Back to the future: perspectives on current realities and future quality of educational research through the prism of Irish Educational Studies

Abstract

While ‘paradigm wars’ have raged internationally during the past decade in particular, the research community, qua community in the Irish context has been largely silent on these important issues. This paper provides a synthesis of key aspects of these international discourses against a brief historical backdrop of the field of educational research. Thereafter, this theoretical lens is used to interrogate the more than 200 papers published in Irish Educational Studies (IES) over a period of 10 years: 1996–2006. This analysis seeks to establish the relative health and quality of educational research in the Irish context, and in the third section of the paper, this analysis is the basis for discussion of lessons that may be learned from insights and understandings gained. The paper concludes that a more systematic and comprehensive review of educational research funding in the Irish context would be particularly apposite and timely, while also advocating the necessity for a comprehensive educational research policy and the creation of a national educational research council. In the absence of such endeavours, research is likely to remain fragmented, small scale and easily dismissed by policy-makers, thus enabling advocacy rather than evidence and research generated elsewhere to overly-influence educational reform, while failing to enhance and extend a comprehensive ‘native’ research literature, a vibrant research culture, while funding and systematically supporting and developing the next generation of educational researchers. In the absence of policy and funding, quality and capacity will continue to falter in a more complex, sophisticated interdependent world.

Keywords:

• paradigm wars
• research quality
• policy
• funding

Acknowledgements

I am most grateful to Maeve Dupont for her invaluable assistance in the analysis of data. My gratitude also to the reviewers who made several valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this paper, another unsung aspect of blind peer reviewed publications, and an important if invisible aspect of seeking to promote quality research.

Notes

1. In order to have a paper considered for publication in Irish Educational Studies, it was necessary to present that paper at the Association's annual conference. This requirement was dropped as part of a series of reforms to the journal during the past five years or more.

2. As the Irish economy began to grow exponentially about mid-way through the 1990s, resulting in unprecedented immigration as well as a radical reduction in emigration, coupled with a reduction in teacher pupil ratios, implementation of a policy of inclusion, and provision of language support teachers, demand for primary teachers expanded rapidly, thus leading to significant recruitment of teacher educators. Additionally, since as closer links between Mary Immaculate College with the University of Limerick and St. Patrick's College with Dublin City University resulted in legal agreements, provision of postgraduate degrees in these colleges in particular resulted in greater focus on the conduct of research.