Philosophy, History and Social Science: Educational Research and the Leuven Project

Abstract

Beyond Empiricism: On Criteria for Educational Research.Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe (eds), Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2003. Pp. 269. Pb.€29. Educational Research: Why ‘What Works’ Doesn’t Work.Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe (eds), Dordrecht, Springer, 2006. Pp. 195. Hbk. £71. Educational Research: Networks and Technologies.Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe (eds), Dordrecht, Springer, 2007. Pp. 228. Hbk. £81. The editors of these volumes outline how they came to be: ‘In 1999 the Research Community ‘Philosophy and history of the discipline of education: Evaluation and evolution of the criteria for educational research’ was established by the Research Foundation Flanders, Belgium’ (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2006, p. 1). We are told that the participants have met annually since 2000, and these books represent some of the fruits of their collaboration. The first three works of the Leuven Educational Research Project cover a fair amount of territory, so in this review article I am going to be severely selective. There is a substantial proportion of historical material. The first volume, Beyond Empiricism. On Criteria for Educational Research, includes Marc Depaepe on the history of educational research in Belgium before the Second World War, Carvalho’s exploration of a Portuguese pedagogical journal 1921-32 and several other papers in the second section. Volume 2, Educational Research: Why ‘What Works’ Doesn’t Work is perhaps the most philosophical of the three books, but it still contains at least two chapters of historical content. The third book, Educational Research: Networks and Technologies is, unsurprisingly, less interested in history, given its focus on ICT.