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The Paradigm Wars: Reports from the FrontThe Paradigm Dialog by E. Guba; The Nature of Social and Educational Inquiry: Empiricismversus Interpretation by J. K. SmithReview by: Martyn HammersleyBritish Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1992), pp. 131-143Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1392863 .

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BritishJournal of Sociologyof Education,Vol. 13, No. 1, 1992 131

REVIEW ESSAY

The Paradigm Wars: reports rom thefront

MARTYN HAMMERSLEY

The Paradigm DialogE. GUBA Ed.), 1990Newbury Park, SageThe Nature of Social and Educational Inquiry: empiricism versusinterpretationJ. K. SMITH, 1989Norwood, NJ, Ablex

Having rightly concluded that philosophy was of some importance to thesociological enterprise, sociologists (and I am one) have used thatdiscipline much as the military might use a guided missile. Safely fired inthe conviction that it will seek and destroy, the solider need know littleof the missile's true workings and consequences. Likewise for thesociologist. Recognising the incipient power of labels borrowed fromphilosophy, sociologists have strewn them about with little regard totheir detailed signifiance. Indeed, if armies were so irresponsible (andthey may yet be) I should not be writing, nor you reading, this essay. Wewould have long since vanished in drifting clouds of nuclear fallout.(Tudor, 1982, pp. 1-2)In a recent futuristic sketch of research on teaching in the two decades from1989, Gage refers to this period as "the paradigm wars and their aftermath"(Gage, 1989). There is no doubt that the 1980s and early 1990s have seengrowing debates among educationa,l researchers about methodology, sometimestaking the form of conflicts between incommensurable paradigms in whichphilosophical terms have been used as weapons. The two books under reviewprovide us with an insight into the current state of these debates, as waged on theother side of the Atlantic.At face value, these two books are quite different from one another. One is acollection of conference papers, the other an introductory text. However, they

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132 ReviewEssayshare more in common than these descriptions imply. Both the editor of thecollection and the author of the introductory text (who also contributes a paperto the collection) are leading representatives of what they term constructivism, aview about educational research that seems currently to be gaining ground in theUSA. This view dominates both these books. One of my purposes in this review,therefore, will be to explore and assess this perspective.The Paradigm Dialog is presented by the editor as an authentic, rather than asanitised, representation of a conference held in San Francisco in March 1989.Thus, the structure of the book broadly follows the rather complicated organisa-tion of the conference, but the focal point is the division among three paradigms,held to represent the current state of educational research methodology: post-positivism, critical theory, and constructivism. The book opens with a chapter byGuba giving an overview of these paradigms, and this is followed by presentationsfrom representatives of each of them (Phillips, Popkewitz, and Lincoln). The firstsection concludes with a discussion of the implications of the paradigms forpractice (by Eisner). The rest of the book is organised into sections dealing withspecific topics relevant to the relationships among the three paradigms: thepossibility of accommodation between them, ethics, goodness criteria, implemen-taion, knowledge accumulation, methodology, training, and values. Within eachof these sections there is a main paper, a response to it, and a summary of themain points arising in discussion at the conference. The papers and responsespresent a variety of views, though the majority seem closest to constructivism. Thefinal section of the book consists of an informal ethnography of the conferenceby Peshkin, a report from auditors at the conference who were given theresponsibility of identifying possible future developments, and some closingreflections by the editor. Having declared his commitment as a constructivist inthe opening chapter, at the end Guba expresses the hope that the divisionsamong the three paradigms can be transcended into a "better informed" and"more sophisticated" meta-paradigm (Guba, 1990, pp. 370-371).This volume suffers from some of the failings of 'authentic' collections ofconference papers. One is the considerable uneveness in the quality of thechapters, along with an occasional failure to connect, even in the case of what aresupposed to be responses to other papers. There is also a substantial amount ofrepetition. Each of the presenters in the sections on specific topics seeks tostructure her or his discussion in terms of the three paradigms, and as a resultthey go over some of the same ground, albeit from slightly different angles. Thisproblem is worsened by the fact that many of the topics are very closely related,so that discussion of one inevitably spills over into the others. While this is a muchmore coherent book than most conference collections, like them its value hangson the quality of particular papers. For this reason, and for reasons of space, mydiscussion of it will be very selective [1].The Nature of Social and EducationalInquiryis an introductory account of thephilosophical assumptions implicated in the methodology of social research. Ittreats these assumptions in terms of a contrast between two approaches or 'logicsof justification', variously referred to as empiricism/externalism/objectivism onthe one hand, and interpretation/internalism/relativism on the other. The open-ing chapters introduce these two approaches and sketch some of their history.Subsequent chapters address areas where these approaches are most sharply atodds: the relationship of the investigator to what is investigated; the realtion



