that the Board of Studies for Education had passed by one vote a recommendation to Senate that such a investigation should be carried out on the grounds that there was prima facie evidence that my academic freedom had been breached. A preliminary report had been produced which concluded that my academic freedom had not been breached. There was no mention that I had been subjected to any pressure. Here is a reconstruction of my passionate response to this preliminary report, which was followed by an inclusion in the final report which referred to pressure:

ÔøΩThe Working Party did not find that, in any of Mr. WhiteheadÔøΩs seven instances, his academic freedom had actually been breached. This was, however, because of Mr. WhiteheadÔøΩs persistence in the face of pressure; a less determined individual might well have been discouraged and therefore constrained.ÔøΩ

I intend to video-tape this part of my presentation to see if it helps with the representation of emotional meanings in later presentations!

I now want to address the point in the above extract from my proposal for this presentation that:

It will take account of the way these power relations have been influenced by economic rationalism (19).

In taking account of economic rationalism I draw my understanding from sociologists who include, Bourdieu (1992), Whitty (1997) and Brown and Lauder (2001).

The power relations I have in mind are those which Foucault (1980, p, 133) describes in terms of regimes of truth. He writes about the power relations which influence the procedures which determine what counts as truth in specific contexts. The contexts I have in mind are the Western Academies within which power relations work to give higher status to propositional theories of professional knowledge, over the living, dialectical theories of practitioner-researchers.

Given what I have written about living contradiction, living truth, living theory and living standards of practice and judgement (Whitehead, 1993, 2000) my own position is that the creation of living educational theories may offer an opportunity to understand the education of social formations while taking account of the forces of economic rationalism. I am thinking particularly of the significance of values in explaining the education of social formations in ways which keep alive values-based standards of practice and judgement in the face of the influences of regimes of truth or economic rationalism. I imagine that my present explorations will enable me to extend my own educational knowledge as I engage with the education of social formations in ways which support the further embodiment of educational values within our cultures and institutional contexts.

One idea I am playing with concerns the relationship between economic imperatives and living educational values. It is grounded in a self-study of my life and work at the University of Bath and is focused on an issue dear, I imagine, to many of our hearts – that of tenure and promotion.

I imagine that I am unusual, some may call me perverse, in refusing to request promotion at the University of Bath because that would break a commitment I made in 1991. I made this commitment in recognition of the political integrity of those who helped me in 1976, to secure me a tenured appointment until 2009. Without there assistance I could not have overcome a decision by the University to terminate my employment 1976. For those who still hold tenured positions, promotion is accompanied by loss of tenure in UK Universities! IÔøΩm smiling ruefully at the way this particular exercise of my ethical principles has cost me money – lots of money! In other words there is a tension between the economic imperative of economic rationalism and moral principle which I am working to resolve in the education of the social formation of Bath University.

Finally I want to fulfil my point from the proposal that:

The analysis will also show how values and insights have been integrated within 8 successfully completed doctoral inquiries over the past six years. (This is now 9 with Terri AustinÔøΩs thesis – Terri graduates in July 2001 from the University of Bath)

As part of my self-study of my teacher-education practices I seek to understand the nature of my educative influence with the aims of improving this influence and of contributing to the professional knowledge base of education. So, when I say ÔøΩintegratedÔøΩ I have a specific point in mind. I am seeking to understand the nature of my educative influence in relation to the integration of my ideas within the educational formation of the individual researcher. My point carries an ethical commitment to respecting the creativity of the individual researcher. In characterising my influence as educative, I need to see that the individual has freely and creatively appropriated my ideas in a way, which affirms their own sense of creating themselves. The affirmation I get from their acknowledgement that they have find my ideas helpful in this way is also vital in sustaining my life-affirming energy in my educative relationships. Looking forward to your response. I think that the enquiries addressed by the researchers, whose work I have supervised and which have been ÔøΩlegitimatedÔøΩ, show how these values have been integrated.. The following list includes both Masters and Ph.D. living theory enquiries:

Austin, T. (2001) Treasures in the Snow: What do I know and how do I know it through my educational inquiry into my practice of community? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath, In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Adler-Collins, J. (2000) A Scholarship of Enquiry, M.A. dissertation, University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Cunningham, B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living educational theory? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

DÔøΩArcy, P. (1998) The Whole StoryÔøΩ.. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Eames, K. (1995) How do I, as a teacher and educational action-researcher, describe and explain the nature of my professional knowledge? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Finnegan, (2000) How do I create my own educational theory as an action researcher and as a teacher? Ph.D. submission, University of Bath, under examination.

