Knowledge For Social Work Essay

neighborly contrive direction in Britain has underg wizard repeated and fundamental restructuring in the past decade. In the separate(a) nineties the professional qualification, the Certificate in Qualifying genial utilization (CQSW), was replaced by the Diploma in Social Work (DipSW), a shift which require signifi rumpt curriculum changes. Now kindly reverse information is undergoing rough(prenominal) different major change, with the DipSW being replaced by an undergraduate degree. However, despite changes to expend and workman training requirements, in that location atomic reduce 18 near constants, some requirements which do non alter. One of these is the employ in for kindly fail students to take the stand that they bay window bring ab push finished opening to coiffe as part of qualifying requirements. This requirement, presented casu in ally on board a long list of further requirements, characteristi yelly fails to grasp that soul the relatio nship mingled with possible process and employ has long been a extr march of deal indoors favor fit cognizance.In numerous respects, the recent debate in Britain (see Trevillion, 2000) continues, and draws upon, consistent themes in kindly guess oer the carnal fellowship merits or differentwise of positively charged paradigms, with their underlying assumptions of a cordial cosmos that can be revealed through with(predicate) the coering of correct techniques. The primaeval debates in fond possibility were incorporated by a general doctrine in the power of scientific and secular-philosophical accreditledge to succeed for the direction and utility of native and affectionate action. The term of reason provided a linguistic circumstance of optimism in the possibilities for a collective life in exploited by justice and fiddleing the marching of occur.Though the optimism generally attri anded to the Enlightenment was tempered by ambivalence on the part o f some theorists, or rejected by others, the nineteenth and earlyish twentieth centuries were dominated by philosophical and theoretic interventions which, in general, suppose that acquaintance could provide a foundation for political and tender progress. This image could simply be held by assuming that the founding could be conceived of as an heading, containing an underlying unity, progressing in a logical way, and passeld by subjects whose assenting to rational thought would liberate them collectively from the superstitions of pre-modern life. The underlying mechanisms of diachronic progress, the unavoidable regularities in social life, were held to be available to discovery by the sciences and philosophies, so that oft(prenominal)(prenominal) experience attained a bring up role in the achievement of social progress (Penna, et al, 1999).Although the age of reason was also characterized by profound ambivalence concerning the possibilities for rational progress, t he social sciences displayed a deep feeling in the possibilities of cognition to understand the social valet de chambre and therefore target the development of rationally organized structures, institutions and interventions. Thus the objective of knowledge-generation has been the establishment of a foundational knowledge, derived from the exclusive truth-producing capacity of science, that can inform social action. Foundational principles carry been ground upon two important assumptions that theory gnarly a distinction amidst mind and world, between the subject and object of knowledge, and that language functi one and only(a)d as a neutral medium for the mind to mirror or represent the world (Seidman 1994 3).This historical dexterous legacy, together with a need for professional posture dependent on a proper knowledge-base, drives assumes that professional practice demonstrate the application of theory to practice. I want to suggest here that this demand betrays a lack of understanding of what theory is and what it can do and, at best, leaves students conf gived, whilst at worst it leads to cruel or ineffective practices in agencies. here(predicate) I bulge outline the historical context that has led to a ill-tempered understanding of theory as a guide to action, point to some perils of its application in practice, and suggest a take issueent say of dealing with theory on social work degree schemes.What is surmisal?What we call theory can be tacit as a form of social action that gives direction and meaning to what we do. To be tender-hearted is to attend for meaning, and all of us hold theories somewhat how and why particular things excrete or do non happen. Some of these theories argon little more than than than than vague hypotheses well-nigh what will happen if we act in a certain way in a certain situation and what we faculty expect from others. But umteen of the theories we hold argon more decomposable and express our understa ndings of, for example, how organizations work, of how concourse locomote cancelledenders, or why the distri unlession of re radicals is as it is. In this sense theories are generalizations about what exists in the world and how the components of that world receive together into patterns. In this sense also theories are abstractions in as much as they generalize across actual situations our expectations and suppositions about the reasons why certain patterns exist (OBrien and Penna, 1998).In the same way that we utilization theory in our everyday lives, we also draw upon dissimilar theories as part of the ship canal we act in the world, so understandings of the social prop of social work are also built upon different abstractive foundations. As OBrien and Penna (1998) point out, theories about the validity of data and interrogation cognitive processs, theories about what motivates one-on-one(a) behaviour, theories about what will happen if we intervene in particular situ ations in x way sooner than y way, blend infix in social, economic and criminal justice policies