Philosophising About, As, and in Educational Research

This part of the book moves from general consideration about educational research to the more specific contributions that philosophy of education can make to the research community. This particular chapter is organised around three different relationships between philosophy and educational research more generally. First it discusses philosophising about educational research, which one might regard as a subspecies of philosophy of social science. Philosophy has a major role in contributing to debates about the epistemological standing of different forms of inquiry, about methodological issues, and hence about methods. It provides an underpinning to debates about research ethics and about the social and political principles that should underpin educational research. Second, philosophical inquiry and philosophical scholarship are themselves among the constituents of educational research. Philosophising about education is itself a form of educational research. Third, I consider in a separate chapter (Chap. 10) the role of philosophy, or the philosopher, in an educational research team, in an interdisciplinary inquiry.