Holley, E. (1997) How do I as a teacher-researcher contribute to the development of a living educational theory through an exploration of my values in my professional practice? M.Phil., University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Hughes, J. (1996) Action planning and assessment in guidance contexts: how can I understand and support these processes while working with colleagues in further education colleges and career service provision in Avon. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. In the Living Theory Section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Loftus, J. (1999) An action enquiry into the marketing of an established first school in its transition to full primary status. Ph.D. thesis, Kingston University. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Evans, M. (1995) An action research enquiry into reflection in action as part of my role as a deputy headteacher. Ph.D., Kingston University. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. In the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

I want to finish by encouraging you to engage with the living theory theses in actionresearch.net and to bear in mind the possibility that the expression, definition and communication of living educational standards of practice and judgement could hold the key to the development of a new qualitative epistemology in the new scholarship of educational enquiry.

As I focus on living educational standards in what I know and how I know it, I want to draw your attention to the above accumulated knowledge-base for your creative and critical engagement I also want to focus attention on Terri AustinÔøΩs Ph.D. Thesis. Terri is the present chair of the AERA SIG on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices and later today we have our Town Meeting to explore how we review self-studies in relation to the questions, ÔøΩWhat do we know? How do we know it?ÔøΩ.

Along with Ken Zeichner (1999), I believe that the self-study of teacher-education practices movement is a most significant development in educational research. I also believe that Terri AustinÔøΩs thesis, along with those above, has made a most significant contribution to the development of a new scholarship of educational enquiry. For as Terri Austin says:

This thesis shows an alternative to traditional forms of criticism frequently found in academic work related to the growth of knowledge. This alternative is a written representation of my values that I use as my living standards of practice and judgement in the self-study of my professional practice. (See Thesis Abstract, Austin 2000).

I am hopeful that we might develop an educational conversation, perhaps through the chat room facilities on actionresearch.net on the nature of the living educational standards of practice and judgement in the new scholarship of educational enquiry.

Appendix

The accepted proposal/my action plan from August 2000.

The issue of paradigm proliferation (1,2,3) has focused attention on the issues of the nature of the standards of judgement, which can be used to test the validity of claims to educational knowledge within the postmodern context. Lyotard expresses the problem well when he says:

A postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text he (she) writes, the work he (she) produces are not in principle governed by pre-established rules, and they cannot be judged according to a determining judgement, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done. (p. 81)

The development of self-study in qualitative research, together with the advances in digital technology (5) has extended the range of forms of data representation in educational research (6). They also offer new possibilities for the development of new standards of judgement and new forms of scholarship in teacher education (7) and educational inquiry (8).

The idea that individuals can create and test their own living theories (9, 10) in their self-studies of their own educational inquiries is raising questions about the epistemological warrants for the claims to knowledge being made from within such a perspective (11, 12, 13).

The explanations given by educational action researchers of their educative influence with their students, raises questions in qualitative research about both the nature of the explanations and the standards of judgement which can be used to test the validity of the explanations. The problem of defining clearly the standards of judgement is particularly difficult when the explanations contain spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values. The difficulty arises because the meanings of such values often require non-verbal forms of communication, such as video, performance or the expressive arts. The communication of the meanings of the spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values in explanations for the educative influence of professional educators is at present, undertheorised.

This presentation of living standards of judgement in what we know and how we know it, will focus on interpretations of video-images from the researchersÔøΩ educative relations with the teacher-researchers whose research programmes he is supervising or influencing. These will include Ph.D. and MastersÔøΩ degree inquiries and the interpretations will be related to these studentsÔøΩ learning in their educational inquiries.

