People and practice: defining education as an academic discipline

Some clarifications on educational research and practice

“…Wyse et al (2021) suggest a greater ‘generosity of spirit’ (p. 8) amongst educational researchers. Their own paper, however, shows limited engagement with the credible arguments put forward in Hordern (2021) which are dismissed as ‘conjecture’, or indeed the criticisms of Parsons (2021) regarding the CtP initiative.…”

“…Hordern (2021) was not a ‘negative response’ (Wyse et al, 2021, p. 1519) or even a ‘critical response’ (p. 1513) to the CtP project and statement, as it was not a ‘response’ at all. In fact the first nine pages of Hordern (2021) articulated a stance on the relationship between educational knowledge and practice, before devoting the final five to a critical commentary on the basis for the CtP project and the assumptions within the CtP statement.…”

“…In fact the first nine pages of Hordern (2021) articulated a stance on the relationship between educational knowledge and practice, before devoting the final five to a critical commentary on the basis for the CtP project and the assumptions within the CtP statement. While Hordern (2021) is critical of the notion of CtP as a future trajectory for any tradition of educational research, instead advocating a normative and less attenuated view of practice that focuses the efforts of all educational practitioners, it is not ‘negative’ in the way characterised by Wyse et al (2021). On the contrary, it sets out a framework for thinking more productively about the future of educational knowledge production in the context of a tradition of educational practice.…”

“…Wyse et al (2021) also do not make clear that Hordern (2021) was submitted via the standard BERJ process for general submissions and double‐blind peer reviewed. While they do acknowledge that my paper was a ‘catalyst’ for the special section, they also state that ‘the responses in the special section were not peer reviewed by independent referees; instead the responses were commissioned and reviewed by one BERJ editor’ (Wyse et al, 2021, p. 1513). Such a statement is potentially misleading: it would be more accurate to state that Hordern (2021) was a standard submission and independently peer reviewed.…”

“…Having responded to the substantive issues in the Wyse et al (2021) paper, I briefly discuss the important contribution of another paper in the special section (Takayama & Nishioka, 2021) in the context of identifying a way forward for education as a professionally, or practice‐orientated discipline. In the final section I explain why my earlier paper did not make allegations regarding imperialism and fetishism in relation to the participants in the CtP project or BERA itself (Wyse et al, 2021).…”