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Education research

The direct and indirect paths of education research

Broadly, education can be defined as having two main purposes. On the one hand, the purpose consists of a pedagogy for what is good for the individual, and on the other hand, it consists of a pedagogy for what is good for humankind (Kemmis, 2012; Kemmis & Edwards-Groves, 2018). It is about living well in a world worth living in. This is the double purpose of education, which has an individual and a social perspective, where the goal is to educate individuals who feel obligated to act for the best of fellow human beings and society (Kemmis & Edwards-Groves, 2018, p. 2).

Educational research can take both direct and indirect paths. With a direct path, I mean that educational practice is examined directly through the discipline education, and with an indirect path, I mean that educational practice is examined indirectly through non-educational disciplines. What I shall discuss in this chapter are the positive and negative consequences of being direct and indirect in educational research. For example, indirect approaches can develop knowledge that is not really relevant to education, and in the worst case, as we shall see next, education as an academic discipline can be deprived of its autonomy and independence. On the other hand, indirect routes in educational research can be utiliDsed to the advantage of the academic discipline of education, in the way that specific educational knowledge and theory are developed. Therefore I ask: when is it most appropriate to be direct, when is it most appropriate to be indirect and when is it most appropriate to combine directness and indirectness in educational research? The question is based on the purpose of developing educational theory, as well as strengthening education as an autonomous discipline.

Already in 1929, in The Sources of a Science of Education, John Dewey claimed, “Education is autonomous and should be free to determine its own ends, its own objectives” (Dewey, 1929, p. 38). According to Dewey, ends and objectives should be determined directly from within education, rather than being determined indirectly through other disciplines. The singular form of Dewey’s term ‘science of education’ (henceforth: SE), as opposed to the plural term ‘educational sciences’ (ESS), underlines that for Dewey, education is autonomous, meaning a self-governing discipline, with the right to organise its own activities and make independent decisions. This definition is close to the etymological meaning of the concept of autonomy, which derives from the Greek autonomous (from autos ‘self ’ and nomos ‘law’), meaning having its own laws (Lexico, 2020). In light of this autonomous idea, Dewey (1929, p. 38) warned “[t]o goes outside the educational function and to borrow objectives from an external source” because that would be “to surrender the educational cause.” In order not to surrender the educational cause, objectives must be developed directly from education.