A Social History of Educational Studies and Research (original) (raw)

Thomas Coram: the life and times of a research unit at the Institute of Education (London)

London Review of Education

For nearly 50 years, the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU) has been integral to the IOE (Institute of Education), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (University College London, UK). This article is written from the perspectives of four researchers who have served in the TCRU’s formative years and over its lifetime. It chronicles the TCRU’s history and meaning, situating these reflections within the wider and much changed context of academia, politics and society. It begins with an overview of the TCRU’s origins as a dedicated government-funded research unit in 1973, the rationale and aims of its founder and first director, Jack Tizard, and the TCRU’s subsequent evolution, and its work in the fields of childhood, families and children’s services. This is followed by a consideration of some important features of the TCRU, which have created its distinct identity, for example multidisciplinarity, working with mixed methods, international collaborations, a convivial and collegiate e...

‘Disciplines Contributing to Education?’ Educational Studies and the Disciplines

British Journal of Educational Studies, 2002

In his inaugural lecture as professor of the philosophy of education at the Institute of Education, London, in 1963, Richard Peters insisted that 'education is not an autonomous discipline, but a field, like politics, where the disciplines of history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology have application' (Peters 1963/1980, p. 273). This conviction reflected a conscious reaction against what Peters described as the 'undifferentiated mush' of educational theory, which in his view had 'contributed so much to the low standing of the study of education in this country' (Ibid). The current article will explore some of the approaches that were developed by exponents of each of these four key disciplines, history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, in terms of the characteristic content, interests and methodologies that they involved. It will also trace the attempts that have been made on behalf of the disciplines from the 1970s onwards to maintain a central and distinct role in educational studies, notwithstanding the many challenges to their position that emerged over this period. It will conclude with an assessment of the general significance of such 'differentiated' work for the development of educational studies over the past fifty years and in the future. The developing role of disciplinary perspectives on education has had a vital bearing on the nature of educational studies in Britain over the past fifty years. In particular, it tended to suggest that educational studies should be regarded principally as the application of a range of approaches borrowed from the disciplines, rather than as a

Knowledge and sociality: on the Institute of Education (London) as a second home

London Review of Education

I have had a close and long-standing relationship with the IOE (Institute of Education), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (University College London, UK). In order to understand why and how for many years the IOE became my ‘second home’, I infuse this article with a combination of critical academic and political points and a detailed sense of personal history. In the process, I trace out the development of a number of my arguments about the relationship between knowledge, power and education. I connect this to the role of the IOE in this development, both as an institution and with regard to people with whom I had close contacts over the years. Among the people I particularly focus on is Geoff Whitty, who was a key figure in all of this.