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ReviewEssay 133between facts and values; the goals of inquiry; and the role of procedures in theinquiry process. The book concludes with the author declaring that it is unlikelythat advocates of these two approaches will agree and that "eventually we mustsomehow 'transcend' this issue and develop new ways to think about the nature ofinquiry", but that at present it is impossible to see how this might happen (Smith,1989, p. 173).Smith's book covers many of the key issues relevant to his theme, and shows aknowledge of, and sensitivity towards, the philosophical literature that is absentfrom most of the chapters in Guba's collection. It is pitched at a relativelyelementary level. However, because it deals with complex issues, readers new tothe field may nonetheless find some of it difficult. There is no doubt that, giventhe degree to which social and educational researchers have become em-broiled in philosophical debates about methodology, some such introductory textis required. As will become clear later, I think this book suffers from a fundamen-tal flaw in perspective; but this does not nullify its value.While Guba employs a three-fold division of paradigms and Smith a two-foldone, their two schemes can be easily related to one another. Smith effectivelydeals with positivism and post-positivism together, and largely ignores criticaltheory, while his interpretive paradigm is substantially equivalent to Guba'sconstructivism. Indeed, in his article in Guba's collection Smith uses Guba'stypology without apparent distortion of his views. (For convenience, in theremainder of this review I will often refer to positivism/post-positivism asParadigm 1, construtivism as Paradigm 2, and critical theory as Paradigm 3.)Divisions into methodological paradigms like these are of course by no meansnew, and these two schemes have close analogues elsewhere. The distinctionbetween Paradigms 1 and 2 is a variation on that between quantitative andqualitative approaches. Indeed, in an earlier formulation of his views Smithemployed this terminology (Smith & Heshusius, 1986). His shift to other termsreflects a desire to emphasise that the differences between the paradigms lie notat the level of methods or techniques but rather at that of philosophicalassumptions, both about the nature of the social world and about knowledge andthe process of inquriy. Both Smith and Guba regard the ambiguity betweentechnical and philosophical levels of the earlier terminology as a problem, andeven in TheParadigmDialog Guba complains that some of the contributors failedto maintain this distinction between levels.

Guba's three-fold division also corresponds broadly to that used by Habermas,distinguishing between empirical-analytic sciences, hermeneutical sciences andcritical science (Habermas, 1987), a typology that has been widely employed byothers [e.g. by Fay (1975) and Bernstein (1976)]. However, the order of presenta-tion, the relative value given to the different paradigms, and some details of theirdefinition, differ in Guba's account.It is worth considering briefly the dangers of such typologies of methodologicalapproach. An obvious one is that they reduce a complex field of variation inperspective and practice to a small number of possibilities. Thus, Smith's typologylargely excludes consideration of the critical theory tradition. And even Guba'stypology by no means exhausts the range of variation. This can be shown bycomparing it with the three-fold division used in a recent book by AlasdairMacIntyre (1990). While MacIntyre is not concerned with social research metho-dology but with ethics, there is sufficient common ground to make the point.



