Epistemological Orientation Research Articles

Cultural mosaics and mental models of nature

For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, "Mending Wall," which ends with the ironic line, "good fences make good neighbors." The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories (epistemological orientations) among Native Americans (Menominee) and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children.

Relations among Epistemological Beliefs, Academic Achievement, and Task Performance in Secondary School Students

Students with differing profiles of epistemological beliefs—their beliefs about personal epistemology, intelligence, and learning—vary in thinking, reasoning, motivation, and use of strategies while working on academic tasks, each of which affect learning. This study examined students’ epistemological beliefs according to gender, school orientation, overall academic achievement, and performance on two differently structured academic tasks. Epistemological beliefs in fixed and quick ability to learn, simple knowledge, and certain knowledge differed significantly as a function of gender, school orientation, and levels of academic achievement. These beliefs, particularly the belief in simple knowledge, significantly predicted overall performance and reflective judgment scores on the ill‐structured task but not on the well‐structured task. Implications concerning the relations among epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, gender, school orientation, task structure, and achievement are discussed.

Improvisation & Identity: a Qualitative Study

Drawing on qualitative analytic studies of improvising musicians this paper discusses ways in which the construction and representation of self-identity can be observed in improvisational practice. Focusing upon improvisation’s relational context and the characteristics and qualities of its interactions, a phenomenological and interpretive analysis is presented that explores the idea of musical meaning as an activity serving the construction and representation of identity.
 
 As a contribution to the now well-established challenge to musicology engendered by post-structuralist and post-modern thought, it explores musical meaning’s ontological significance through an analysis of the dialectical processes apparent in musical experience. Demonstrating a connection with processes that serve to define the self, as expressed in social theory and psychotherapeutic models, it becomes possible to better understand music, in particular creative musical experience, as a carrier of identity. As an alternative to a more structuralist semiotic agenda, this paper’s epistemological orientation seeks musical meaning in the experienced dynamics of the encounter.

Epistemologies and Research Paradigms in Applied Linguistics: 10 Years of Published Research

Pederson, Rod. (2006). Epistemologies and research paradigms in applied linguistics: 10 years of published research. English Teaching, 61(2), 171-197. Recent debates in applied linguistics focusing on the nature and viability of research paradigm and theory formation have raised questions regarding the epistemological primacy of the field (Block, 1996; Firth & Wagner, 1997). Specifically, these debates revolve around the question of whether the social aspects of language may be considered in applied linguistic research, or whether applied linguistics research should be a strictly cognitive enterprise. Following Shannon’s (1989) study on reading research, this study investigates the epistemological orientation of the field of applied linguistics through an inventory of the previous decade (1990-1999) of research articles published in the journals Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, and Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Abstract Over the last decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how these beliefs develop. Although initial psychological accounts portrayed epistemic development as a domain-independent process of cognitive maturation, recent studies have found trajectories of epistemic development to vary considerably across contexts. However, few studies have focused on cultural context. This article examines the role community values and practices play in fostering particular epistemological orientations by comparing the epistemological beliefs of 5th, 8th, and 12th graders (N = 200) from General and Religious schools in Israel regarding 2 controversies: belief in God and punishment of children. In both controversies, older participants were less likely than younger participants to consider the controversy rationally decidable. However, this shift emerged earlier in the God controversy than in the punishment controversy. In the God controversy, Gene...

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Sustainable agriculture, science and the co-production of ‘expert’ knowledge: The value of interactional expertise

After the last few decades in which the importance of ‘local’ knowledge has been emphasized, attention must now turn to better understanding how such knowledge is communicated to certified experts (scientists) and vice versa. This paper examines how expert knowledge is co-produced in agriculture by local and non-local experts for the benefit of both. The argument is informed by an empirical case study of sustainable farmers and agriculture professionals in Iowa. While much has been written about how the conventional and sustainable models of agriculture rest upon different epistemological orientations, little has yet been said about how those different experts (local and certified) interact with each other. Building upon the work of H. M. Collins and Robert Evans, and their tripartite model of expertise (of no, contributory, and interactional expertise), I investigate the different forms of expertise that exist within agriculture. In doing so, specific focus is placed upon interactional expertise for creating meaningful exchanges (or interactions) between scientists and non-scientists.

Discourse appropriation, construction of identities, and the complex issue of plagiarism: ESL students writing in graduate school

Recent research on academic writing has established the intersection of writing and identity. However, it is not clear whether writers themselves are aware of this link. In this study, we investigated five ESL graduate students’ awareness of the identities that they constructed through the appropriation of others’ words and ideas in their texts. Moving beyond prevalent moral explanations, we further sought alternative reasons for students’ inappropriate textual borrowing practices, often categorized as plagiarism. Our findings suggest that, depending on their enculturation into disciplinary discourses, students exhibit different levels of awareness of the available and privileged identity options in the social contexts of writing. We argue that student textual plagiarism can best be viewed as an issue of authorial identity construction. The findings indicate that the roots of students’ production of institutionally unacceptable texts lie in their epistemological orientation as well as their authoritative view of source texts. We finally reflect on the implications of the findings for academic writing instruction. Drawing on the notion of students-as-ethnographers, we suggest that writing instruction can raise students’ awareness of the link between writing and self-representation as well as the epistemology underpinning academic authorship, as two important dimensions of successful writing.