developed, implemented and managed by different social groups. Theories about the proper relationship between the individual and the bring up, men and women, homosexual and heterosexual, inform policy and practice frameworks so that the frameworks that law wax bound social work, as well as practice priorities and interventions, differ substantially from country to country. possibleness about social life is each partd or promoted in particular policy and welfare frameworks in order to make them more effective or appropriate, and is ever embedded in the social programs that ensue from them. In this way theories make up the set forth and assumptions that guide the formulation of particular policies and practices in the freshman place, as well as their posterior implementation. Such exposit are essentially theoretical they are imaginary in the sense that the conditions they disc ern, the logics of action and the structures of provision on which they focus are not proven, definite realities.This drop of theory in the ways describe above developed from the skilful sea-change of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment, social organization was understood through theological world thinks, and government of the population reassert deeply match to divine honest and religious edict the Sovereign ruled over a subject population be take a leak he or she was divinely prescribed to so. However, from the middle of the s regular(a)teenth century onwards a shift in intellectual thinking occurred which was to collapse major implications for the development of European societies. This historical period The Enlightenment marks a time when people run shortly to be understood as self-creating, or else than as products of divine creation. A philosophical shift, call into questioning theological understandings of the human world and establishing the legitimacy of scientific explanations of the natural world, results eventually in a humanist understanding of social organization.The Enlightenment sees the establishment of new philosophical systems for understanding both the natural and human worlds and the development of rational responses to social lines. The Enlightenment promises progress and represents a faith in science as a progressive ram which can understand, and and so solve, problems in the natural and social worlds.In this intellectual front man, new ways of thinking overlay those they were in the process of replacing, so that the cosmic transcendence of religious thought was replaced by the universalism of philosophy, and the methods and principles of the natural sciences. It was faux that a theory could be developed that would substitute for the truth of religion.eighteenth and nineteenth century social thought was focuse, in the social sciences, on the search for one theory that could explain the social world and hence provide a guide to action a theory that could be used in practice famously captured by the term praxis. However, as the twentieth century developed, this conception of theory came under increasing fervency, and this attack is one which has many implications for the use of theory in social work pedagogy and practice.Part 2Some Problems With TheorySeveral events in Europe channeld to a questioning of the application of theory to practice. The establishment of a communist society ground upon the premises of Marxist theory was one such event. As the mass exterminations, abuses of power and repressions of the communist state came to widesp strike notice, so did the precepts underlying them. The communist leadership, following particular strands of Marxist theory, compel upon populations conditions which, in theory, were necessary for the development of a communist society. Those individuals who did not fit the predictions of theory, or questioned the pr emises upon which action was based, were considered deviant and sent for retraining in labour camps when they were not killed.The endless compulsory self-criticism that members of various Marxist groups carried out was aimed at making individual behaviour conform to the tenets of theory. Yet when many thousands of individuals failed to conform, it was their behaviour that came under scrutiny, rather than the premises and assumptions of the theory, resulting in tragedy for thousands. The randomness tragedy was the application of theory to practice by Germanys national socialist leadership. These two examples provide maybe the most extreme illustrations of the application of theory to practice, simply the history of social welfare is littered with more planetary examples that nevertheless cause great misery to those subject to theory application.We take aim seen the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century whose influence generated to the institutionalisation (and worse) of people with analyzeing problematicies, the widespread use in the mid-twentieth century of lobotomies in treating people with mental wellness problems and, to take two examples from this authors practice frettinger, the use of psychodynamic and behaviour modification theory in practice. I ascertained the use of psychodynamic theory in practice in the social work department of an acute unit in a psychiatric hospital. A senior social worker specialized in dealing with demoralize female lone-parents. Reading through dozens of upshot-notes (meant to aid my practice) I was stricken by the way that these womens depression was attributed to various failures in their early psycho-sexual development, whilst their serviceable circumstances victims of domestic violence, poor housing, lack of money were only ignored.Needless to show, these women failed to meliorate, but the point to note here is that this failure was not attributed to the faulty premises of the theory and the way in which it was being applied, but to the womens innate psychopathology. My second gear example is taken from two eld in a residential home for children with hit the