The Educational Researcher as a Public Intellectual*

Abstract

AbstractAs education and schooling are themselves repositioned and restratified in the new global work order, so research on education is itself repositioned. In such a situation, even if people go on researching as they researched before, their work may have been repositioned: sometimes so as to substantially shift, or even invert, the relevance and effect of that work. A crisis of positionality arises at this point because of the reconstitution and repositioning of the social relations of production. The importance of this for educational researchers, as public intellectuals, is clearly of great concern. Through a case study, some of the implications of this repositioning are assessed. In the final section, new strategies for rejuvenating public intellectual work are assessed. Certain aspects of New Right overreach are explored. Firstly, the attack on professional groups in general; secondly, the general attack on public life and the disinvestment in local communities, and thirdly, the ‘dumbing down’ of public media. These struggles are seen as central arenas in which public intellectual life can be repositioned and rejuvenated.