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134 ReviewEssayMacIntyre's threesome are: the enlightenment or encyclopaedic paradigm; thegenealogical paradigm; and the Thomist or natural law paradigm. The first ofthese corresponds to Guba's and Smith's Paradigm 1. The second is close toParadigm 2 in some respects, but not in others, as indicated by the fact thatNietzsche and Foucault are taken as exemplars. This highlights the almostcomplete absence from the two books under review of attention to post-structur-alism-it makes a significant appearance in Lather's contribution to Guba'scollection and in Grumet's interesting critical response to it, but nowhere else.The third tradition MacIntyre discusses, and which he himself advocates, isentirely missing from Guba and Smith's typologies. This neglect of the natural lawtradition is less surprising than that of post-structuralism. But, while it is hardlyrepresented at all within the field of educational research at the moment, at thevery least this perspective provides a useful context in which to consider the otherparadigms. After all, Paradigm 1 was in large part a reaction against medieval andlater natural law theory; and there are interesting similarities and differencesbetween it and Guba's three paradigms, as I will show later [2].There are other traditions that are neglected in the two books under review. Anobvious one, since it has been very influential in the development of social sciencemethodology, is neo-Kantianism. This omission creates distortion in Smith'sdiscussion of Max Weber's views, since he is forced by the framework he adoptsto present Weber as straddling Paradigms 1 and 2. While by no means unique toSmith (e.g. Runciman, 1972), this is an interpretation that misconstrues Weber'sposition in important respects (Burger, 1978; Oakes, 1988).Of course, even an expansion to six paradigms would still not satisfactorilycover the potential, or even the actual, range of methodological views to be foundamongst educational and social researchers. Furthermore, Guba's division intothree paradigms is built on a rather misleading view of the history of methodolo-gical thinking about social research, a point that LeCompte makes in hercontribution to the collection. This thinking is portrayed as having been domi-nated by positivism until recently, with post-positivism, constructivism, and criticaltheory emerging in the wake of its collapse. However, most of the ideas involvedin these three paradigms have been available in one form or another at least sincethe late nineteenth century. And while it is true that a set of ideas we can callpositivism has strongly influenced thinking about social and educational researchfor much of the twentieth century, these ideas never totally dominated and weresubject to a multitude of interpretations. Indeed, there have been importantchanges not just in the fortunes but also in the content of positivism over thecourse of the past century. It is treated by these authors as realist and ascommitted to the hypothetico-deductive method. Yet early in the twentiethcentury there was a strong element of phenomenalism among positivists, exempli-fied in the operationist movement. Furthermore, nineteenth century positivists,and some twentieth century ones, were inductivists rather than being advocates ofthe hypothetico-deductive method.While frameworks of types of approach can certainly be useful, giving us somepurchase on a complex field, it is important that their instrumental function beremembered, and that the dangers of omission and oversimplification that theycan produce be avoided. In my view both these books suffer from a failure in thisrespect. For example, Guba states "the reader should never forget that the onlyalternative to relativism is absolutism" (Guba, 1990, p. 18). While he does not tell



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Review Essay 135us what 'absolutism' means, we are left in no doubt that it is a bad thing. What itseems to involve is rejection of other views out of hand and the belief that we cangain absolutely certain knowledge about the world. But, of course, relativism is byno means the only alternative to this rather extreme view, unless one defines thatterm in a way that is so broad as to make it a nonsense, and this broad usage isnot the one that Guba uses elsewhere in the book. This sort of slippage in themeaning of terms is characteristic of the Guba collection.Smith's book also illustrates the way that typologies can mislead. At one pointhe asks:

Is social and educational inquiry a matter of the discovery and descrip-tion of how things really are, or is it a process of constructing realitiesthat depend for their acceptance on considerations of historical timeand cultural place? (1989, pp. 2-3)

Here again we are apparently faced with just two options, but these hardlyrepresent the range of epistemological views to be found among philosophers. Inaccepting that the goal of research is to discover the nature of reality, we do nothave to deny that any account of that nature is a construction; nor that it will beaccepted in particular times and places on the basis of considerations that aretaken to be cogent then and there but that are not judged so universally. Toparaphrase Shakespeare, quoted by Firestone (Guba, 1990, p. 105), there aremore things in philosophy than dreamt of by constructivists.

The adequacy of the presentations of the three paradigms in Guba's collectionis uneven. Constructivism is introduced by Guba in his opening chapter andelaborated by Lincoln through an autobiographical account. These discussionsdisplay a lack of philosophical sophistication, but the accounts provided later inthe book by Smith and Schwandt are better. Critical theory is the least well servedof the three paradigms, in that neither Guba's opening treatment nor Popkewitz'splenary paper gives much clarification about what it entails. It comes across asconstructivism with a harder political edge, but retaining an element of meta-physical realism that constructivists reject. No one else in the volume providesmuch compensation for this poor treatment.In one respect Paradigm 1 is the best served of all three paradigms in Guba'sbook. Phillips provides an excellent account of recent developments in theanalytical philosophy of science, pointing out that these do not imply therelativism embraced by constructivists. This chapter complements the accounts hehas provided elsewhere (Phillips, 1987, 1990). However, the other discussions ofpositivism and post-positivism in the collection, and (in places) that in Smith'sbook, border on caricature. Post-positivism is often conflated with positivism,hence my inclusion of both under the head of Paradigm 1. They are portrayed astreating the goal of research as producing representations of a reality that isindependent of them and of the researcher, whose validity is absolutely certain,and which are value-free in the sense of being untainted by values. From thispoint of view, the knowledge produced by research is intrinsically superior to theviews of others, the implication being that the latter must simply accept researchfindings as valid on trust. Yet, it would be difficult to find anyone who holds orheld this view. More importantly, contrary to what Guba, Smith, and many of theother contributors imply, it is not the case that one must either accept thisposition or embrace constructivism (or critical theory).