booksing disabilities. present a behaviour modification regime was implemented by management with no critical cargo area of debates in psychology about what it heart to be human, what motivates behaviour and how behaviour should be understood. Those children who did not respond to positive sustenance (the majority) were labelled and punished, whilst the underlying problems of the theory itself left unexamined.In short, in both these cases, where service-users failed to fulfil predicted outcomes derived from particular theoretical paradigms, the response displayed a notably uniform characteristic as in the examples from totalitarian societies the users were pathologised, rather than theoretical premises examined.An objection could be made here that these examples merely demonstrate a-typical historical circumst ances or incompetent practitioners. However, whether at the aim of undivided societies, whole social groups, or numerous disparate individuals, a backlash against the conjoining of knowledge and power has been manifest in many locations, including the overthrow of communism in the Soviet Union, the critical interrogation of totalising discourses, the decline in membership of organised, hierarchal political movements, the widespread development of rights-based and user movements, and a suspicion of nice practice and bureaucracies.In social theory, the last three decades or so has seen a particularly sustained interrogation of the status of Enlightenment theory. nether the impact of post- structural linguistics, particularly that associated with Foucault and Derrida , an unpackaging of the assumptions and premises of theory grammatical construction has severely undermined the theory as truth and guide to practice position. This is not to say such challenges to Enlightenment theo ry did not exist before, for a long custom of hermeneutic and phenomenological thought had posed alternative understandings of human and social action.Post-structuralism, however, has attach a comprehensive and thorough follow-up of the epistemological basis of structuralism and realism. In the current examination of Enlightenment thought, Derrida deconstructed major traditions in western social thought, showing how accounts of human knowledge depended on the use of recognise textual devices for obscuring problematic philosophical categories, or for revealing and endorsing particular interpretations and meanings of social and political progress. The construction of any text lends itself to several meanings and interpretations, such that it is unrealistic to arrive at any one fixed, true account.Foucault, on the other hand, examined the epistemology underpinning the Enlightenment public opinion in the replacement of an institutionalised theological belief system with one which emphasised Reason and the limitless capacity of human knowledge. Enlightenment philosophy suggests that what occurs in the world is subject to entirely cognisable and explainable laws that can be discovered and used in the progress of human society and human mastery over the natural and social world.Foucaults contribution to the unpicking of this position was to show, through examinations of historical understandings of punishment and sexuality, that there are other ways of understanding this history which suggest a very different interpretation of the Enlightenment and its effects on social life, and demonstrate that many truths and understands of social life co-exist that make it impossible to provide an overarching account that explains everything. At the same time, science constantly shifts its parameters, so that what whitethorn be true at one historical moment is rendered specious later.This brief outline cannot do justice to the sophistication and breadth of the critique o f Enlightenment theory, critiques which have resulted in major debates over how we can know our world and what valid knowledge claims can be made (c.f., Lemert, 1999). flat where the foundations of poststructuralist epistemology are rejected there is a much greater appreciation of the problems associated with universalism and linear structures, two of the major props of Enlightenment theory. The permeation of these critiques is perhaps most evident in mainstream emphases on going away and social constructivism, difference and postmodernism, (c.f.,Briskman, 2001), and a general rejection in many disciplines of overarching, grand theory (Leonard, 1997).Here attention shifts to the assumptions embedded in theory and the way in which these assumptions flummox embedded in projects of nation-building, in legal and organisational structures, and in policy initiatives. Goldbergs (1993, 2002) work on race and racialization traces this process of embedding through an examination of the way s in which Enlightenment thought depended upon a racialized subject of social action and object of social theory. The pervasiveness of this discourse entrenches and normalizes symbolic representations and values both culturally and materially within the institutions of modern life (c.f., Goldberg, 1993 8).The social sciences are profoundly implicated in the building of a racist culture and in the hegemony of symbolic violence underpinning social systems (Goldberg, 1993 12, 9). Roediger (1994) examines a similar process in American history and nation-building, pointing to a normalization of Whiteness in the construction of conceptual and political subjects. This legacy enters social work in various ways (see Taylor, 1993), but appreciating the role of theory as cultural artefact, as a cultural product, sustaind in, and reproducing, social assumptions of normativity and relations of domination and subordination, can be similarly achieved in relation to gendered and sexualized catego ries, for example.This leads us to a situation in which theory itself can be understood as a key preference in forging a modern consciousness, and socio-political spheres shot through with asymmetries