Return-Path: <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id g4NE8UO18838; Thu, 23 May 2002 10:08:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 10:08:30 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <v04210109b912a60bcae9@[128.148.147.35]> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis@Brown.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1117] research X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Status: O Content-Length: 2272 Lines: 42 Colleagues on the NLA, family and women lit. lists, Jon Lee, moderator of the NILF family list, shared this article this morning: An Op-Ed by Orlando Patterson in this past weekend's NY Times discusses the lamentable impact that the focus on "hard science" has had on the field of sociology. It is extremely relevant to our discussion about what constitutes "valid research." The article can be read online at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/opinion/19PATT.html. His post prompts me to return to the question I raised yesterday about what constitutes research, and, by extension, what constitutes learning itself? Isn't the point of research, after all, to inform action? practice? There's great buzz at present about rigor, scientific evidence, and yet have we clearly delineated what this all means -- not only to those researchers who jump into and out of classrooms to observe, track, record, but more importantly to those people - learners and teachers - whose work occurs in those classrooms day in and day out? As a colleauge pointed out to me, " ... even in this type of lists, where one can expect to find issues and things not totally subordinated to white / male / scientific cannons - [one finds] unnecessary and offensive reactions.. " I'd contend that these reactions offend because they disappear, disrespect, or plain old ignore -- out of ignorance [in its purest form of "not knowing"] or disdain - bodies of knowledge based on very rigorous study. For example, the research I cited from Klaudia Rivera grew from years of participant observation, coupled with scholarly analysis, and built on the known and rigorously analyzed experiences of participants in that program. I am not suggesting here a spitting match between /among schools of research, but I am asking us to consider who makes knowledge, whose knowledges are valued, validated (and funded) and to consider how we as a field obtain utilize that knowledge? Finally, are we - working in intergenerational, adult and women-centered programs -- aware of what "scientific" research has shown in terms of women's ways of knowing, temperament and ability? [and to my NLA colleagues I suggest that this has everything to do with policy] Janet Isserlis
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