Whither Thou Goest, Philosophy of Education...

Stud Philos Educ (2014) 33:667–672 DOI 10.1007/s11217-014-9422-7 EDITOR’S INVITED SYMPOSIUM Whither Thou Goest, Philosophy of Education … Matthew J. Hayden Published online: 20 April 2014  Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 In their article, Publish yet perish: On the pitfalls of philosophy of education in an age of impact factors, the authors want to bring to our attention (a) the increased use of quantitative metrics to measure scholarly output of academics, (b) that such measurements are not only incomplete, but that they disadvantage philosophy of education scholars in particular, and (c) that an alternative form of evaluation—one that focuses on comparisons of philosophy of education scholars within their own sub-discipline—might be a better option. The case is made by examining journal publishing efforts and evaluation systems in three countries: Netherlands, South Africa, and Norway. The first two countries each represent a different side of the same coin: the complicated nature of isolating impact and value of philosophy of education research given its applicability to multiple disciplines and the lack of an empirically substantiated sub-disciplinary identity, and the recognition that the emphasis of ‘research for hire’ will eventually lead to the dissolution of philosophy and education as sub-field of inquiry. In contrast, Norway appears to stand as an ideal situation for philosophers of education. Smeyers et al. believe that philosophy of education scholars should be compared with their sub-discipline peers when such comparisons are used for promotion and tenure. The argument for sub-discipline-specific comparisons is intuitively reasonable. Clearly, if philosophers of education published in a narrower band of journals and cited each other more frequently, their h-indices would increase, and arguments for this idea certainly support the needs of scholars in Netherlands and South Africa. If an institution wants to assess the scholarly output of its philosophers of education and that productivity can be assessed using publication output, it makes sense to compare their work to philosophers of education at other institutions. The examples from Netherlands and South Africa represent conditions under which the sub-discipline comparison argument might serve the interests of philosophers of education (given prevailing conditions). However, it is not obvious to me how the authors advance the argument to help philosophy of education scholars in M. J. Hayden (&) Drake University, 3206 University Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50311, USA e-mail: [email protected] 123 668 M. J. Hayden countries or institutions facing different or unrelated pressures, or for the field of philosophy of education in general. Should we target known and titled philosophy of education journals such as this journal (Studies in Philosophy and Education), the Journal of Philosophy and Education, or Educational Philosophy and Theory? Or should we attempt to find a research presence in educational studies journals that are sympathetic to philosophical questions, such as Education Theory and Theory and Research in Education? For those of us with specific interests within the discipline of philosophy, there are outlets such as Ethics and Education, the Journal of Moral Education, and the Journal of Aesthetic Education, but where do the philosophers of education who specialize in metaphysics, epistemology, or logic go? Further, at what juncture might the sub-discipline journal cease its justification in one subdiscipline and become another? For instance, Theory and Research in Education publishes highly philosophical articles as well as themed issues that might focus on self-determination theory of motivation or education for sustainable development; would this journal fit within a sub-discipline of philosophy of education journals?1 To create a distinct comparison model between philosophers of education would require the deliberate task of constructing a list of philosophy of education journals to aid philosophy of education scholars in identifying friendly ‘homes’ for their research, and then encouraging these scholars to publish in them. More broadly, should philosophers of education be at all concerned that they are largely excluded from the discipline of philosophy, both institutionally—most philosophy of education and educational studies/theory programs are located in schools of education rather than in the arts and sciences or humanities—and ‘socially’ insofar as it is rare to find philosophers of education who write about education published in ‘pure’ philosophy journals. In a brief survey of lists of philosophy journals, nary a one includes a philosophy of education journal, but it is possible to find philosophers of science published in those philosophy journals. Does our preoccupation with education—and our attempt to ‘speak’ to educators—marginalize or even ostracize us from our ‘home’ discipline? Further, is philosophy indeed our home?2 As the Perish authors note, Strand identifies this problem when the main ambition of philosophers of education is to contribute primarily to the field of education. This exposes a paradox I have observed for philosophers of education who see themselves as philosophers who examine education when, in fact, it might be that we are (or are perceived to be) educational scholars who think philosophically about education and its practices: the latter perception has often been communicated to me by so-called ‘pure’ philosophers. However, since trained philosophers who study education are trained to ask philosophical questions, this may be precisely the way in which the field of philosophy of education is developed and made distinct from other disciplinary and research endeavors; by capitalizing on its ‘philosophicalness’.3 The further philosophers of 1 Both of these were published as special issue/symposiums in Theory and Research in Education. See Curren (2009); Curren (2008). Theory and Research in Education appeared to discontinue the themed/ symposium style of issue publication some time around 2010, and its articles since then have represented a more traditional philosophy of education track. 