The ‘C’ word in educational research: an appreciative response
- 27 February 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Critical Studies in Education
- Vol. 50 (1), 93-102
- https://doi.org/10.1080/17508480802541248
Abstract
Honored by the invitation to read and comment on the papers in this special edition, this final contribution is an appreciation of critical studies in education. This ‘C’ word is dangerous in a neo‐liberal world, but as the authors show there is much intellectually practical work that researchers and theorizers are doing. I take my starting point from the exclusion of children from the decision‐making processes about their lives and education, and draw on the research directions and arguments in the papers to examine how we might think ourselves out of the situation. I argue for a rehabilitation of active dependency as a socially critical approach to how we live together, and consequently we need to be comfortable with strangers and strangeness as an antidote to vision and mission which not only fabricates social practice but also deludes us into social blandness.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Leading schools to promote social inclusion: developing a conceptual framework for analysing research, policy and practiceJournal of Education Policy, 2008
- NEW LABOUR AND SCHOOL LEADERSHIP 1997–2007British Journal of Educational Studies, 2008
- New Labour's re-disorganizationPublic Management Review, 2007
- Rhetoric and reality in critical educational studies in the United StatesBritish Journal of Sociology of Education, 2006
- Living improvement: a case study of a secondary school in England®Improving Schools, 2006
- Building the New Managerialist StatePublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,2004
- Biting the bulletManagement in Education, 2001