The science of education-Disciplinary Knowledge on Non-Knowledge/Ignorance?

Abstract

Uncertainty is in. As a future-oriented, specific form of non-knowledge, it nowadays counts as a central characteristic of the knowledge of the world and also determines the way of dealing with it practically. This is shown not only in quantum physics or in 'Schroedinger's cat', in medical-therapeutic diagnostics, in the subsumption of phenomena in classification systems, in language comprehension and recognition but also in stocks and foreign exchange rates, in insurance, in betting and gambling. Currently, 'uncertainty' is also taken up offensively by strategists from the advertising industry, for example, in the context of new information and communication technologies. Not far removed from advertising rhetoric, 'uncertainty' is proclaimed to be a prerequisite for modern management of enterprises. Uncertainty is said to be a fundamental characteristic of our modern society, which renews everything, 'including its own description'. Therefore, enterprises would have to adapt 'from knowledge management to the management of uncertainty'. Such management of uncertainty relies less on the traditional sciences and more on external knowledge, art and literature as sources of current trends and the humanities-sociology, philosophy, anthropology, ethnology etc. Since the 1980s 'uncertainty' is no longer merely seen as a factor in the sciences, which has to be controlled and minimized. Uncertainty is even understood as a dynamic sign of scientific and social development. Since this time, the topic 'uncertainty'-traditionally embodied in philosophy, mathematics and probability theory-is taken up by a multitude of different social and scientific disciplines. In particular, cognition and behavioural sciences, sociology of knowledge, epistemology, and organization/management sciences not only promoted the increasing trend of this topic, but also developed new insights and perspectives, which allow us to speak of the emergence of a new paradigm: Not long ago, the dominant methods of coping with ignorance were to try eliminating it or absorbing it. The emerging frameworks now seem to have jettisoned the assumption that ignorance is ultimately reducible, and the new style is 'managerial' in the sense of attempting to understand, tolerate, and even utilize certain kinds of ignorance (Smithson, 1988, p. viii). In this context, the disciplinary order of traditional sciences-based on methodical and systematic severity and on regulative principles such as truth, certainty, accuracy and objectivity-is relativized by a new cartography of the scientific cosmos, in which networks, discourse coalitions, 'directions', 'camps' or 'styles of thought' and its social correlates are mapped. On the one side, this new form of dealing with uncertainty challenges history and philosophy not to claim, insulate and fence their respective disciplinary fields, but to share, merge and consequently mutually relativize and limit their epistemological perspectives, theoretical constructions and methodological justifications. In this respect the 'Research Community on Philosophy and History of the Discipline of Education' at Leuven University significantly contributes to this challenge, by specifying and applying the general problem of the relationship between philosophy and history to a particular field of study, the science of education. On the other side, this new form of dealing with uncertainty is based not so much on strictly epistemological premises, but is embedded into a broad field of normative orientations, social value conceptions, interaction forms and decision procedures and therefore runs the risk of being processed less in the medium of scientific analysis and criticism, than of power. In this respect, the problem of epistemological rationale changes into the one of political or social relevance. If the relevance of educational research is questioned, then the outcome of research is-in a more or less technological sense-expected to 'work' according to the direction the criteria of relevance point toward. In both regards, focus on the science of education promises interesting insights. It refers to issues which are characterized in a special way by openness and therefore by uncertainty. Regardless of infra-structural attributes of a 'normal' science, uncertainty remains the basis of a special form of reflection, embedded into a broad field of reference disciplines. In addition, the science of education incorporates a broad range of normative orientations, as it is shown semantically not only in rather unspecific core concepts like education, training, learning, teaching or 'Bildung' but also in debates about goals and topics-reform, tasks and challenges-in the problem of theory and practice relationship, or in its high 'resonance ability for public and political themes' (Stroß & Thiel, 1998, p. 16). The science of education often perceives the present as a deficient mode of possible, better futures to be created with the help of education. In this respect, the science of education produces structural disappointments. Reform models and suggestions, developed in theoretical contexts are expected to 'work' in practice, but do not usually work. When looking at educational research literature relevance is often claimed in view of improvement, reform, innovation, change etc. of educational practice. However, educational researchers often express impatience, disappointments and complaints about the gap between 'good and important' research results and the unwillingness or incapacity of educational practitioners to take them up. In addition, this dilemma is hardly a subject of investigation and reflection, but more an impulse of new and more engagement-Sisyphus at work? The paper argues that the science of education starts from the assumption that it forms a special mode of research focusing on individuals, complex situations and the (better) future, which is different to social science research on educational issues. It is based on an epistemological core, which is beyond theory and theorizability, that is, singularity, hyper-complexity and unpredictability. In addition, this core makes it possible to introduce a structural normativity to educational research arguments as a kind of normative ascription on a second level and at the same time to hide it. Therefore uncertainty serves-epistemologically speaking-as a basic category, constituting the discipline-specific subject and providing the science of education with the opportunity to justify (reversing the question) why 'what (systematically) cannot work', will still work under unpredictable degrees of freedom. This categorical assumption, however, is borrowed from educational practice, which also claims to deal with individuals, complex situations and the (better) future, and tries to avoid being responsible for failures by emphasizing the inimitability and unpredictability of educational results. In the first section, this chapter offers-without claiming completeness and systematic order-some facets of the debates on 'uncertainty' in other disciplines. These facets serve as a background for the display of the specific manner in which the science of education deals with this topic. They also serve as a background for the core argument that other disciplines take 'uncertainty' as a subject to be investigated, whereas science of education takes it as a subject-constituting category which demands reflection and allows the introduction of norms and justifications of relevance. The second section follows this specificity. Supported by an empirical content analysis, it uses two examples which show specific ways of dealing with 'uncertainty' in the linkage of theoretical concepts and social connections in the science of education from different, complementary perspectives. The synchronic perspective focuses on the importance of the organizational specificity of practical fields for educational knowledge and reflection. It refers to the use of the concept of 'pedagogization' in discourses of pedagogy and the science of education. The other example focuses in a diachronic way upon the connection between the social processes of the disciplinary formation of the science of education since the end of the Second World War on the one hand and the use and maintenance of characteristics of 'uncertainty' in the discipline's cognitive texture on the other (see Schriewer & Keiner, 1993; Keiner, 1999). The third and last part of this chapter discusses the function of dealing with uncertainty (and its consequences) for the disciplinary profile of the science of education, its relation to practical-pedagogical areas and the associated problem of power. This section questions why the assumption of 'what cannot work', will, in the end, not work-at least in the context of the criteria, rules and standards of scientific research.