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136 ReviewEssayEach of the components of Paradigm 1 identified above can be, and often havebeen, interpreted in much more defensible forms. For instance, to treat researchas representing a reality that is independent of the researcher is to set up a mind-reality dualism that has all sorts of unacceptable implications, as Smith docu-ments. But this is not necessary to preserve the idea that the goal of research isrepresentation, or to render this goal feasible. All that is necessary is that thephenomena being investigated (not reality as a whole) are causally independent ofthe researcher, and this is to a large extent generally the case. Similarly, we can,and must, recognise that research never reproduceshe phenomena investigated,producing some one true account of them. Rather, it is selective, according to theparticular focus and set of purposes motivating the research. But, once again, wecan accept this without undercutting the prospect of accurate representation

(Hammesley, 1992a, Chapters 1 and 4). And, as regards belief in the possibility ofknowledge whose validity is certain, while there are those who have adopted thisassumption, notably Descartes, it has been rejected by most analytic philosophersof science, most obviously in the fallibilism of Peirce and Popper. It is notessential to Paradigm 1, at least not in its post-positivistic form.The issue of value neutrality is the one where there is the most confusion. Whatneeds to be made clear here, and it is a scandal that it is so widely misunderstood,is that this concept does not imply that research could or should be free from theinfluence of values, contrary to what some contributors to the Guba volumeassume, including Lincoln and House. As used by its originator, Max Weber, theterm refers to the principle that value judgements should not be presented as ifthey have been or could be scientifically validated, that researchers should seek tominimise the influence of their views about how things ought to be on theirfactual judgements about how they are, and that the main business of researchshould be the production of factual rather than value conclusions. Weber did notdeny the influence of values on research findings, nor did he believe that theirinfluence was always deleterious. Indeed, it was recognition of that influence andits complexity that led him to propose that social research should strive to be bothvalue relevant and value neutral, and to claim that an important function of it isvalue clarification.

To his credit, in his book Smith provides an account of Weber's views on thisissue that is more accurate than many. But because he sees Weber as trying toreconcile Paradigms 1 and 2, he comes to the erroneous conclusion that valuerelevance is in conflict with value neutrality (Smith, 1989, p. 56), whereas they arecomplementary. He also fails to realise the commonality between his constructiv-ism and Weber's position: the latter is founded on the principle of value relativ-ism. Finally, Smith cannot seem to decide whether his argument is that valuesdetermine facts (which presupposes a distinction between the two) or that noreasonable distinction can be made. It is largely because of this that he findsWeber's views contradictory. For Weber, facts and values are distinct but therecan be no idiographic knowledge without values. Indeed, there could be noknowledge at all without commitment to the value of truth. Not all proponents ofParadigm 1 have upheld the principle of value neutrality as developed by Weber,and adherence to the principle has not prevented value bias. But neither of thesefacts undermines the validity of the principle.Let me turn now to Paradigm 2, the alternative proposed by Smith, Guba, andsome of the other contributors to Guba's collection. It is a distinctive feature of



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Review Essay 137this position that the various approaches to educational research identified arenot treated as representing merely different tendencies, but rather as incommen-surable paradigms. In other words, these approaches are logically coherentpositions founded on incompatible assumptions about the nature of the socialworld and of social inquiry. These assumptions are presumed to prescribe thewhole character of research within the relevant paradigm. Thus, Lincoln claimsthat:

The adoption of a paradigm literally permeates every act even tangenti-ally associated with inquiry, such that any consideration even remotelyattached to inquiry processes demands rethinking to bring decisions intoline with the worldview embodied in the paradigm itself. (Guba, 1990, p.81)

