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A Conception of TeachingThe Desirability and Possibility ofa Theory of Teaching

A Conception of Teaching: The Desirability and Possibility ofa Theory of Teaching Chapter 2 The Desirability and Possibility of a Theory of Teaching Gary Thomas (1997, 2007), a professor of educational psychology at the University of Birmingham. His paper, “What’s the Use of Theory?” (1997) and his Education and Theory: Strangers in Paradigms (2007) have attracted attention in large part because of the novelty of their message: the undesirability of theory in education. His position is well represented by the following quotation from his book: I contend that the allure of theory – and the desire of educators to call their ideas “theory”– -rests historically on its success in other fields, most notably natural science. It was from this success that theory drew its epistemological legitimacy. Many educators appeared to have at the back of their minds the idea that theory represented the clearest distillation of intellectual endeavor: the conceptual and methodological cream of the various disciplines from which it had been borrowed. But my argument is that these successes provide no good reason for contemporary education’s romance with theory. The domains in which theory has been useful find no congruence in education. Indeed those domains where theory is valuable are more limited than one might imagine, and I plead for http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Conception of TeachingThe Desirability and Possibility ofa Theory of Teaching

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Publisher
Springer US
Copyright
© Springer-Verlag US 2009
ISBN
978-0-387-09445-8
Pages
11 –40
DOI
10.1007/978-0-387-09446-5_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

Chapter 2 The Desirability and Possibility of a Theory of Teaching Gary Thomas (1997, 2007), a professor of educational psychology at the University of Birmingham. His paper, “What’s the Use of Theory?” (1997) and his Education and Theory: Strangers in Paradigms (2007) have attracted attention in large part because of the novelty of their message: the undesirability of theory in education. His position is well represented by the following quotation from his book: I contend that the allure of theory – and the desire of educators to call their ideas “theory”– -rests historically on its success in other fields, most notably natural science. It was from this success that theory drew its epistemological legitimacy. Many educators appeared to have at the back of their minds the idea that theory represented the clearest distillation of intellectual endeavor: the conceptual and methodological cream of the various disciplines from which it had been borrowed. But my argument is that these successes provide no good reason for contemporary education’s romance with theory. The domains in which theory has been useful find no congruence in education. Indeed those domains where theory is valuable are more limited than one might imagine, and I plead for

Published: Oct 28, 2008

Keywords: Educational Research; Student Achievement; Physical Science; Behavioral Science; Implicit Theory

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