Early educational reformers attempted to "take the schools out of politics " and turn over educational decision making to educational administrators, who, it was assumed, would base decisions on knowledge generated by research and evaluation rather than on political considerations. Postpositivist epistemology, however, suggests that all knowledge is political. This article briefly reviews the postpositivists' argument for linking knowledge and politics, attempts to rethink the notion of evaluation to make it consistent with a postpositivist perspective, translates this reconceptualized view of evaluation into specific procedures, and describes what happened when these procedures were put into practice.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ayer, A. J. (1952). Language, truth, and logic. New York: Dover.
2.
Belenky, M. (1986). Women's ways of knowing. New York: Basic Books.
3.
Beyer, L. (1990). Curriculum deliberation: Value choices and political possibilities. In J. Sears & D. Marshall (Eds.), Teaching and thinking about curriculum (pp. 123-137). New York: Teachers College Press.
4.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
5.
Buber, M. (1968). Education. Between man and man. New York: Macmillan.
6.
Campbell, D. T. (1975). Reforms as experiments. In E. Struening & M. Guttentag (Eds.), Handbook of evaluation research (Vol. 1, pp. 71-100). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
7.
Campbell, R. , & Gregg, R. (Eds.). (1957). Administrative behavior in education. New York: Harper.
8.
Cherryholmes, C. (1988). Power and criticism: Poststructural investigations in education. New York: Teachers College Press.
9.
Cubberley, E. P. (1909). Changing conceptions of education. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
10.
Deal, T. , & Kennedy, A. (1982). Corporate culture: The rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
11.
Derrida, J. (1983). The principle of reason: The university in the eyes of its pupils (C. Porter & E. Morris, Trans.). Diacritics, 13(3), 3-20.
12.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.
13.
Donmoyer, R. (1985). The rescue from relativism. Educational Researcher, 14(10), 13-20.
14.
Donmoyer, R. (1987). Review of Naturalistic inquiry. Teachers College Record, 88, 470-474.
15.
Eisner, E. (1985). The educational imagination. New York: Macmillan.
16.
Eisner, E. (1991). The enlightened eye. New York: Macmillan.
17.
Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
18.
Foucault, M. (1977). Language, counter-memory, practice (D. Bouchard, Ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
19.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury.
20.
Galtung, J. (1974). On peace education. In C. Wolf (Ed.), Handbook on peace education (pp. 153-171). Frankfurt Am Main: International Peace Research Association.
21.
Giroux, H. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey.
22.
Gold, N. (1981). The stakeholder process in educational program evaluation. Unpublished manuscript.
23.
Griffiths, D. E. (1956). Human relations in school administration. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
24.
Griffiths, D. E. (1959). Administrative theory. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
25.
Griffiths, D. E. (Ed.). (1964). Behavioral science and educational administration. The 63rd yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
26.
Guba, E. , & Lincoln, Y. (1981). Effective evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
27.
Guba, E. , & Lincoln, Y. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
28.
Habermas, J. (1984-1987). The theory of communicative action (Vols. 1-2; T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
29.
Halpin, A. W. (Ed.). (1958).Administrative theory in education. Chicago: University of Chicago, Midwest Center.
30.
Jardine, D. , & Clandinin, J. (1987). Does it rain on Vancouver Island? Teaching as storytelling. Curriculum Inquiry, 17,471-481.
31.
Kleibard, H. (1975). Reappraisal: The Tyler rationale. In W. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualists (pp. 70-83). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.
32.
Levine, M. (1974). Scientific method and the adversary model. American Psychologist, 29, 661-667.
33.
Lincoln, Y , & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
34.
Neisser, U. (1976). Cognition and reality: Principles and implications of cognitive psychology. San Francisco: Freeman.
35.
Payne, W. H. (1886). Contributions to the science of education. New York: Harper.
36.
Phillips, D. C. (1987). Philosophy, science and social inquiry. Oxford: Pergamon.
37.
Rice, J. (1896). Obstacles to rational educational reform. Forum, 22, 385-395.
38.
Rice, J. (1902). Educational research. Forum, 34, 117-130.
39.
Rice, J. (1912). Scientific management in education. New York: Publishing Printing Co.
40.
Rippey, R. (1973). Studies in transactional evaluation. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.
41.
Rivlin, A. (1971). Systematic thinking in social action. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
42.
Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text the poem: A transactional theory of the literary work. Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois Press.
43.
Scheurich, J. , & Imber, M. (1991). Educational reforms can reproduce societal inequities: A case study. Educational Administration Quarterly, 27, 297-320.
44.
Schwab, J. (1969). The practical: A language for curriculum. School Review, 76, 1-23.
45.
Smith, L. , & Geoffrey, J. (1968). The complexities of the urban classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
46.
Stake, R. (1975). Evaluating the arts in education: A responsive approach. Columbus, OH: Charles Merrill.
47.
Strayer, G. (1925). Professional training of superintendents of schools. Teachers College Record, 26, 815-826.
48.
Toulmin, S. (1972). Human understanding. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
49.
Tyack, D. (1979). The one best system. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
50.
Wolcott, H. F. (1977). Teachers versus technocrats. Eugene: University of Oregon, Center for Educational Policy and Management.
51.
Wolf, R. (1973). Application of select legal concepts to educational evaluation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois.
52.
Worthen, B. , & Rogers, W. T. (1980). Pitfalls and potential of adversary evaluation. Educational Leadership, 37, 536-543.