And Smith takes much the same view (1989, p. 5).A direct implication of this position is relativism, and both Guba and Smithexplictly adopt that epistemological position. However, they vary in their appar-ent awareness of its implications, and in my view neither of them, nor any of theirfellow constructivists, recognises the true nature of the labyrinth that they haveentered.One obvious way of addressing the issues raised in these books is to ask:whichof the three paradigms is the correct one? Yet, while both Guba and Smith adhereto constructivism, neither is able to, nor claims to, establish its superiority. This isreasonably clear from the language that they use. Thus, Smith declares that hefinds Paradigm 2 "more satisfying" (1989, p. 3), while Guba states that he "hashis own preference, for constructivism" (1990, p. 17). This is not a matter of falsemodesty or of practically contingent failure on the part of these authors, leavingthe possibility of the superiority of Paradigm 2 being established on some futureoccasion. It arises because establishing the superiority of that paradigm isimpossible in principle. This results from the well-known fact, noted by Smith,that relativism is self-refuting (1989, p. 168).Relativism is a position which in denying that there is any meta-paradigmaticlevel at which the truth of paradigms can be determined, even in principle,thereby itself surreptitiously makes a meta-paradigmatic claim. One result of thisis ambivalence on the part of constructivists towards the concept of reality. Onthe one hand, they regard reality as constructed by people on the basis of theirparadigmatic assumptions. On the other, they recognise that such realities aremultiple and thereby presuppose a larger reality within which these variousconstructed realities have a place, the task of the researcher being to documentthis larger reality.Thus, we find constructivists vacillating between two incompatible positions:A. The first states that there is only one reality, that which is constructed by

one's own paradigm. There can be no overarching reality containing otherparadigms because there is no meta-paradigmatic level. The world simply ishow it appears to be, or how it can be construed to be on the basis of one'sparadigmatic assumptions. Even if someone could step out of one paradigminto another, that would not allow her or him to engage in any relating of theone to the other. Using the analogy of the well-known optical illusion, eitherthe faces are there or the vase is there, not both.B. The second position proposes that constructivism alone provides an accurate



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138 Review Essayaccount of reality. But in doing so it operates at a meta-paradigmatic level:what it claims is that the world is made up of groups of people with verydifferent perspectives. Furthermore, these are constructions not reflectionsof some independent reality; and insofar as they do not contradict constructivismthey are all true in their own terms.

Guba moves between these two positions without any apparent awareness thatthey are in conflict. Thus, operating on the basis of Position B, he declares that:... there are many paradigms that we use in guiding our actions: theadversarial paradigm that guides the legal system, the judgmental para-digm that guides the selection of Olympic winners, the religious para-digms that guide spiritual and moral life, and many others. (1990, p. 18)

And, as we have seen, he also identifies three paradigms relating to educationalresearch. Here he seems to be standing above all the paradigms and surveyingthem from outside. Furthermore, he states that the purpose of the conference onwhich his book is based was "to legitimate the two contenders not now enjoyinghegemony, by demonstrating that their positions are at least as reasonable and useful asthose of either positivism or post-positivism (1990, p. 9, emphasis added). Clearly, thisclaim is intended to be a general truth, not just a statement of what constructivistsbelieve; otherwise the argument would be circular.At other times, Guba adopts Position A. Thus, before presenting his survey ofthe three paradigms of educational research he comments:

I recognise that what I am about to say is my own construction,notnecessarily an objective(whatever that may be) analysis. Indeed, as weshall see, constructivists not only abjure objectivity but celebrate subjec-tivity. (1990, p. 17)This passage is representative of much of the writing in the Guba volume in itslack of clarity. In one sentence Guba denies knowing what objectivity is, only totreat the meaning of the term as obvious in the next. And notice that he does notsay that his construction is not objective, only that it is not necessarilyobjective;yet who would claim that their accounts are necessarily objective? Even so, itwould seem that Guba recognises here that constructivism, in the form ofPosition A, does not allow him to claim that his account of the other paradigms,even of their existence, .is anything more than his own paradigm-relative perspec-tive. Perhaps this recognition is also the reason why Lincoln argues that resear-chers should be trained in a single paradigm not multiple paradigms (Guba, 1990,p. 87); whereas Reinharz, perhaps influenced by Position B, goes in the otherdirection, advocating that students be encouraged to invent their own paradigms(Guba, 1990, p. 300).The same tension between incompatible positions is found in Smith's book.Early on, he states that:

... even though this author finds the interpretive perspective moresatisfying, the intent is much less to advocate one perspective overanother than it is to present as straightforward a discussion as possibleof the underlying issues involved in this discussion (1989, p. 3)Given that the paradigms are incommensurable (that is assuming Position A), howcan Smith present a straightforward discussion that does not advocate one side orthe other? Any discussion would be premissedon the validity of one or other of the