2 Recent articles have pursued this question. See Biesta (2014), White (2013), Cuypers (2014), among others. 3 Ruitenberg (2014) urges philosophers of education to retain the philosophical nature of their questions rather than ‘‘melt into a generic body of theorizing’’ (p. 95). This does, however, beg a question: must one be trained first in philosophy and then specialize in asking questions about education in order to be a ‘philosopher of education’? Biesta (2014) suggests that the very idea of philosophy of education comes out of a very specific way in which it has developed in the English speaking world, one which is alien to the way in 123 Whither Thou Goest, Philosophy of Education … 669 education drift away from philosophy the less likely they are to bring those disciplinary methods to bear on the objects of their research, thus diminishing not only the value of what philosophy can bring to educational research, but also, potentially, the quality of the philosophy undertaken. On a more positive note, the apparent separation from ‘pure’ philosophy and the concurrent skepticism our research often receives from educational practitioners could signify that the sub-discipline of philosophy of education is distinct enough to assert itself as a self-sufficient sub-discipline of coherent standing. Such boundaries might be conducive to using quantitative analysis for the purposes of scholarly and departmental productivity analysis. It might also serve to increase our invisibility in both philosophy—a situation already well advanced—and education. The use of a sub-discipline-specific comparison is further complicated by the fact that, as Smeyers et al. have noted, many philosophers of education publish outside of the subdiscipline. In my research on journals of philosophy of education referenced by Smeyers et al. 18 % of all the articles published in the four journals studied over an eleven year period were about types of education, such as citizenship education, moral education, science education, art education, and multicultural education, to name only a few (Hayden 2012). This is only partially representative of the widely varied disciplinary interests of philosophers of education that serve to complicate the issue of developing a sub-discipline. Why do we research so far afield? Laverty (2014) suggests that philosophers of education ‘‘seek to challenge and disrupt presumptions of educational efficiency, wishing to make explicit the ethical, aesthetic, and existential dimensions of education’’ (p. 44), pushing boundaries in other fields. For my part, I am currently working on research that combines moral education and de-schooling efforts with empirical research from psychology and neuroscience. Though this research is motivated by philosophical questions of ethics and morality (what are the moral obligations we have to early-adolescent learning and emotional well-being when we put them in schools together?) it seems best to target journals in the sub-discipline of educational psychology. Further, it meets a deliberate goal of mine to exert influence on empiricists in the field of psychometrics who dominate the researchbased influence on testing in U.S. educational policy and reform. I am compelled, through my own beliefs about the value of philosophy of education, to bring philosophical thinking to bear on subjects and in disciplines that do not want it, but desperately need it. In my specific professional circumstances these efforts do not handicap my promotion and tenure since my institution does not (yet) require publication in particular journals or require that those journals have a minimum impact-factor. It might, however, both help and foil the Perish authors’ goals. If I do not publish in philosophy of education journals, the number of scholars striving to ‘clog up’ the sub-discipline decreases by one, but so also does the number of scholars actively building-up the sub-discipline. I am thus inclined, given my institutional promotion and tenure emphases and my propensity for multi-disciplinary thinking, to publish what and where my interests and passions dictate and expose myself to the apples-to-oranges comparisons should they come to roost at my institution. Should we instead choose to push for an apples-to-apples approach we would also need to campaign for and successfully create a new metric for evaluation, such as a ‘sub-Impact Factor ‘(sub-IF). This could be a sub-discipline-specific Impact Factor that includes only other like-journals. Or, as Smeyers et al. suggest, the h-index option might be preferable Footnote 3 continued which it has developed, for example, in the German speaking world, concluding that ‘philosopher of education’ has a very specific historical origin. 