Compares Dewey and Vygotsky on three conceptual issues that relate directly to educational processes and goals: the roles of social history, experience/culture, and human inquiry in the educational process. The differences in their approaches are illustrated by examining the educational models of the zone of proximal development and long-term…

Education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike are committed to identifying interventions that teach students more effectively. Increased emphasis on evaluation and accountability has increased desire for sound evaluations of these interventions; and at the same time, school-level data have become increasingly available. This article…

Presents predictions made by past presidents of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) on the future of educational research, includinq the emergence of new research methods; improvement of existing measures; changes within AERA; developments in school populations, testing, and funding; new conceptions of intelligence and aptitude;…

Charts social influences and conflicts in educational theory as they interacted in shaping curriculum and educational practice around 1900. Discusses the observations and viewpoints of various educational theoreticians and reformers. (GC)

Explains why the lack of properly funded educational research hampers educational reform efforts and research quality, and why those research studies that present relevant and useful findings often never reach potential users. Argues that researchers must stop being timid and must aggressively take the lead in getting the funding needed for…

This book is a significant contribution to the field of sociology of school knowledge. It looks at the historical development of the field and argues that, although this field has appealed only to a limited audience, it has the potential to reach a larger audience of scholars if an alternative research agenda could be created. (SLD)

Reviews four hypotheses that describe the disconnection between educational research and practice. These hypotheses claim that research needs to be more authoritative, relevant, and accessible; and that the educational system is often unable to adequately reply to research findings. The historical thought behind each hypothesis and the place for…

Comments on Erick Smith's article that states the authors do not use a consistent meaning for the term "knowledge" when discussing learning theory. The authors use the Vygotskian account of the movement from the interpsychological to the intrapsychological plane through the process of internalization and reinvention to explain their…

Using two studies, this paper argues that the controlled study of how specific variables affect others and the study of the same when embedded in complex educational environments should be based on two sets of assumptions underlying two paradigms, analytic and systemic, that differ as do quantitative and qualitative approaches. (RLC)

Beginning educational researchers are advised to do the following: (1) choose a research focus with reference to events in the real world of education; (2) augment research with products and services to bring about improvements in educational practice; and (3) find an honest critic to review research work. (SLD)

John Dewey attempted to connect knowledge and reality through a naturalized epistemology but produced an anthropomorphic ontology in which things are shaped too much by the mind. Many of Dewey's ideas are still relevant, but taken as an intact set of ideas, they are not applicable to the world of today. (SLD)

Suggests that to bring about a fusion of teacher and researcher communities in education requires a change in emphasis from the generation of knowledge to dialog about what counts as knowledge. Bases the case for dialogic research on the theories of Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. (SLD)

Reviews the following claims of situated learning: action is grounded in the concrete situation in which it occurs; knowledge does not transfer between tasks; training by abstraction is of little use; and instruction must be done in complex, social environments. The authors, focusing on mathematics education, critically evaluate each claim and…

Three fundamental theoretical issues of importance to the work of curricularists are examined: (1) the matter of the technical and the practical; (2) the relation between knowledge and human interests; and (3) the relation between theory and practice. References are made to the critical theory writings of Richard J. Bernstein and Jurgen Habermas.…

Notes that Markle's (April 1975 issue of this journal) summary of the current state of research regarding concept teaching conveys a major misconception and omits a major conception. (Author/AM)