Experiments in Education Theory
It is as if Education Theory arrived late to a party. Like partygoers who are in the swing of it, parents, teachers and other educators were engaged in educational activities long before the ‘sciences’ of education held up a mirror to their work. Along comes theory, rather too sober and rational, unable to make normal conversation and speak to the heart of teaching and education. Like any too-sober late comer, Education Theory seems rather rudely to present a picture to those already getting along well, a picture that may be accurate, but seeming to miss the point, almost as if it intends to spoil their fun! Today, student teachers often wonder about the place of theory, preferring to gain knowledge of practice from experience that, for them, is more real and relevant. They realise that theory has something to say, but it seems too dry, sober, systematic and in the end too abstract. What can be place of theory in education?
About the project
The Experiments in Education Theory (ExET) project does not offer an ‘apology’ for theory. An apology is not required. Rather it seeks to understand the real contribution theory can and does make. The project recognises the central place of practice, but those engaged in educational practices need opportunities to reflect.
Of course practitioners have always reflected, but often piecemeal and on their own, then later on the experiences of others, drawing conclusions for their educational practices from those reflections. Those reflections became more organised, more thorough, far-reaching, and what once was a complex but unified process of reflecting the world became more specialised and disintegrated into the different disciplines we nowadays perceive to be academic subjects. Each of these is devoted to investigating and reflecting the world from a specific perspective. However, their reflecting, their theorising, still remains inspired by other perspectives of inquiry. This is also true for Education Studies and its theorising of and about the world. Looking from a specific perspective, the perspective of education, education theory has, throughout history, often prospered through the contributions of conceptual theorists from a variety of what we nowadays call ‘disciplines’ such as, but not confined to, anthropology, sociology, theology, philosophy, psychology, Gender Studies, etc.; in short: from all the Humanities, Social Sciences, and even the Natural and Formal Sciences.
Whereas the emphasis in Education Studies turns more and more to the empirical side of research, the Experiments in Education Theory (ExET) project is an international attempt to bring together those with an interest in the advancement of conceptual thinking in and about education, broadly conceived. The project operates virtually through this website and electronic communications, and in the ‘real world’ through its conferences, publication and presentations.
The main aim of ExET is to promulgate thinking about matters educational so that actors therein, at all levels, might benefit from engaging with thought and its relationships with and to action. We take a necessarily broad view of the terms ‘educational’ and ‘theory’ so that we might be inclusive of all who seek to advance knowledge through non-empirical means. We are informed by a range of disciplines and, indeed, new ones that emerge from shared understandings, discussion and debate. We seek to broaden the educational horizon so that all might see the beauty of theory and its place in improving educational fare.