This work explores the philosophical positions of five postmodern thinkers—Lyotard, Rorty, Schrag, Foucault, and Derrida—to show how their critiques imply that scholars are unduly limited by the belief that inquiry is fundamentally about gaining knowledge of phenomena that are assumed to exist prior to and independent of inquiry, and to persist essentially unchanged by inquiry. The author argues that there are good reasons why this constraint is both unnecessary and undesirable, and he resituates the disciplines within a more flexible foundation that would expand what counts as legitimate inquiry. This foundation would emphasize the inquirer as a cause of reality, not just an observer who aims to accurately describe and explain phenomena. Mourad proposes an intellectual and organizational form which he calls post-disciplinary research programs. These dynamic programs would be composed of scholars from diverse disciplines who collaborate to juxtapose disparate disciplinary concepts in order to create contexts for post-disciplinary inquries.

This book provides critical and reflective discussions of a wide range of issues arising in education at the interface between philosophy, research, policy and practice. It addresses epistemological questions about the intellectual resources that underpin educational research, explores the relationship between philosophy and educational research, and examines debates about truth and truthfulness in educational research. Furthermore, it looks at issues to do with the relationship between research, practice and policy, and discusses questions about ethics and educational research. Finally, the book delves into the deeply contested area of research quality assessment. The book is based on extensive engagement in empirically based educational research projects and in the institutional and professional management of research, as well as in philosophical work. It clarifies what is at stake in international debates around educational research and teases out the nature of the arguments, and, where argument permits, the conclusions to which these point. The book discusses these familiar themes using less predictable sources and points of reference, such as: codes of social obligation in contemporary Egypt and New Zealand; the ‘Soviet’, and the inspiration of the nineteenth-century philosopher, Abai in contemporary Kazakhstan; seventeenth-century France, Pascal, and the disputes between Jesuits and Jansenites; eighteenth-century Italy, Giambattista Vico, and la scienzia nuova; ‘educational magic’ in traditional Ethiopia; and ends at a banquet with Socrates and dinner with wine and a conversation-loving Montaigne.

Increasingly, new academics are entering higher education without conventional research training and without a clear idea of what research actually involves. This is particularly true of academics who enter from having spent time in a profession including many in the newer disciplines. In addition, institutions of higher education which do not have a tradition of research are increasingly competing for research funding. The Nature of Research looks at this background and discusses what is wrong with academic research and discusses what is wrong with academic research today, what needs to change for it to survive, how to allow new kinds of research to flourish, directions for future action and how academic research can teach us to live in today's complex and uncertain society. The aim of the book, then, is to provide a stimulus to thinking about the nature and role of research with a view to considering what might be appropriate in the next century. Since research is so central to university life, looking at research will tell us much about what the university of the future might be like.

What is wrong with research today? This book argues that research priorities need to be reordered to address the concerns of today's society.

"This book brings together a wide range of higher education practitioners from across disciplines. Their chapters suggest innovative approaches to learning, teaching and delivering a tertiary education experience that centres social justice as a core mission of universities. The authors address the ways in which universities grapple with the challenges involved in the selection processes, administration, teaching and learning and student support associated with an increasingly large student population drawn from a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, including many students who will be returning to live overseas. Some of the specific challenges of these developments have included those of selection, academic literacy, independent learning, student support and student engagement. A second dimension is the traditional role of the universities as sources of independent intellectual and ethical critique of social institutions, both in terms of research and public intellectual contribution to political and social policy debates, and in terms of the formation of students in their capacities as critical, ethical, citizens and professionals. This social-ethical critique has traditionally been built into the humanities and the social science disciplines and the 'helping professions' but has now found its way into other disciplines and professional areas, such as business and engineering. As well, broader social policy and political discourse has more explicitly embraced social-ethical agendas of inclusiveness and marginalisation of social groups; recognition of the damage to the overall society of enduring and increasing social inequality." -- BOOK JACKET.

This book evaluates the increasingly wide variety of intellectual resources for research methods and methodologies and investigates what constitutes good educational research. Written by a distinguished international group of philosophers of education Questions what sorts of research can usefully inform policy and practice, and what inferences can be drawn from different kinds of research Demonstrates the critical engagement of philosophers of education with the wider educational research community and illustrates the benefits that can accrue from such engagement