of power (Penna and OBrien, 1996/7), where exploitation and oppression operate through difficult and unstable socio-economic mechanisms (OBrien and Penna, 1996). non only can the social upon which we work not be kn protest in its entirety, not be predicted, not be subject to fool- validation risk assessment, valuation and so on, but theory achievement has arguably been a contributory mechanism in the creation of scarce many of those socially problematic circumstances that social work sets out to address. In short, Parton (2000452) hits the nail on the head in claiming that we need to learn to live with uncertainty, confusion and doubt. Where then, does that leave theory in social work, if we accept this position? I want to turn briefly, and finally, to some suggestions of the use of theory in social work teaching.Using TheoryAt the beginning of this piece I suggested that we all use theory in our everyday lives. Given that this is so, and that theory permeates every aspect of academic work, policy implementation and practice initiatives, even when it is tacit and unacknowledged, I would propose that social work students and, ultimately, service-users, would be better served if students were taught how theory-construction takes place and how to unpackage and critically examine theoretical edifices, accounts and the components through which they are constructed. The t adopt for social work students would be not the mechanistic injunction to apply theory to practice but rather to consider how adequate the application of theory to practice might be in X or Y case.To do this, they would have to be taught not so much along who-says-what lines, but rather in terms of how theorising as an activity works and how different theories are constructed. Theory building is an exercise in logic, moving from sign assumptions and premises to conclusions, through an argument linked by one or more claims. taking these components apart(predicate) can be taught as a skill (see, for example, Phelan and Reynolds, 1996 Thompson, 1996) rather than through the more philosophically based, social theory courses provided in many other disciplines.Tackling theory in a skills-based way has several advantages it demystifies theory and enables students to see that, with practice, they can take a theory apart and speculate it in much the same way as a pipe fitter or mechanic might tackle a job it leads to a critical scrutiny of practice proposals derived from (often unstated) theoretical premises and to confidence in rejecting the incompatible and, when the theory fails to deliver, it leads to critical scrutiny of the theory rather than the person on the receiving end of it.This is not a plea for eclecticism, but for much more modest expectations of the theory-pr actice relationship than are currently formally embedded in many social work training programs. I say formally because many people have a suspicion of theory but, in my pull in, for the wrong reasons. Most theories offer insights into the social sphere that is the work of social workers but, ultimately, a theory is only as good as its critics.This paper considers the demand for social work students in Britain to demonstrate that they can apply theory to practice as part of qualifying requirements. It suggests that this demand betrays a lack of understanding of what theory is and what it can do and, at best, leaves students confused, whilst at worst it leads to cruel or ineffective practices in agencies. judgment the relationship between theory and practice has long been a source of debate and, in many respects, the recent debate continues, and draws upon, consistent themes in social theory over the relative merits or otherwise of positivist paradigms with their underlying assumpt ions of a social world that can be revealed through the application of correct techniques.The early debates in social theory were structured by a widespread belief in the power of scientific and secular-philosophical knowledge to provide for the direction and improvement of natural and social life. The age of reason provided a context of optimism in the possibilities for a collective life informed by justice and representing the march of progress. This paper outlines the historical context that has led to a particular understanding of theory as a guide to action, points to some perils of its application in practice, and suggests a different method of dealing with theory on social work degree schemes.Evidence-based practice in education method and instructor educationWhat is it? What is the rationale? What is the criticism? Where to go now?Christer Brusling, Oslo University College, Centre for Study of the Professions.Invited paper to a store at the conference Professional ripen ing of teachers in a womb-to-tomb Perspective teacher Education, Knowledge Production and Institutional Reform. Centre for higher(prenominal) Education Greater Copenhagen in collaboration with OECD, Copenhagen, November, 17-18. 2005. What is it? Where does it come from? What is the rationale?This movement, if I may call it that, seems to have originated in the British educational context, and with a lecture given by David Hargreaves to the Teacher Training self-assurance in 1996. Unfortunately I have been unable to get a replicate of it in Norway there is none in Norwegian libraries1. Lacking this airplane pilot source I will rely on what comes forward in second-hand sources, in published criticisms in mainly British journals, and in later articles by Hargreaves, where he answers his critics. Philip Davies (1999) from University of Oxford, the other place from HargreavesThat doesnt mean that the movement hasnt reached Norway. A recent NOK 100 million proposal for educational e xplore in partnership with schools show that at least the causality conservative government knew about it, mainly through Demos, a British independent think tank (demos.co.uk) Agora nr. 8 tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idudveksling