123 670 M. J. Hayden given its indifference to which specific journals one publishes in. Using the same calculations as the current dominant standards would then allow our comparisons to make sense to evaluators who are already using that style of evaluation, and such familiarity might make a sub-IF easier to ‘sell’ to our respective institutions and evaluators. However, as my previously described personal institutional situation illustrates, promotion and tenure requirements, institutional demands and needs, and other subjective contexts, combine to make a sub-discipline-wide system difficult to construct and will result in varying degrees of efficacy from scholar to scholar. Each individual philosopher of education at each institution would need to collaborate with his/her appropriate institutional authorities to determine which journals would constitute the sub-IF. For instance, I would want to include certain educational psychology and/or moral education journals in the group of journals used to evaluate my productivity and impact, whereas Smeyers might prefer to include higher education research journals or science education journals in his group. While such an approach might be more individually appropriate, the extreme subjectivity of it would make a ‘united front’ of philosophers of education as representatives of a legitimate sub-discipline campaigning for such changes much more difficult to form. Should such efforts succeed, they might produce a negative unintended consequence. Philosophers of education emboldened by recognition of their sub-field might begin to publish more narrowly, thus restricting the influence of philosophy of education in other fields that are currently outlets for publication. We would be encouraged to publish almost exclusively in the journals included in the sub-IF ratings web, which would have the unintended effect of reducing an already limited number of publishing opportunities and might even serve to transform what is perceived as a relatively collegial community of philosophers of education into a more competitive, less collegial, community of publishing competitors. It is also possible that this activity would serve to transition philosophy of education research away from its ostensibly substantive efforts to those of mere performativity, as ‘accountability’ has done to primary and secondary education?4 Would this aid our promotion and tenure efforts? Perhaps, since a more relevant comparison could be made among researchers in the sub-discipline, but this might also serve to further marginalize philosophy of education from ongoing educational debates and conversations in psychology, policy, and curriculum studies. Scholars in those fields are unlikely to look for us in our journals and we will not be publishing in theirs, all the more problematic since they have greater influence on educational pedagogies and policies than we do (the Norwegian example excepted). Further, such sub-specialization and subsequent marginalization will likely lead to an even lower profile for philosophy of education, make it more difficult to retain our presence in institutions, and thus potentially render the promotion and tenure argument moot: there might be no ‘home’ for us to be tenured in. The research problem is merely a symptom of a larger one; what is philosophy of education?5 As a means to answer this question, it would be useful for philosophers of education to be more self-referential through publishing in sharply delineated philosophy of education journals and to cite each other in their work in order to build a critical mass of research that is specifically and undoubtedly understood to be philosophy of education. 4 Chris Higgins (2010) writes about this change in schooling practices in regard to instrumentalism in education. He argues that this culture of performativity serves to only change the perception of outputs and decreases the quality of education. 5 This has been a particularly anxious question for philosophers of education, and one that has had increased treatment with special issues in journals devoted to it. See ‘‘Curren and de Ruyter (2014), Theory and Research in Education; ‘‘Ruitenberg (2009), Journal of Philosophy of Education. 123 Whither Thou Goest, Philosophy of Education … 671 Indeed, according to my research the sub-discipline of philosophy of education has undergone a slight narrowing of its research as represented by the four journals studied.6 However, will this lead to a decrease in our study and use of traditional philosophers and philosophy, creating a larger gulf than the one we already have? For instance, the most referenced ‘great thinker’ in my 2012 research was Dewey, a philosopher who is much more associated with educational theory than philosophy. Of all the ‘great thinker’ references, 21.8 % were to Dewey. Further, only 26.8 % of all the articles contained references to one or more of the seventeen most-cited philosophers, which seems to be a relatively low percentage for a field that one might intuit to be half philosophy and half education. I also worry about our ability to influence and engage non-philosophy-ofeducation education scholars with our concerns or our insights in regard to their concerns. For instance, my encounters with moral education have revealed a field dominated by psychologists, primarily Kohlbergian, who are quite adept at describing, analyzing, predicting, and making recommendations in regard to the learning of specific morals or the best designs for moral education based on descriptions analyzing how people make moral judgments, but, as even Kohlberg himself averred, the discipline