Foucauldian scientificity: rethinking the nexus of qualitative research and educational policy analysis

Abstract

This essay calls for qualitative policy analysis that can engage strategically with the increased calls for the usefulness of social policy toward the improvement of educational practice. Michel Foucault’s concept of scientificity is used as a tool against the ‘repositivization’ at work in neo‐liberal times and its ‘rage for accountability’ where refusing to concede science to scientism appears to be a central task for those invested in qualitative inquiry. The essay concludes with a sketch of a social science that stays close to the complexities of the social world in fostering understanding, reflection and action instead of a narrow translation of research into practice.

Notes

1. The phrase, physics envy, was used in the New York Review of Books as credited to Freud (Flyvbjerg, 2001, pp. 26–27).

2. Distinctions of ‘exact’ and ‘inexact’ are Husserl’s, in reference to the rigor of philosophy given its ‘inexact’ nature.

3. This phrase comes from Harry Torrance at a ‘working plenary’ on standards of evidence for qualitative research at the second International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana‐Champaign, Illinois, 5–7 May 2005.

4. This phrase comes from Ian Stronach, book proposal, 2006.