[NLA] Research in Adult Education & Literacy, serious research, validation of our field and gender issues

[Andres Muro]

I have been thinking a lot about the discussion brought up by Tom about research in adult literacy and subsequent responses by Kathleen and Katherine. I want to explore the implications of the question from a slightly different angle look at  what we mean by literacy, research, science and gender issues and how these topics may shape the value of our field.

Tom started the discussion, as I remember, by asking about scientific evidence that validated literacy work, making reference to the work of Freire, Dewey and others sometimes referred to by George. Kathleen responded that scientific research in our field was not taken seriously since literacy is not considered a hard science. She noted the distinction about hard vs soft sciences and the lack of respect that soft sciences received for lacking serious and rigorous research that would validate a study. The implication from both posts seemed to be that in order for something to be valid it had to be validated through hard science. 

Deviating from this topic for a second, I would like to point out that it so happens that the distinction of hard vs soft is a distinction that has always been made about genders. Men are hard and women are soft, of course, hardness having a higher symbolic value than softness both in terms of science and gender. Of course, coincidental, hard sciences have been, historically, the realm of men while the social sciences have been the realm of women. In terms of validation and compensation of these realms, hard sciences have been better compensated because they are the realm of men doing real work to bring home an income. on the opposite end we have that social sciences, being the realm of women, caring and educating, do not belong to the realm of either creating new knowledge nor making money for a living. Rather they belong to the realm of moral work that women can do, not to financially support a family, since this is the realm of men, but, may be, to make some extra income for frivolous pleasures, while reproducing socializations established by men. 

>From the above, it is clear that the tone of serious scientific research, hardness, softness and being taken serious has a lot to do with gender. Literacy, as a woman's profession has been underfunded and we have historically been encouraged to do some of the work for free, as volunteers. Now, with the idea that we want the field to be taken more seriously, we need to de-feminize it by doing serious, hard, manly scientific research instead of soft, femenine, not serious research (I'll be renewing my membership to Gold's Gym). 

Having presented an argument about gender and our field, let me explore the differences between hard and soft science. The historical implication is that hard research was the product of reason and soft research was the product of intuition, again corresponding to the male and female realms. Of course, hard, rational, scientific research relied on mathematics and statistics to demonstrate hypotheses, and since numbers do not lie and have a universal, objective character, then, so does the hard research that they represent. However, hard science is not about numbers, but about what the numbers represent. Ultimately, the numbers represent questions, answers to the questions, and observations by humans which are re-interpreted into numbers. The question is, what guarantees that the re-interpretation of language into numbers is objective and rational instead of subjective and intuitive. The only possible answer that applies here is that the researcher has a direct line to god and through this direct line, he can be sure that his interpretation of the language into a number is the only correct one. Of course, we all know that this is not the case. Ultimately, the researcher's questions and interpretations are shaped by the paradigm that s/he belongs to and by the social-cultural forces that shape the meaning of what s/he hears. Scientific paradigms were not created by god, but by groups of humans contesting ideological spaces in a struggle for power. So, in essence, the hard scientist's research is the result of his intuition of what an observation means, or the intuition of a group of people as to how truth could be arrived at, and the ability of these people to hegemonize their idea into a dominant paradigm. In fact, most people forget that science does not prove anything but it does not provides sufficient evidence to dis-prove. 

We are being asked to come up with serious scientific research and hard science to support knowledge, as if this would guarantee its truthfulness or its validity. In fact, it does neither. Tom comments that some of us have dwelled in philosophy of science but not in conducting scientific research. It is possible that philosophers of science understand the limitations of   hard science and do not feel that it is the way to prove everything. On the other hand, herd, oops..., I mean hard scientists,  who do not understand philosophy and the fact that they belong to a paradigm, believe that the only way to arrive to truth is through hard scientific research. 

The question is, should we validate our field through hard scientific research, or argue that there are other ways to validate our work. Katherine argues that we should ask our teachers and students for their perceptions, something that we never do.  Should we strive to recognize the work of our teachers and students and validate their opinios, or shall we consider them invalid because they do not fall in the category of hard, scientific reasoning.  What do you all think?

Andres 

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