[NLA] Fed support for research (Response to "Reading Research on Adult...")

Tue Oct 15 22:04:40 EDT 2002

On Tue, 15 Oct 2002 11:45:00 -0500 M C Smith <mcsmith at niu.edu> writes:

But, both NICHD and NCSALL are, in fact, government-supported agencies.
NCSALL receives its funding through the Office for Educational Research
&amp; Improvement (OERI), an arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
Thus, I am not clear on how the government might be supporting one type
of research over the other in this regard. John Comings can be more
specific about this, I'm sure, but the NCSALL research projects completed
thus far or currently underway include a variety of methodological
approaches, including interviews (Staff Development project),
observations (Literacy Practices of Adult Learners;  Classroom Dynamics;
Adult Student Persistence study), surveys (Longitudinal  Study of Adult
Learning), and of course qualitative (Adult Development  Study; Adult
Multiple Intelligences Study), quantitative (Longitudinal Study of Adult
Learning; GED impact study), and mixed-methods approaches (several of the
previously-mentioned projects and others). 

While I'm no fan of the Bush administration's education initiatives (they
have, after all, mandated the &quot;Lake Wobegon effect&quot; in the No
child Left Standing Act, among other things), I'm not convinced that  the
call for the application of rigorous methodologies to demonstrate the
validity/efficacy of various educational program/interventions is a  bad
thing. This does not privilege quantitative methods over qualitative
methods--which may be equally rigorous, if not &quot;scientific&quot; in
the traditional sense

Cecil Smith
M Cecil Smith, Ph.D.<
Professor of Educational Psychology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115-2854
(815) 753-8448
(815) 753-8750 (fax)
mcsmith at niu.edu
"http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith/" 
eudora="autourl">www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith/

Hello Cecil:

Thanks for responding.   Let me make a few points for now, maybe more
later.

First, I agree that " the call for the application of rigorous
methodologies to demonstrate the validity/efficacy of various educational
program/interventions is not a  bad thing."  Nothing I said should be
construed to indicate that.

Second, more strongly, the research areas represent valid and important
areas of study.  In that respect, they are a good thing.  Also, on that
score, given the scholarly integrity of the researchers with whom I'm
familiar, Daphne Greenberg, John Sabitini, and Richard Vezensky, the
finished products are bound to be of a high quality and cannot but make a
contribution to the field.  I take no issue on that score.

Third, in terms of " how the government might be supporting one type of
research over the other" since both NCSALL and  NICHD are both
governmental agencies, one has to look to politics and ideology.  NCSALL
was formed and most of the basic research of the projects were carried
out during the Clinton administration.  The recently granted projects
reflect the ideology of the Bush administration, including what many view
as its narrow interpretation both of what literacy is as well as how the
reading process unfolds and the emphasis it places on scientific-based
research in education which sometimes takes on the rhetoric of a mantra.

Let's push this a bit.  Given all the research that NCSALL has produced
over the past half-dozen or so years, what role will this cumulative body
of data play in formulating adult literacy/ABE policy in the Bush
administration?  For this is the nub of the issue, how knowledge
construction is related to power, which knowledge is legitimized by those
in power and which knowledge is marginalized.

So the question is not which research traditions government in a general
sense supports, but which research tradition the Bush administration
supports in the parameters it set up for funded projects and the projects
actually selected.  Similarly, how does this research tradition impact on
the prisms through which the Administration interprets the very meaning
of what adult literacy is (i.e. reading) and its public  value/purposes
within the nation's life?    Again, for the sake of emphasis, I am not
challenging the inherent integrity of particular projects and on their
face they may have much to offer.  My congratulations to the recipients
is sincere.

As a final point, consider an alternative scenario.  Another branch of
the government, the National Institute for Literacy has promoted the
Equipped for the Future project as its flagship program.  Based on the
vision of the mid-late 1990s, project designers and the former NIFL
Director viewed the EFF project as the means through which to galvanize a
national consensus on the value and purposes of adult literacy and in
establishing an integration between educational theory, best practices,
and policies.  One could say that this was a government-sponsored and
government sanctioned project.   As an alternative scenario, the grant
projects could have been focused on refining and strengthening the EFF
project to better help designers carry out its forward looking vision. 
Given years of  governmental investment in EFF, a research focus like I
am suggesting would have gone a long way toward giving EFF greater
legitimacy.

While it's not exactly clear how the current administration views the EFF
project, all signs indicate, that at the least, it is no longer viewed as
the flagship operation designed to galvanize and bring consensus to the
field.  We'll know more once the new NIFL administration (Board and
Director) are in place, but the indicators seem clear that what the
current government supports is reading over inquiry-driven learning to
learn standards and a research methodology based on postivistic and
post-positvist science rather than the intellectual precepts of
constructivism that ground the entire EFF edifice. 

 These decisions, I argue, are political and ideological, with the guise
of science sometimes used to buttress these positions.  A great deal of
scholarship (no longer considered valid because it focuses on values)
backs up the general point I am making, including a great deal of
educational scholarship no longer viewed as relevant or legitimate. 
Science, you say.  Not necessarily.

So, while in a general sense, one could say that the government both
supports the EFF project and th current emphasis on reading and
scientific-based research in education, it seems clear that the current
government favors the latter over the former.  The broader point I am
making (and it is based on an apprehension that the Bush administration
seeks ideological hegemony for its neo-conservative world view from
phonics to geopolitics), is that it is now more important than ever to
preserve and strengthen independent research sectors both within and
without government that respect the pluralism and diversity that has been
the hallmark of educational scholarship for a century.

Perhaps others will weigh in here.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com

________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.
_______________________________________________
NLA mailing list: NLA at lists.literacytent.org
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/nla
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org