FORM8000 · Education

Special Topics in Formative Education: Stylized Facts - Evidence-Based Policy and Epistemic (Ir)responsibility

Lynch School of Education & Human Development

This interdisciplinary seminar (public policy; history and philosophy of education; economics and sociology; philosophy of social science), critically examines the major currents in educational research practices, funding, and applications since the 2002 passage of the Education Sciences Reform Act. In addition to covering the explicit and implicit hierarchy of study designs and research methods, the course will focus on the ideal and actual uses of research findings in guiding educational practices. What do our official views of good research tell us about whom we should trust, which knowledge claims carry weight, and how the governance of educational institutions ought to work? Getting into these questions will require thinking about the differences and similarities between fact-checking and truth-telling, the public roles of determinative and aesthetic judgment, testimonial in/justice, and the place of value pluralism in what Michael Lynch calls epistemically responsible communities, and more.