Decision-making styles in a real-life decision: Choosing a college major

Undergraduate students were surveyed at the beginning stages of a potentially life-framing decision: choosing a college major. We investigated the relationships among individual difference variables (decision-making styles, planning proclivities, and epistemological orientations), cognitive measures of performance (e.g., amount of information gathered and considered); and affective reactions to, and descriptive ratings of, the decision-making process. There were few significant relationships between individual differences and performance measures. However, there were significant relationships found between individual differences measures and affective reactions to, or descriptive ratings of, the decision-making process. We suggest that stylistic measures have their effects in the way individuals frame the decision-making process rather than in the way they go about gathering or structuring information.

The Development of Constructivist Grounded Theory

Constructivist grounded theory is a popular method for research studies primarily in the disciplines of psychology, education, and nursing. In this article, the authors aim to locate the roots of constructivist grounded theory and then trace its development. They examine key grounded theory texts to discern their ontological and epistemological orientation. They find Strauss and Corbin's texts on grounded theory to possess a discernable thread of constructivism in their approach to inquiry. They also discuss Charmaz's landmark work on constructivist grounded theory relative to her positioning of the researcher in relation to the participants, analysis of the data, and rendering of participants' experiences into grounded theory. Grounded theory can be seen as a methodological spiral that begins with Glaser and Strauss' original text and continues today. The variety of epistemological positions that grounded theorists adopt are located at various points on this spiral and are reflective of their underlying ontologies.

Rational Choice, Scientific Method and Social Scientism

The eighteenth-century introduction of the scientific method of the natural sciences to the study of social phenomena draws a line between moral philosophy - that aspect of ancient and medieval philosophy that dealt with social issues - and the social sciences as known today. From the onset, the emerging social science, or rather, its epistemological orientation to 'social scientism,' was vigorously challenged by many critics who see it as a reductionist and mechanistic understanding of human beings and their society. In recent times, this criticism has narrowed down to the critique of the rationalist assumptions or rational choice theory on which much of social scientism is built. Critics of the natural science ideal in the social sciences argue that the subject matter of the social sciences - human beings, their society and interactions - is so complex and different a system that subjecting it to the crucible of the scientific method of the natural, positivist sciences not only limits its understanding but leaves it with an abrasive and distorting impact. In the same manner, critiques of rational choice theory argue that it is a reductionism that does not account for a significant proportion of human actions and motives. What seems to be advocated for is a sort of social science method that addresses the shortcomings of the scientific method applied to social phenomena and employs a more robust model of human action that supersedes the rational choice model. This paper however posits that rationalist assumptions or rational choice theory is not peculiar to social scientism but lies at the foundation of modern and contemporary science and its method. We trace out the centrality of individual rationality assumptions in the general epistemology of the scientific method and social scienticism within the context of the centuries-old debate on the limitations of the scientific method in the social sciences. Our thesis hints at the impossibility of a modern and contemporary scientific model of either nature (physics) or society that does not assume individualist or subjective rationality.

Figuring Out Type 2 Diabetes through Genetic Research: Reckoning Kinship and the Origins of Sickness

Genetic research on type 2 diabetes serves as a point of departure in this paper. Drawing together classic work in the anthropology of medical epistemologies and the recent revitalization of kinship studies, the paper has two main objectives: (1) further unsettling a portrait of biomedicine as having a single overarching epistemological orientation that locates the origins of disease squarely within individual human bodies; and (2) inviting further reflection and discussion about history, social structures and cultural norms as bona fide causes of disease. The paper shows that causal roles ascribed to history, social structures and cultural norms through genetic research on diabetes hinge on underscoring evolutionary ‘blood relations’ between people, as well as between human and ‘lower’ nonhuman beings. It is argued that type 2 diabetes has not thoroughly undergone geneticization, but, partly through genetic research, it has undergone greater medicalization. Despite broad consensus that ‘the environment’ is the root cause of increased type 2 diabetes incidence, proposed remedies still tend to privilege clinical management.