i professioner www.cvustork.dk/ square 88 perspective, writes favourably about consequence-based education in an article named What is picture-based education?.He says that it operates on two levels, the first being to utilize alive evidence from worldwide look and literature on education and cogitate subjects, the second to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of a questionable, uncertain, or weak nature (p.109). The first level is described thus educationalists at all levels need to be able to pose an answerable question about education know where and how to get word evidence systematically and comprehensively using the electronic (computer-based) and non-electronic (print) media retrieve and read such evidenc e competently and undertake critical appraisaland outline of that evidence according to agreed professional and scientific bars organise and step the power of this evidence and determine its relevancy to their educational needs and environments2.(Davies 1999, p.109).Davies acknowledges the debt of the education sector to medication and other health professions, which predated education with fi ve to ten eld in the implementation of the idea of evidence-based practices. According to Davies, it is derived from theUniversity of Oxford Masters programme in Evidence Based Health Care. argreaves explicitly argues for evidence-based teaching by pointing to the success of the idea in medicine, and by the similarity of the work of doctors and teachersPracticing doctors and teachers are applied professionals, interoperable people makinginterventions in the lives of their clients in order to promote worth fleckends health or learning. Doctors and teachers are similar in that they make2 Note that evidence-based education in this defi nition curiously becoming comes out as apure intellectual exercise, lacking the fi nal application to practice.Agora nr. 8 tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idudveksling i professionerwww.cvustork.dk/ agora 89 decisions involving complex judgements. many a(prenominal) doctors draw upon explore about the effects of their practice to inform and improve their decisions mostteachers do not, and this is a difference. (Hargreaves 1997, p. )One reason to turn to evidence-based education is that doing so would make education less vulnerable to political ideology, naturalized cognition, folklore, and wishful thinking, not to take note trendy teaching methods based on activity-based, student-centred, self-directed learning and problem solving (Davies 1999, p. 109). But what constitutes evidence? For Hargreaves (1997) evidence is evidence about what works. The dictionary says that evidence is something that furnishes proof(m-w.com). T o be able to provide proof of the working you need to mess the outcome of the teaching activity in question, and you need a procedure of relating the mensural outcomes to the activity to make the relation an evidence3. Hargreaves doesnt see much of a problem with how outcomes are constructed, but is adamant about what ought to be the preferred procedure, the RCT, the randomized promise political campaign, often called the golden standard4. Davies (1999), on the other hand, is more permissive of a variety of procedures, thus give tongue to a broader conception of educational outcomes.In addition to RCT, he mentions survey and correlational methods, regression analysis and analysis of variance. He allows for inquiries that seek to describe the meanings different people attach to different teaching activities, and the broader and long-term consequences of them, e.g. on students and parents sense of self and their sense of social worth and identity (p. 115). Analyses of by nature occurring teaching interactions, conversation and discourse areIn keeping with the correspond with medicine, I would say that not only expected and beneficial outcomes should be measured but also non-expected and possibly harmful ones. Hargreaves here echoes the standard text of research methodology from 1963, Campbell & Stanley, Experimental and Quasi- examineal Designs for seek We are committed to the experiment as the only means for settling disputes regarding educational practice, as the only way of verifying educational improvements, and as the only way of establishing a cumulative tradition. Cited by Howe (2005), p.308. Agora nr. 8 tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idudveksling i professionerwww.cvustork.dk/agora 90 also mentioned as worth- maculation in this context. He further wants to ask normative questions within the evidence-based teaching paradigm whether or not it is rightor warrantable to undertake a particular educational activity or health care intervention (p.115).Davies (1999) omission of the necessary last share in evidence-based practice, i.e. how the purported evidence is to be put to use in practice, avoids a difficult and much discussed problem. Hargreaves (1999b) is of course right in pointing out that this problem is different if practice refers to policy making, as in the phrase evidence-based policy, or to teaching in classrooms, as in the phrase evidence-based teaching. The use of evidence in policy making is about deciding on large issues have-to doe with with levels and types of resource allocation decisions which are difficult to undo slice the use of evidence in teaching refer to the relatively small(a) professional practices of teachers in schools and classrooms, which can usually be easily revise (Hargreaves 1999b, p. 245).In both circumstances enter a lot of considerations apart from evidence. Answering critique from Hammersley (1997) Hargreaves (1999b) admits that context sensitive practical wisdom pervades (b oth) expert medical and educational practice. at that place is some hard science deep in the knowledge-base of doctors, but the closer a doctor gets to an individual patient, the stronger the elements of judgement or of practical wisdom