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Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 6,
1198-1219 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1077800405276773
Traveling Beyond Dangerous Private and Universal Discourses
Radioactivity of Radical Hermeneutics and Objectivism in Educational Research
Mustafa Yunus Eryaman
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In this article, the author explores several definitions of reading and evaluating educational research texts without finding deep private meanings or developing objective, scientific, and instrumental norms for evaluating quality of educational research studies. Among these descriptions, the author emphasizes Gadamer's weak poststructural model and Habermas's critique of and contribution to it, aiming to replace the neoconservative objectivist and neoliberal subjectivist traditions with something of greater social and intellectual utility: a "dialectical and critical" theory of reading and evaluation of educational research. This alternative approach, based on philosophical hermeneutics, critical theory, and practical philosophy, identifies understanding, interpreting, and evaluating a research text as a political, ideological, ethical, critical, gendered, sexual, racial, transformative, social, discursive, deliberative, and performed experience. The author argues that knowledge developed from this alternative approach represents a step toward the development of transformative political practices and progressive institutions to challenge the neoconservative status quo at intellectual, political, and practical levels.
Key Words: radical hermeneutics • critical theory • No Child Left Behind • NCLB • National Research Council • NRC report • practical philosophy
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