is ill-equipped to determine what is moral, a service philosophers have traditionally provided.7 Given my interest in morality and education I am quite wary of abandoning the sub-discipline of moral education to the psychologists in order to shore up the sub-discipline of philosophy of education. Additionally, would such activities enable us to avoid a publishing situation in which we are simply ‘preaching to the choir’? Would not most of us agree that some problems in education result from non-philosophers not thinking philosophically enough? Is it not better for our field—if not education broadly—for philosophers of education to be active in the other fields that connect with our core questions as a means to force philosophical thinking into places where it may be needed? Most of my teacher-educator colleagues do not read philosophy of education journals and some were surprised to hear that such journals exist; they will not seek us out. Yet many of us believe that their practices can be improved through our research. Though conditions in many countries stand against success, perhaps the solution for philosophers of education lies in the Norwegian example. The government funds philosophical research, philosophers of education are tasked with making ‘‘meta-reflections’’ on educational research, and these scholars are active in many different areas of educational research. Philosophers of education are not only supported, funded, and avail themselves of publishing opportunities, but they even occupy a veritable ‘philosopher king’ status in drawing meta-conclusions about Norwegian research which puts them in a position to ‘‘save’’ the quality of research in Norway. In this regard, it connects with White’s (2013) suggestion that philosophy of education engage with global social policy. As Cuypers (2014) writes ‘‘it is conceived as an answer to the question: What role should educational philosophy play?’’ (p. 1). Cuypers interprets White to suggest that philosophers of education should engage in helping education better establish a just society leading to civilized flourishing lives. It appears that in Norway philosophers of education play exactly this kind of role in assessing educational research and its appropriate role in Norwegian education. 6 From 2000 to 2010 there was an increased thematic concentration of concepts in all articles, one that decreased variation by 12 %. See Hayden 2012. 7 ‘‘Science, then, can test whether a philosopher’s conception of morality phenomenologically fits the psychological facts. Science cannot go on to justify that conception of morality as what morality ought to be’’. See Kohlberg in Habermas (2001), p. 39. 123 672 M. J. Hayden According to Smeyers et al. the biggest problem in Norway appears to be the frequency of publishing in Norwegian, thus limiting its reach and impact. But they do not seem to need to do otherwise since their work has already been accepted as valuable in Norway; publishing beyond Norwegian borders seems to be secondary to the service they provide their national education system. For the Norwegian example to be instructive for the rest of us we would need to know how we could influence research policies in other countries in order to replicate the Norwegian system of research and support. I can only speculate that the Norwegian government has taken this position regarding philosophy and education’s positive influence on faith, or perhaps after reading Plato’s Republic, but how long will that last? What have been the results of the meta-reflections of philosophers of education? Will other fields and non-philosophers of education scholars eventually demand that philosopher’s of education ‘prove’ the value of their meta-reflections? Smeyers et al. also indicate some alarm that in Norway the ‘‘main ambition [of philosophers of education] is not to contribute to the field of philosophy, but rather to contribute to the field of educational theory, policy and practice’’ (p. x). I am quite happy to know that at least somewhere philosophers of education are influencing policy. In a broader sense, didn’t Plato’s Socrates envision philosophers doing just that? If the Perish authors’ suggestions and my pessimism are both correct, then we face the significantly challenging task of emphasizing publication in other fields while concurrently creating and clarifying our own at a time when our sub-discipline appears to be both too small and too marginalized to effectively do either. Even though I am unconvinced that we can do both successfully given current and prevailing conditions, I am inclined to encourage philosophers of education to take on this more difficult, and possibly impossible, dual-pronged challenge than to pursue only one or the other. References Biesta, G. (2014). Is philosophy of education a historical mistake? Connecting philosophy and education differently. Theory and Research in Education, 12(1), 65–76. Curren, R. (2008). 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The world of instruction: Undertaking the impossible. Ethics and Education, 9(1), 42–53. Ruitenberg, C. (2014). ‘‘Plays well with others’’: The engagement of philosophy of education with other educational research. Theory and Research in Education, 12(1), 88–97. Ruitenberg, C. (2009). Special Issue: What do Philosophers of Education do? (And how do they do it?). Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 315–469. White, J. (2013). Philosophy, philosophy of education, and economic realities. Theory and Research in Education, 11(3), 294–303. 123