What should really count? Educational research and public policies between methodological and ethical questions

Abstract

It is strategic for pedagogical investigation to reflect on the relationship between educational
research and public policies. In this reflection, there is a need to avoid both political
decision makers instrumentally supporting science in educational reforms and researchers
being able to prescribe in the name of science, legitimizing their convictions
with research results. Therefore, the debate on research methodologies in pedagogy cannot
evade questions about the “responsibilities” of the researcher towards his/her research
and the phases in which it is articulated, including as an expression of an ethics of preparation,
implementation, and dissemination of the research: the choice of method and,
consequently, of research tools corresponds in fact to a different approach to the research
object and a different type of knowledge generated in relation to the problem under investigation,
as well as serving as reference to an epistemology assumed or formulated by
the researcher.