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ReviewEssay 139paradigms. Of course, if Smith were to accept Paradigm 1 the paradigms wouldnot be incommensurable and he could do this. But if he is a constructivist hecannot! And he does not. While his book has an even-handed appearance, itimplicitly advocates the interpretive perspective. The pattern almost throughoutis a presentation of the objectivist view, followed by an account of the criticismsdirected at this view by interpretivists and their own positive proposals. It is onlyin the last chapter that we are given any hint of the criticisms that objectivistsmake of the interpretivist position, and then only briefly [3].Another illustration of this commitment to conflicting positions is the assump-tion of both Guba and Smith that paradigms can be criticised in terms of theirinternal consistency [see Guba (1990, p. 373) and Smith's criticism of Weber forbeing contradictory (Smith, 1989, p. 95)]. This would be possible from PositionB, if consistency were a defining criterion built into the concept of paradigm.However, it is not a legitimate criterion from the point of view of Position A. Forthe consistent relativist it is no more possible to justify consistency as a paradigm-transcendent criterion than any other! It may be that the three paradigms underconsideration share a commitment to consistency, but it is quite possible thatothers do not, and constructivists cannot rule these out. But in any case, from aPosition A point of view, it is not likely, or perhaps even possible, that 'consis-tency' will have an equivalent meaning within different paradigms. Much the sameapplies to the hopes of the two authors that the paradigm disputes can betranscended. Relativism rules this out since transcendence implies paradigm-neutral criteria of judgement.This vacillation between the two positions is understandable, since each of themhas troublesome implications. If the first is true it is only true from a constructiv-ist point of view and is false from the point of view of Paradigm 1, and we have noway of adjudicating between these two perspectives. Even from the point of viewof constructivism, those committed to Paradigm 1 may quite legitimately continueto regard their research as directed towards understanding the nature of socialreality from an objective perspective, and even claim to have achieved this. Thevery idea of representatives of the paradigms engaging in debate with oneanother, on which the Guba collection is founded, is ruled out by Position A.There is no possibility of it, and no need for it. The second position avoids theseproblems, but only at the cost of constructivists having to try to show that theiraccount and judgements of the positions currently adopted by educationalresearchers is superior to that of the other paradigms. Yet constructivism pro-vides no resources for such epistemological justification. Indeed, it denies thatvery possibility.It may seem that my criticisms of the accuracy of Smith's and Guba's accountsof Paradigms 1 and 2 are open to question on the general grounds that theirvalidity is relative to my own paradigmatic assumptions. But even from a construc-tivist point of view this would only be true for constructivists. Since I am not aconstructivist, it is not true for me, even from a constructivist point of view! Putanother way, if constructivist relativism is true it is true only within the frameworkof constructivism. Hence, beyond that framework truth is not relative, so that thevalidity of my arguments is not relative to my paradigm. Constructivists may be ina hall of mirrors, but the rest of us do not have to join them.Over and above its epistemological self-destructiveness, there are other, practi-cal, reasons for rejecting constructivism. The most important is that it logically



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140 ReviewEssayexcludes its adherents from engaging in the normal process of social research.Lather seems to take this view the furthest, quoting Said to the effect that socialscience should forget itself and become something else (Guba, 1990, p. 315). Butit seems implicit in some of the other contributions too. The conventional view isthat social and educational research is concerned with documenting not justpeople's perspectives but also their actions, for example reporting the ways inwhich powerful groups structure the situations in which the less powerful live.Taken to its logical conclusion, constructivism rules out any such investigation.The point of origin of constructivism is the denial that research accounts can bein any sense more valid than those of participants. And the constructivistadaptation to this is to redefine the goal of research as the documentation ofparticipant perspectives, and to redefine truth in terms of respondent validation.In LeCompte's words (Guba, 1990, p. 252), the educational researcher is turnedinto a folklorist or collector of stories. In practice, of course, constructivists maybe selective in how they apply their ideas, seeking to document the perspectives ofunderdogs, but describing the activities of overdogs in ways that the latter wouldnot accept. But there is no principle built into constructivism that would allow orjustify that selectivity. Worse than this, though, this version of constructivism doesnot avoid the problem of representation, it simply transposes it to another level:that between the researcher's account and the accounts of participants. And oncewe recognise that the researcher's account of participants' accounts is itself only aconstruction, the full implications become clear. The obvious questions that ariseare: Why should policy-makers and practitioners take any notice of research? Whyshould anyone fund it? Indeed, why should students be educated in one or otheror any paradigm?