The presentation will also include the accounts of the teacher-researchers in which they analyse the way their spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values are influencing their studentsÔøΩ learning (14, 15). The multi-media presentation will focus on the communicability of the living standards of judgement in testing the validity of claims to educational knowledge (8).

Other research on standards of judgement has focused on the power relations, which determine what counts as knowledge and the crises of legitimation and representation (16, 17). The analysis in the presentation will examine how the meanings of the spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values, in the researchersÔøΩ discipline of education (18), have been clarified and evolved in the course of their engagement with the institutional power relations over a period of some 27 years. It will take account of the way these power relations have been influenced by economic rationalism (19). The analysis will also show how such values and insights have been integrated within 8 successfully completed doctoral inquiries over the past six years.

1) Donmoyer, D. (1996) Educational Research in an era of paradigm proliferation: WhatÔøΩs a journal editor to do? Educational Researcher, Vol. 25, No.2, pp. 19-25.

2) Anderson, G. & Herr, K. (1999) The new paradigm wars: Is there room for rigorous practitioner knowledge in schools and universities? Educational Researcher, Vol. 28, No.5, pp. 12-21, 40.

3) Lather, P. (2000) Paradigm Talk Revisited: How else might we characterize the proliferation of research perspectives within our field? Paper to AERA, New Orleans, April 2000.

4) Lyotard, F. (1986) The Postmodern Condition: A report on Knowledge, p. 81, Manchester; p. Manchester University Press.

5) Harris, K. (1998) Harris Video Cases. Utah; Brigham Young University.

6) Eisner, E. (1997) The promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. Educational Researcher, Vol. 26, No.6, pp. 4-10.

7) Zeichner, K. (1998) The New Scholarship in Teacher Education. Transcript of Vice-presidential address to Division K of AERA, San Diego, 1998.

8) Whitehead, J. (2000a) How do I improve my practice? Creating and legitimating an epistemology of practice. Reflective Practice, Vol. 1, No.1, pp. 91-104.

9) Whitehead, J. (1989) Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, ÔøΩHow do I improve my practice? Cambridge Journal of Education, 19, pp. 41-52.

10) Whitehead, J. (2000b) Living standards of research, reflection and renewal. Keynote address to be presented at the conference of the Ontario Educational Research Council. December, 2000.

11) Hamilton, M.L. & Pinnegar, S. (1998) Conclusion, in Hamilton, M.L. (Ed.) (1998) Reconceptualising Teaching Practice: self-study in teacher education. London; Falmer.

12) McNiff, J. (2000a) (Ed.) Educational Research in Ireland. Dublin; September.

13) Lomax, P. (1999) 'Working Together for Educative Community Through Research: developing a new professionalism' Paper presented at the BERA Symposium at AERA 1999, Montreal.

14) Cunningham, B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living educational theory? Ph. D. Thesis, University of Bath, in the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

15) Laidlaw, M. (1997) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath, in the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

16) Habermas, J. (1976) Legitimation Crisis. London: Heinemann.

17) Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (1994) The Handbook of Qualitative Research. London; Sage.

18) Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath, in the Living Theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net

19) Whitty, G. (1997) Creating Quasi-Markets in Education, in Apple, M. (1997) (Ed.) Review of Research in Education, Washington, AERA.

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Additional References in the presentation:

Foucault, M. (1980) Truth and Power, in Power/Knowledge, Gordon, C. (Ed) (1980). Brighton; Harvester.

McTaggart,R. (1992) Reductionism and Action Research: Technology versus convivial forms of life, in Bruce,S. & Russell, A.L. Transforming Tomorrow Today. Published by Action Learning, Action Research and Process Management Association Incorporated, Brisbane, Australia.

Weber, S. & Mitchell, C. (1999) Reinventing ourselves as teachers.

Whitehead, J. (1993) The Growth of Educational Knowledge: Creating your own living educational theory. Bournemouth; Hyde publications.

Whitehead, J. (2000) Ways of knowing our educative influences on our students' learning. How valid are multi-media presentations and our associated explanations? Presented to AERA April 2000; New Orleans.

Zeichner, K. (1999) The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28, 4-15.