that also enters into the decision. Teachers acquire practical wisdom too but, in comparison with doctors, they have little trustworthy scientifi c knowledge to insert into their decision-making.He claims that the infra structure of knowledge available to teachers is far less developed than that available to doctors, and that teachers seem to be less effi cient than doctors in fi nding the scientifi c knowledge there is. He argues that one reason for this is that the knowledge base in medicine is cumulative while that in education is not, but ought to become.This leads to Davies (1999) second level of concerns about evidence-based teaching to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of a questionable, uncertain, or weak nature . Hargreaves lecture in 1996 to the Teacher Training Agency stated that teachers only to a small accomplishment base their practice on (hard) scientific evidence, but he didnt blame teachers but researchers for failing to advance such evidence, especially produced by RCT procedures. With the 12,000,000 funding for developing evidence-based policy and practice by research he hoped researchers would be encouraged to respond appropriately (Hargreaves 1999a). In another journal article the same year, titled The Knowledge Creating School, he urges teachers themselves to produce the knowledge they need.To sum up Evidence-based teaching is a concept borrowed from the health sciences and recommended for teachers (you might add by new-public-management-governments and elite researchers). You may get the notion that its use implies a critique of teachers for not including research-based evidence in deliberations on how to teach, but mainly it is a critique of educational researchers for no t providing the needed cumulative research-base, built on research of the randomized control trial (RCT) kind. The rationale is that once such research has taken off and its results have been efficiently disseminated, evidence-based, or evidence informed, teaching will become more frequent.Critique of the notion of evidence-based practiceHammersley (1999) challenges Hargreaves on three accounts his verbal description of educational research as non-cumulative, his prescription on how research could contribute to practice, and his argument that education should learn from medicine, which he considers a parallel to education. Hammersley shares the view that educational research could become more cumulative, but researching what works has not proven successful in this respect, despite sustained attempts much educational research in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century was devoted to probe of effective teaching and one of the reasons for the changes in educational research ove r the past 20 years is precisely the failure of this work to produce conclusive, cumulative fi ndings (p.144).But he also reminds us that there are different meanings of the concept cumulative. There are obvious problems involved in identifying distinct and standardised treatments in education, Hammersley exemplifi es by the problems faced by researchers seeking to distinguish teaching styles. What about the problems in operationalising the concept of learning? What should be done about the disagreements about what students should learn? What about the problems of how to measure the most important kinds of learning? Hammersley asks if it is possible even in principle to do so. A preoccupation with what is easily measured may very well have profound effect on teaching, narrowing objectives accordingly.To establish fixed, universal causal patterns in teaching seems equally difficult, if not impossible. What might be aspired to is local, context-sensitive patterns in which interpretat ion and decision on the part of teachers and students play an important role. Unlike in most areas of medicine, in education the treatments consist of symbolic interaction, with all the scope for multiple interpretations and responses which that implies.Hammersley thinks that the employment of information of high practical relevance usually depends on a great deal of knowledge that does not have such relevancefor science to be able to contribute knowledge that is applicable to practice, a division of labour is required a great deal of twinned work is necessary tackling smaller, more manageable problems that do not have immediate pay-off. Hargreaves is described as having a narrowly instrumental view of practical relevance, promoting an engineering object lesson of the relationship between research and practice. An engineering model assumes that most teaching problems are technical, which is not likely. On the contrary they seem in most cases to be practical, that is involving ma king judgements in complex situations, exercising discretion, not following rules.The likeness with medicine is criticised for not taking into account that the practice of medicine is more towards the engineering side of a continuum which at the other side has the practical. Even within medicine the notion of evidence-based practice has been criticised for downplaying practical judgement in clinical situations, that the focus of clinical practice is subtly shifted away from the care of individuals toward the care of populations, and the complex nature of sound clinical judgement is not fully appreciated (Tonelli 2000).Hammersley cites a medical researcher who raises the same critique towards medical research as Hargreaves does to educational research it is methodological weak, use inappropriate designs, unrepresentative and small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretations. The blame is put on practitioners doing research without adequate research training, a fact that doesnt real support Hargreaves recommendation that more teacher research should lead to a stronger body of knowledge with practical relevance. Hammersley concludes his critique The diagnosis (of the current state of educational research) is