Questions of legitimacy and quality in educational research

Abstract

This Part of the Companion examines a range of questions associated with conventional to radical principles of research legitimation given recent questions about the quality and qualities of educational research. The introductory essay examines the scope and impacts of such debates in relation to methodological positions, arguing that a requisite variety of values and logics has become essential to sustaining the vision and practice of educational inquiry, particularly given complex practical to theoretical considerations associated with undertaking the research enterprise. Contributions that follow illustrate how these concerns play out at the interplay of theoretically-rich and evidence-based priorities for educational research; the politics and ethics of legitimation amongst diversified research communities, regulators and users; and the development, instigation and contestation of quality criteria within and beyond the fields that educational researchers appeal to, as they account for their decisions and practices. Questions of legitimacy and quality in educational research are shown to be inescapably tied to matters of discourse, subjectivity and authority in meaning making. The burden of the essay, and subsequent chapters and commentaries, is to argue the need for critical reflection on standards, standardizations and standings, particularly as the merit, character, calibre and excellence of research undertakings are scrutinized, be that in terms of their theoretical rigor or their pragmatic outcomes and impacts.