Myers Education Press Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education: Challenging the Limits of Technocratic Methods

Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education challenges dominant educational research methods. It rejects the reductive binaries normalized in social science research―theory/practice, objective/subjective, quantitative/qualitative. Drawing from multiple fields and eras, the book opens third spaces between these artificial poles to help researchers expand interpretations and possibilities for research. Critiquing the current focus on the measurement of "student learning outcomes" and high-stakes assessment, the book offers conceptual tools and case examples to support educators in reconceptualizing research. The book critiques the modernist notion that learning is an individual mental process of acquiring knowledge or skills. It argues instead that learning is inextricably entangled with social relations and cannot be isolated or controlled no matter how scientifically rigorous researchers try to be in their study designs. This challenges the current goal of educational research instruction to design "valid and reliable" studies that provide evidence for "best practices," and reimagines it as opening third spaces to expand opportunities and approaches for inquiry. Review "Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education: Challenging the Limits of Technocratic Methods offers a powerful argument for shifting the focus of research away from the overly formalistic concerns with conducting research correctly towards research that is aligned with the subject matter in education. The book--spanning the philosophical underpinnings of different research traditions, the ways research as a subject is taught to students, and the concepts researched (e.g., learning)--enlightens the reader regarding the many alternative ways relevant research may be conducted in education. A highly recommended read for everyone planning to do research in education."--Jacob Klitmøller, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, Department of Psychology, Aarhus University, Denmark"The brilliance of Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education: Challenging the Limits of Technocratic Methods lies in its being situated in colonial historicity that privileged Western psychological research models which have, by and large, colonized educational research under the pretext of protecting objectivity. By succinctly unveiling the falsehood upon which the foundational pillars that support the false binarism inherent in the derivative educational research models, Erin Blakely and David Hemphill, painstakingly demonstrate how the disarticulation between the interpretative discourse and the interests of the interpreter often denies the dialectical relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. That is, the blind embrace of objectivity found in most educational research, denies the subjectivity that determines why a particular area is considered worthy of research in the first place, and how certain knowledges are subordinated to the imperatives of number crunching which, by design, erases the human face always present in all research endeavors. What the authors of Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education: Challenging the Limits of Technocratic Methods make abundantly clear is the high societal costs exacted through the Godfication of scientism, not science, and the blind celebration of methodological elegance. Given the unacceptable high rate of educational failure, particularly in urban areas populated mostly by non-white students, readers of this important book will understand that the predominance of the technocratic paradigm in educational research is an ideological trap that sacrifices human factors along the lines of gender, ethnicity, class, and culture at the altar of research objectivity. This insightful book must be read by all educators who consider themselves agents of change in the struggle to promote a less dystopian and more humane world."--Donaldo Macedo, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Professor