Differing Modes of Inquiry and the Field of Adult Education

Abstract

We are living in an age that at once extols and deeply distrusts expertise. While this paradox is played out in many arenas, it is interesting that the field of research, particularly in the social sciences, is an area where this is particularly apparent. This distrust of expertise is exemplified by the belief that there is no one truth owned by expertise or by the expert; and that the pursuit of knowledge is open to all. While it used to be that democratic theory held that expertise, at least in theory, would be open to all who play by the scientific rules, now the rules themselves are held up to question and many question the privileging of expert opinion. Of course, these issues all coalesce around questions on the nature of truth and of research. We especially must ask, how do we or even can we derive truth from research? These are some of the questions that arise from the present issue relating to participatory and action research. Unlike scientific inquiry which is based on the premise that the environment can be controlled and that variables can be strictly introduced and accounted for, social science research is more disorderly. The variables cannot be easily identified and their interactions are more complex than strictly planned experiments. The question of how to study social (and by implication educational) problems has been a conceptual dilemma since at least the late nineteenth century, if not earlier. The question arose in conjunction with the rise of what today we call the social sciences, including economics, sociology, anthropology, and history. There was the widespread belief that science and scientific inquiry could ameliorate all of the world's problems. If social issues were only studied in a deliberate manner, their solution would be revealed by the data. Throughout the twentieth century, we have seen a growth in the reliance on the expert to solve social problems and a simultaneous repugnance and then revolt against the idea of the expert. There has been a continual tension between what is considered expert knowledge and the knowledge of the lay person. The argument has been conducted from many different aspects. Some have questioned the role of expert knowledge in solving social problems. Others have rejected the very idea of objective knowledge, particularly in the social realm. After all, knowledge is shaped by human beings who apply their own construction of meaning to outside reality. Hence, knowledge is constantly changing and subjective. Within education, these discussions have focused on who the researcher is and who is being studied. For example, we can examine a simple educational problem such as which educational intervention works best. In the bad old pre-scientific days, individuals tried out various solutions on their own and came to their own conclusion about what worked. As scientific criteria became more rigorous, it became harder for the amateur to do research on her (or generally his) own. This phenomenon fits with what the historian Thomas Haskell has called the recession of causation. While Haskell was referring to research on a host of social problems, most explicitly poverty, the term fits educational research as well. According to Haskell, in the late nineteenth century, charity workers thought that simple observation and study would lead to a better understanding of the roots of poverty and how to deal with its consequences. What happened instead was that the problems became more intractable and the solutions less accessible. As the research became more abstract and less connected to the daily world, experts came to increasingly hold the keys to knowledge, wisdom, and hence to change. While originally those directly involved in the field were the researchers and experts (as opposed to the individuals affected), now `practitioners' were relegated to the role of consumers of knowledge rather than creators. At no time, however, were those most directly affected by social science experts, namely the clients, considered to possess expertise. …