Up to now I have been concerned with the epistemological aspects of construc-tivism and their implications. While important, these are probably not the drivingforce behind it. It is not simply a scientific paradigm. At its heart is a rejection oftruth, however defined, as the goal of inquiry. What is to be put in its place issome conception of the political good life. Smith declares that the regulative idealof constructivism is solidarity (Guba, 1990, p. 179), appealing to the work ofRorty (1985); though neither he nor Rorty is clear about exactly what this entails,with whom researchers should (and should not?) seek solidarity, why this valueshould be taken as pre-eminent, or why it should be the particular concern ofeducational researchers. What seems to be involved, for constructivists likeLincoln at least, is an extension of commitment to equality, so that withineducational research all voices must be treated as equal, and such research mustbe directed towards achieving equal representation for all voices in society. Thiscertainly implies a dramatic reorientation of educational and social research, yetthere is little supporting argument provided to convince those of us who believethat this is an over-extension of the concept of equality, and who regard equalityas only one of several important values by which public and private life should begoverned. And, as we have seen, ironically, the relativist character of constructiv-ism rules out the possibility of such dialogue.This value commitment of constructivism brings it quite close to that of someforms of critical theory, but in other respects Paradigms 2 and 3 are quitedifferent. I mentioned earlier the poor treatment of critical theory in the Gubavolume. Neither Popkewitz nor any of the other contributors relate it to itsMarxist and Hegelian background (indeed one participant at the conference



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Review Essay 141

apparently complained that Marxism had been absent, see Guba, 1990, p. 362).Without that background it is impossible to recognise that Paradigm 3 doesrepresent a quite coherent and distinctive position, instead of an eclectic andincoherent synthesis of elements from the other two paradigms. Of course,spelling out that background immediately reveals some assumptions, for instanceabout the teleological development of history, that are difficult to defend,especially in a climate of constructivist and post-structuralist relativism (Hammer-sley, 1992a, Ch. 6). It is perhaps for this reason that advocates of this positiontoday play down that background, apparently seeking the social science equivalentof the alchemist's formula: a position that is both relativistic and 'critical' [4]. Andthere are signs in the constructivist camp of such ambitions too, notably in thechapter by Lincoln where she lists empowerment as one of the criteria by whichcase studies should be judged (Guba, 1990, p. 74). However, it should be obviousthat the labyrinthine character of relativism rules out any possibility of a critiquethat anybody who does not accept the assumptions of the critics needs to takeseriously. Ultimately, all the relativist can say is that, for example, the beliefs ofracists and sexists may be true in their own terms but are not true from her or hisperspective. This hardly seems a strong basis for concerted political action [5]. Italso implies that there is little scope for reasoned argument in politics; resolutionof conflict by coercion seems the only likely solution.At this point, we might usefully try to sum up what seem to be the main optionsthat social researchers face. Earlier I mentioned the natural law tradition. Thattradition holds that rational and universally valid knowledge is possible aboutvalue issues. From this point of view science is not restricted to the factualdomain. At the same time, rational inquiry is held to be founded on faith. Guba'sthree paradigms each accept some parts of this but reject others:

Paradigm 1 rejects reliance on faith in favour of the possibility of sound,universally valid knowledge on the basis of rational inquiry alone, but only inthe factual domain. Neo-Kantianism also falls into this category [6].Paradigm 2 rejects the possibility of universally valid knowledge in eitherdomain (indeed, the distinction between the two may be abandoned). Allknowledge is the product of inquiry that takes some set of founding assump-tions on faith.Paradigm 3 historicises natural law theory, retaining the possibility of rationaluniversally valid knowledge of both factual and value matters, but regardsthis as only becoming available through a process of historical developmentinto which the potential for realising it, and a society based on it, is built.

In my judgement, this typology gives a more accurate view of the generalphilosophical positions that are available to educational researchers than doesthat around which the Guba volume is organised; though of course it carries thedangers associated with any typology, which I outlined earlier. All four positionssuffer from serious problems that need to be addressed. In my judgementParadigm 1 remains the most promising, but this is by no means to deny thatmuch can be learned from the others.