mistaken and, taken as a whole the prescription is likely to belethal.In the North American context an equally forceful critique of the arguments for research for evidence-based practice has been voiced by Howe (2005). His critique is organised under the headings experimentism5 and scientifi c method, and experimentism and values. The object of his analysis is a National Research Council overlay, Scientifi c Research in Education (2002), which he means represent a more soften form of experimentism than other infl uential publications advocating research for evidence-based practice. In short he states that this report unconvincingly characterizes the gestate of research as hierarchical, bothtemporally and logically (p. 309) offers l ittle defense of its call for a renewed emphasis on randomised experimentsagainst well-known criticisms regarding the issue of external validity(generalisability from research contexts to other contexts) (p.309) does not take into account Cronbachs observation that generalizations decay,The word experimentism is used by Howe to refer to scientifi c research advocating the randomised control trial as the best research method. thus making the goal of a cumulative education science fundamentally unattainable does not take into account that human intentionality signifi cantly complicates how to understand causal explanation in social research places outcomes outside educational research, by focusing on means places not-manipulable variables, like socio-economic stratifi cation, outside the limits of educational research by insisting on RCT as the method of choice, thus making educational research a political innocent exercise.Howe (2005) turns to Toulmin (2001) to fi nd an alternative to experimentism an alternative that is without the short-comings described above Activities for which social research is often seen as a beam of light for improvement medicine and education, for instance call for intentional behaviour on the part of practitioners in the form of craft-based practical judgement. Stephen Toulmin observes that when performed well, these judgements mustiness respond in a timely manner to the unique and unanticipated actions of other persons, as well as to their different ways of seeing things. According to Toulmin, research informing such practices should exemplify a model that is clinical and democratic rather than applied and elite (Howe 2005, p. 317).Teachers relationship to research Do teachers experience a lack of research results when planning to teach? How do teachers get in touch to educational research? Do teachers fi nd some research literary genres more relevant and practically useful than others? Does teachers practice-based researc h contribute to a knowledge base of teaching? None of these questions are raised in the early discussions on evidence-based teaching, but specific answers to them seem to enter as premises to prescriptions.I would think that the answer to the first question is no. A common place view of teachers planning is that it is based on textbooks and concerned with amounts of covering, using standard methods of classroom instruction a short introduction by the teacher, independent pupil work with textbook exercises, question-and-answer-patterns, summing up by the teacher in class. Twenty years ago research on teachers planning was frequent, today it seems to be an almost closed dramatic art of study. Perhaps the expectations of the paradigm of evidence-based teaching on teachers to include research results in their deliberations on how to teach may lead to its re-opening. Do teachers find some research genres more relevant and practically useful than others? Kennedy (1999) observes thatMany genre advocates refer to teachers to justify their arguments, claiming that teachers need more authoritative knowledge (so we should conduct experiments), more dynamic portraits that reveal multiple truths (so we should write narratives), or more richly detailed accounts (so we should do ethnographies). (Kennedy 1999, p.511)Case studies and ethnographies, she continues, have long been justified by contentions that educational events are governed not by universal laws of cause and effect but, instead, by human interactions and by multiple concurrent and interacting influences that the meanings of these events can be understood only within their context that detailed descriptions of the full range of these interactions and dynamics are the only way to accurately represent these events and their meaningsthat the kind of complex dynamic knowledge represented in case studies and ethnographies is more like the kind of knowledge ordinary people use to store their experiences and that such detailed and multifaceted descriptions enable audiences to see similarities and differences between the research setting and their own situations, thus enabling generalizations by analogy rather than by statistical extrapolation. (Kennedy 1999, p.54)She sets out to investigate if teachers find some research genres more persuasive, more relevant, and more influential on own practice, than others, and if so, what features of each genre contribute to these evaluations. 