Take my paradigm … please! The legacy of Kuhn’s construct in educational research

Abstract

Thomas Kuhn developed the construct of research paradigms to make sense of the history of conceptual change in the physical sciences. The construct has since been appropriated by a number of academic fields and by non‐academics as well. This paper traces the use of the construct in the educational research field. The bulk of the paper is organized around two questions: (a) Was it ever appropriate to characterize the educational research field’s acceptance of qualitative methods as equivalent to one of Kuhn’s paradigm revolutions? (b) Is paradigm talk appropriate today?