I suspect that for many readers of this review the question will have arisen as towhether these philosophical debates have any practical implications for educa-tional research. Can they not be left to the philosophers? As we have seen, Gubaand Smith think not. They do so on the grounds of what has been referred to as



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142 Review Essaymethodological holism-the idea that researchers' philosophical and practicalassumptions form, or should form, a coherent whole with the first determiningthe second. As Firestone points out in his contribution to the Guba volume, thisview is not accurate empirically nor does it represent a desirable ideal. Philosophi-cal assumptions do not have strongly determinate implications for how we shouldcarry out research, nor are they a privileged starting point. The experience ofdoing research is just as likely legitimately to throw doubt on our philosophicalassumptions as reflection on those assumptions is likely to change our researchpractices. For these reasons I do not believe that philosophical issues are assignificant for the practice of educational research as Guba and Smith do. At thesame time, it would be foolish to ignore the fact that there is at least one area ofdispute that does have major implications for practice. The question here is: Whatis the goal of educational research? How one answers that question has dramaticimplications for how one goes about research; indeed for whetherone engages inresearch at all. These books raise that question, but the constructivist answertowards which they suggest many educational researchers in the USA are movingis not one that bodes well for the future. While both Guba and Smith expresshopes for peaceful transcendence of paradigms, constructivism seems to implythat the wars can only go on.

Correpondence:Martyn Hammersley, School of Education, The Open University,Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.NOTES[1] It is worth comparing this volume with another recently published conference collection in thesame area, edited by two of the contributors to this one and involving some of the others (Eisner& Peshkin, 1990). This collection covers some of the same topics (subjectivity and objectivity,

validity, ethics, the uses of qualitative research), as well as one that is not dealt with in the Gubavolume, generalisability. Here also there is some unevenness, though in myjudgement the qualityoverall is somewhat higher than in the Guba collection (Hammersley, 1992b). Taken togetherthese two volumes give an impression of very considerable diversity in methodological perspectiveamong US educational researchers.[2] In fact, rather misleadingly, Schwandt treats MacIntyre'sposition as constructivist in his contribu-tion to the Guba volume (p. 268). Smith draws on Leo Strauss's criticisms of Weber (Smith, 1989,p. 95), but without any indication of the direction from which those criticisms come.[3] Smith's treatment of the three paradigms in his article in the Guba collection is more even-handed. Here he does give equal mention to others' criticisms of constructivism. In that chapterthe balance seems to be tipped towards Position B, but still without the dilemma being resolved.[4] This eclectic mixture is also to be found in Apple and Roman's contribution to the Eisner andPeshkin volume.

[5] This is a point that has been recognised by some feminists in their responses to post-structuralism,as Lather notes (Guba, 1990, pp. 319-320); though she does not seem to recognise theintractabilityof the problem.[6] There are a few advocates of this paradigm who believe that values can be based on science. For adiscussion, see Keat (1981).

REFERENCESBERNSTEIN, R. (1976) The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (Philadelphia, University of

Pennsylvania Press).



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ReviewEssay 143BURGER,. (1978) Max Weber'sTheoryof ConceptFormation(Durham, North Carolina, Duke UniversityPress).EISNER,E. & PESHKIN, . (Eds) (1990) QualitativeInquiry:the continuing debate(New York, Teachers

College Press).FAY,B. (1975) Social Theoryand Political Practice(London, Allen and Unwin).GAGE,N. (1989) The paradigm wars and their aftermath:a "historical" sketch of research on teachingsince 1989, EducationalResearcher,18, pp. 4-10.HABERMAS,. (1987) Knowledgeand Human Interests(Cambridge, Polity Press).HAMMERSLEY,. (1992a) What'sWrongwith Ethnography?London, Routledge).HAMMERSLEY,. (1992b) Review of Eisner and Peshkin, InternationalJournal of QualitativeStudiesinEducation(forthcoming).KEAT,R. (1981) The Politics of Social Theory Oxford, Blackwell).MACINTYRE,. (1990) ThreeRival Versionsof MoralEnquiry(London, Duckworth).OAKES,G. (1988) Weber and Rickert: concept ormation in the cultural sciences (Cambridge, Mass.,Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press).PHILLIPS,. (1987) Philosophy,Scienceand Social Inquiry(Oxford, Pergamon).PHILLIPS,D. (1990) Subjectivity and objectivity: an objective inquiry, in E. EISNER& A. PESHKIN Eds)QualitativeInquiry:thecontinuingdebate New York, Teachers College Press).RORTY,R. (1985) Solidarity or objectivity?, in: J. RAJCHMANC. WEST Eds) Post-AnalyticPhilosophy(New York, Columbia University Press).RUNCIMAN,W.G. (1972) A Critique of Max Weber'sPhilosophy of Science (Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press).SMITH, .K. & HESHUSIUS,. (1986) Closing Down the Conversation: the end of the quantitative-qualitative debate among educational inquirers, EducationalResearcher,15, 1, pp. 4-12.TUDOR,A. (1982) BeyondEmpiricism London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).

hammersley_the paradigm wars reports from the front

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