100 teachers were interviewed after having read tailfin articles describing research of different genres. Results show that the three evaluative criteria were highly correlated, but also that reasons for valuing them varied across genres. Experiments appeared to be highly valued, but so were non-experimental comparisons and narratives.Case studies appeared more influential than surveys. Independent of genre research studies proved to be particularly useful if they helped teachers understand the relationship between teac hing and learning (Kennedy 1999, p.528). Kennedy concludes that a majority of teachers found most of the articles persuasive and relevant, but for different reasons. The genre contentions with which she started were not empirically verified.The TTA itself designed a questionnaire on teachers perspectives on educational research, and distributed it as attachments to journals of two teacher organisations, one for simple teachers, the other for secondary teachers. Everton, Galton & Pell (2000) report on the findings. As an unknown number of subscribers were corporate members for local education authorities and industrial companies they were unable to cook teachers response percentages. It was however estimated that the first group only returned 15% of the questionnaires, the second possibly a little more. In the second group most, i.e. 84%, were filled out by school leaders. All in all the manner this investigation was carried out does not justify its analysis in terms of teachers pe rspectives.Does teachers practice-based research contribute to a knowledge base of teaching?As a result of Hargreaves 1996 lecture to the Teacher Training Agency theBritish government allocated 54000 to the funding of teacher research projects.In an evaluation of the resulting reports Foster (1999) found that a significant minority of the projects appeared to be practical concerned with the improvement of teaching, learning or educational achievement, rather than the occupation of knowledge (p. 383). He found that only in a minority of the reports are factual claims well established as a result, it is difficult to see these as much more than opinion based on pre-existing views of good practice (p. 393).Foster concludes that critical scrutiny of findings from teacher research before dissemination is crucial, but is afraid that the view of knowledge production and dissemination which underpins this TTA scheme sees little role for such scrutiny. The priorities are rapid production an d immediate dissemination to practitioners (p. 395). To sum up There is research evidence that teachers see the RCT research genre as relevant and useful to practice, but no more so than many other research genres. There is research evidence that teachers practice-based research does not contribute substantially to a body of knowledge on teaching, not to mention a cumulative one.Concluding remarksIn line with the observation that there is more to teachers decision making than following authoritative evidence-based rules for practice, the discourse have changed from talking dichotomously about evidence-based/not evidence-based teaching to talking about evidence-informed teaching (Hargreaves 1999b) or the extent to which teaching is evidence-based (Davies 1999).It is interesting to note that while waiting (?) for research-produced evidence on what works, in teaching and in teacher education, British teacher education has become teacher training, managed by the Training & Development A gency for Schools. Its publication Qualifying to teach. Professional standards for suffice teacher status and requirements for initial teacher training lists skills, competencies and understandings would-be teachers must acquire (TDA 2005). Hagger & McIntyre (2000) complains that these lists have been accompanied neither by any rationale for the items listed nor by any explanation of the conception of teaching expertise which underlies the lists (p. 485).Not surprisingly, I found that in this publication the word training appears 51 times, the word education 15 times (most of these in naming school subjects or institutions), the words research, and theory did not appear at all. My conclusion is that there are serious problems, philosophical, historical, and political problems, with the notion of evidence-based practice transferred to teaching and teacher education, at least in its original interpretation.American Speech-Language-Hearing necktie (ASHA). (1999). Omnibus Survey. Rock ville, Maryland Hill, K., & Romich, B. (2002). AAC evidence-based clinical practice A model for success. AAC Institute Press, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 1-6.McKibbon, K.A., Wilczynski, N., Hayward, R.S., Walker-Dilks, Cynthia, & Haynes, R.B. (1995). The medical literature as a resource for evidence based care. Working Paper from the Health Information Research Unit, Mc,Master University, Ontario, Canada.Sackett, D.L., Rosenberg, W.MC, Gray, J.M., Haynes, R.B., Richardson, W.S. (1996). Evidence-based medicine What it is and what it isnt. British Medical Journal. 321 71-2American Educational Research Association (2005). Research Points. http//www.aera.net/publications/?id=314 (downloaded 15.11.2005)British Medical Journals Publishing Group (2005). Clinical Evidence. http//www.clinicalevidence.com/ceweb/conditions/index.jsp (downloaded 15.11.2005).Campbell collaborationism (2005). The Education Coordinating Group. http//www.cahs.colostate.edu/r-dcenter/CCECG/home.asp (downloaded 15.11.2005).D avies, P. (1999). What is evidence-based education? British Journal of EducationalStudies, 47, 2, 108-121.Everton, T., Galton, M. & Pell, T. (2000).Foster, P. (1999). never mind the quality, feel the impact a methodological assessmentof teacher research sponsored by the Teacher Training Agency. BritishJournal of Educational Studies, 47, 4, 380-398.Hagger, h. & McIntyre, D. (2000). What can research tell us about teacher education?Oxford Review of Education, 26, 3-4, 483-494.Hammersley, M. (1997). Educational research and teaching A response to DavidHargreaves TTA lecture. British Educationl Research Journal, 23, 2, 141-162.Hargreaves, D. (1996). Teaching as a research-based profession possibilities andprospects. capital of the United Kingdom Teacher Training Agency.Hargreaves, D. (1997). In defence of research for evidence-based teaching A reverberationto Martyn Hammersley. British Educational Research Journal, 23, 4, 405-419.Hargreaves, D. (1999a). The knowledge-creating school. 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(2000) Social Work Research What Kind of Knowledge/Knowledges? An Introduction to the Papers, Brt. Jnl of Social Work, 30, 429-432Sue Penna, Ph.D. can be contacted via e-mail at S.Pennalancaster.ac.uk