Montague and Rinaldi and Meltzer,Katzir-Cohen,Miller and Roditi: A Critical Commentary

Abstract

One purpose of this commentary is to highlight what I found to be some of the most intriguing findings of the two studies reported. In keeping with the tenets of critical theory, however, in this commentary I also raise questions about the unacknowledged but complicating factors of race, class, and gender and suggest that important information might be obscured in these (and other) research reports when authors do not report on such variables. A major contribution of both of these studies is their exploration of how students' and teachers' thinking (and by implication, feelings) help to define the educational environment, particularly students' beliefs and actual behaviors. Finally, I suggest that quantitative studies cannot alone provide the depth of information that we need as a field to learn about the productive, generative role of educational practice. Qualitative investigations — especially life histories, interview studies, and ethnographies — could complement this line of research in important ways, mostly by allowing the current, more complicated picture of both self-concept and classroom dynamics to be studied.