Postpositivism and Educational Research by D. C. Phillips

Author:D. C. Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442202702
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Response: This is a good argument; the ideal of value-free inquiry is what we will later call an internal or cognitive value. But before we clarify this, let us examine two further and closely related arguments that are often put forward to show that value-free social science is not possible. We shall state them both before offering comments.

Argument C

There is a relatively more subtle and powerful metanarrative against the possibility of value neutrality that has a number of interesting variants. The core argument (favored by some of the social constructivists we referred to earlier) runs as follows: “Some value orientations are so embedded in our modes of thought as to be unconsciously held by all scientists, or, more precisely, by all those working within the same sociohistorical context. This situation has arisen because all inquiries have to make use of categories and concepts, principles, rules of evidence, and so forth; and these things will by necessity have been developed so as to reflect the interests of the most powerful groups in society. Over time these particular ways of conceptualizing the world, and inquiry, will become embedded. To give just one example, some scholars in the Marxist tradition have suggested that the interests and values of Western capitalism have permeated the social sciences and educational research in this way.” (See Moten 1990 for a similar criticism made by an Islamic scholar.)

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