The historicity of pedagogical research

Abstract

There seems to be a growing interest among policy-makers and academics in facts and figures from the field of pedagogy. This is partly fuelled by the search for evidence-based practice, and partly inherent to the econometric argument of returns on investment. In this paper, we argue that this trend coincides with a democratic deficit in the research on early childhood education and may also signal the end of pedagogy. We take a genealogical approach to the question of how truth is constructed in educational research and how this relates to social, economic and political contexts. We do so in order to highlight the responsibility of the researcher. After all, researchers in education are not only influenced by dominant discourse, they themselves are dominant discourse.