The Genealogy of a Positivist Haunting: Comparing Prewar and Postwar U.S. Sociology

This essay asks two related questions about the discipline of sociology in the United States during the middle decades of the twentieth century. The first of these questions is historical and comparative, and relates to the dominant epistemological orientation in U.S. sociology in the two decades after World War II. What accounts for the postwar narrowing of sociology’s epistemological and methodological diversity, or more precisely, for the shift from a relative balance between nonpositivist and positivist orientations in the interwar period to a clear positivist dominance of the discipline? A second and related problem is a counterfactual one and concerns U.S. sociology’s substantive geographic focus, its emphasis on the United States to the relative exclusion of the rest of the world. Why did U.S. soci-

A real options approach to managing resources and capabilities

The resource‐based view (RBV) and the dynamic‐capabilities approach (DCA) have emerged as two important frameworks in strategic management that seek to explain why firms are different. In recent years operations management scholars have sought to integrate both RBV and DCA within the field's epistemological orientation to provide normative frameworks for practising managers. This paper argues that the structure of resources and capabilities are such that they present impediments to normative prescriptions. Using ideas from complex systems it argues that any framework for thinking about resource accumulation and capability development must take account of uncertainty and knowledge imperfections in the system. The paper contends that the real options framework is an appropriate heuristic for managing the process of capability development and a case study of a manufacturing operation is used to illustrate our ideas.

Critical ResponseIIThe Name of Science, the Name of Politics

Previous articleNext article No AccessCritical ResponseIIThe Name of Science, the Name of PoliticsJohn Guillory John Guillory Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 29, Number 3Spring 2003 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/376309 Views: 53Total views on this site ©2003 by The University of Chicago.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Feminist Methodology and Gender Planning Tools: Divergences and Meeting Points

In methodological terms, feminist methodology and gender planning tools move in opposite directions. Many of the tools used in gender planning tend to an empiricist epistemological orientation, characterized by a standardization of procedures and a preference for check lists, indicators, and measuring, whereas feminist academic circles have a predominantly critical attitude towards empiricism. Discussions in feminist methodology tend to question positivist scientific procedures and emphasize the importance of reflexivity. While rec ognizing the different requirements and goals of academic research and policy analysis in the area of gender, this article argues for more convergence in methodological terms, so that the two areas can enrich rather than oppose each other.

Feminist Methodology and Gender Planning Tools: Divergences and Meeting Points

In methodological terms, feminist methodology and gender planning tools move in opposite directions. Many of the tools used in gender planning tend to an empiricist epistemological orientation, characterized by a standardization of procedures and a preference for checklists, indicators, and measuring, whereas feminist academic circles have a predominantly critical attitude towards empiricism. Discussions in feminist methodology tend to question positivist scientific procedures and emphasize the importance of reflexivity. While recognizing the different requirements and goals of academic research and policy analysis in the area of gender, this article argues for more convergence in methodological terms, so that the two areas can enrich rather than oppose each other.

Witchcraft dialogues: anthropological and philosophical exchanges

Witchcraft Dialogues analyzes the complex manner in which human beings construct, experience, and think about the occult. It brings together anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists, from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, to engage the metaphysical properties of witchcraft and sorcery and to explore their manifestations in people's lived experiences. While many Africanist scholars shun the analysis of witchcraft as an appropriate domain of investigation, the experiences, thoughts, activities, and powers that witchcraft encompasses have become increasingly the source of interest and debate. Concepts of witchcraft and the phenomena to which they are applied express something fundamental to the human condition and have their equation in the logic of other human practices such as racism and its various crafts. Thus, the focus on witchcraft is not just a concern with the occult, but a manifestation of the convergence of interest in mediating and transcending disciplinary domains. The contributors to this volume embrace the challenge of exploring witchcraft as a mode of experiencing and explaining human circumstances as well as confonting the limitations of their own intellectual traditions and paradigms. The range of their explorations takes us in new directions, making use not only of their academic training but also of their personal experiences, to reframe the conceptual terrain of the occult and the epistemological orientations of their various academic fields of inquiry.

I—Sebastian Gardner: German Idealism

German idealism has been pictured as an unwarranted deviation from the central epistemological orientation of modern philosophy, and its close historical association with German romanticism is adduced in support of this verdict. This paper proposes an interpretation of German idealism which seeks to grant key importance to its connection with romanticism without thereby undermining its philosophical rationality. I suggest that the fundamental motivation of German idealism is axiological, and that its augmentation of Kant’s idealism is intelligible in terms of its combined aim of consolidating the transcendental turn and legitimating the kind of (objectual) relation to value articulated in German romanticism.

“In Vain I Tried to Tell You”: Crossreading strategies in global literatures

This essay explores ‘crossreading’ in global literatures—reading texts across Western, Eurocentric cultural boundaries and horizons—an act that requires crossing into alternative epistemological orientations and discursive strategies. Focusing on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, and Keri Hulme's the bone people, I discuss the re‐orientation and re‐conceptualization of cultural beliefs and assumptions that Western readers need to make in order to understand global literatures. As novels that convey in written form the traditional material and stories of oral culture, they articulate world‐views and discursive strategies that differ radically from Western ones. I argue that through a reading process that involves “listening” to the cultural and epistemological contexts of the novels, readers can indeed accomplish those acts of crossreading. Such strategies are all the more necessary in today's increasingly transnational world.