Underpinning Theoretical Perspectives

Since the underlying philosophical position of this project, and its analysis, is based on critical realism it follows Scott’s (2005: 634) argument that critical realism implies a hierarchy beginning with ontology, followed by epistemology, research strategy and ending with instrumentation; and further, that any account of epistemology must be contained within the overarching ontology (Scott: 2007: 14).

Critical realism is partly a response to the false dualism of ‘naive realism’, often termed positivist accounts of experimental methodology (Pring: 2000b), which do not really account for the way natural scientists work, contrasted with the ‘radical’ relativism of the interpretive tradition (Scott: 2005) itself based on postmodernist or constructivist models of understanding that result in incommensurable and incoherent ideas of multiple realities. Based on Bhaskar’s (1975; 1979) work, critical realism has grown in importance, both as an ontological underpinning for natural science epistemology, and as an alternative to the false dualism found in social sciences outlined above. An important principle of critical realism is that there an underpinning physical reality (Savin-Baden and Howell-Major: 2013: 57), the intransitive realm, that has causal power and can be understood through the transitive realm of knowing (the mind) via information from the senses (Scott: 2007: 14-5). Fundamentally for natural science, the intransitive realm is a stratified open system that creates distinguishable and observable events (Cruickshank: 2010: 583-7), and an underlying regularity that allows theories to be constructed and then improved upon.

For the social sciences the situation is a little more complex and contested. Critical realism accepts the addition of human agency, consciousness and theory of mind. The mind then interacts with stratified open social systems and the underpinning social reality, thus creating a distinction between ‘knowing’ and ‘being’ through structure and agency (Scott: 2007: 14). There is a further postulation that this underlying social reality is underpinned by causal mechanisms that cannot be described in an infinite number of

72 | P a g e ways (Scott: 2005: 634-636), and therefore qualified social truths are accessible to philosophers via internal reasoning and analysis. Cruickshank (2010) described this social knowledge as a form of ‘lay’ knowledge that, whilst rejecting the incoherence of multiple realities, nevertheless was ultimately based on agreement rather than certainty. According to Cruickshank, one of the strengths of Bhaskar’s theory was its ability to reconcile naturalistic, empirical research with social sciences to create a ‘contingent’ and ‘qualified’ naturalist account of the human condition (Bhaskar: 1979: 2- 3). This unification between naturalism and social science has been defined by Nash (2005: 187) as an ‘approach that recognises the fundamental unity of the world, grounded in the specific and emergent properties of ...social entities’, that allows the possibility of ‘scientific enquiry’. Yet some important differences between the natural and the social domains are admitted. In Bhaskar’s (1979: 37-54) account, he concluded that the ontological foundations of the social sciences differ from natural sciences in a number of important ways, not least that the foundations of society, the social structures, cannot exist separately from the societies they create, nor do they exist independently of human consciousness or agency, and unlike the underpinning physical reality, they are temporal and subject to change. Thus social sciences are certainly more contingent than the natural sciences, but of course this does not mean, as described above, that social scientist cannot aim to discover and describe the underlying social structures and causal mechanisms.

Thus in terms of an ontologically determined epistemology, this research project certainly placed itself within the broad school of empirical social science research (Cohen et al: 2007; Miles and Huberman: 1994) in that it was conducted with a variety of English primary schools, and aimed to give an empirical, ‘in vivo’ (Glaser and Strauss: 1967: 40), account that produced as much detail as possible, mirroring Yin’s (2003: 162-3) concept of a ‘complete’ account, in order to carry out various forms of comparative and convergent analysis. However, this unquestionably included the researcher acting as a research tool (Miles and Huberman: 1994: 6-7; Punch: 2009:

73 | P a g e 117), and the adoption of some of the methods of ethnography associated with the disciplines of anthropology and sociology (Thomas: 2009: 118-9). Thus, despite the underpinning ontology unquestionably based on critical realism, the project’s epistemological approach was partially influenced by ethnography10 (Green et al: 2012: 309-321) because of the nature of some of the research instruments chosen, the naturalistic settings and immersion in the field (Bhatti: 2012: 80-4; Punch: 2009: 124-9). Savin-Baden and Howell-Major (2013: 31) discussed the acceptance of ‘blurred boundaries and ‘intersubjectivity’ (Savin-Baden and Howell-Major: 2013: 59), but this is rejected completely. Critical realism posits that methodological issues can be reconciled at the level of analysis and in the drawing of conclusions (Scott: 2007: 14- 16), and at this stage ethnographic and interpretive accounts were rejected.

Cummings (1985: 220), based on Schutz’s theory, directed the researcher entering the research field to adopt the assumption of a stranger and to look at all events with fresh and critical eyes, and to reject as far as possible prior knowledge and preconceptions. This proved useful advice, though difficult to achieve in practice because of the researcher’s long experience as a primary teacher. Also influential were the many theorists who advocated high levels of researcher reflexivity (Lincoln and Guba: 1985: 327) and a ‘constant questioning’ approach (Kemmis: 1980) that would also safeguard against making too many uncritical and unwarranted assumptions when carrying out empirical and ethnographic field work. One aspect of education research, borrowed from anthropology, is the concept of emic and etic accounts (Adelman and Young: 1985); certainly emic approaches, accounting for the interpretation of others, were used during this project, not least when collecting observational and field notes, but arguably they can be reconciled with critical realism because of its acceptance of agency. Indeed, Nash (2005: 187) described the ‘double hermeneutic’ of social theory informing social behaviour, and how this can be interpreted by the researcher. Therefore researching accounts of respondent’s attitudes and beliefs can presumably

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74 | P a g e be subject to a similar double layer of analysis, namely critically reflecting on the process of analysing and interpreting the attitudes and beliefs of others.

Critical realism has certainly influenced a generation of educational researchers, notably Pring (2000a), Scott (2005) and Nash (2005), so the underpinning philosophy adopted by this project is far from unique. An early adherent of critical realism in education, Corson (1991), argued for the admittance of a wide range of research tools including observations, interviews and documentary analysis within research strategies such as case studies. Thus the research strategy outlined below can be placed legitimately within critical theory.

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