Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education

A 2022 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner

Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education challenges dominant educational research methods. It rejects the reductive binaries normalized in social science research--theory/practice, objective/subjective, quantitative/qualitative. Drawing from multiple fields and eras, the book opens third spaces between these artificial poles to help researchers expand interpretations and possibilities for research. Critiquing the current focus on the measurement of "student learning outcomes" and high-stakes assessment, the book offers conceptual tools and case examples to support educators in reconceptualizing research. The book critiques the modernist notion that learning is an individual mental process of acquiring knowledge or skills. It argues instead that learning is inextricably entangled with social relations and cannot be isolated or controlled no matter how scientifically rigorous researchers try to be in their study designs. This challenges the current goal of educational research instruction to design "valid and reliable" studies that provide evidence for "best practices," and reimagines it as opening third spaces to expand opportunities and approaches for inquiry.

Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Social and Cultural Analysis of Education Agency, Resistance, and Identity in Education Critical and Postmodern Pedagogies Culture, Cognition, and Power Issues in Education Modernity and Postmodernity in Social Thought and Education Integrating Research and Practice in Social Justice Education Cultural Studies in Education Science, Technology, and Social Research after Eurocentrism Critical Pedagogy Language, Performance, and Power Sociology of Education Ideology, Racial Politics, and Public Policy: Sociology of Knowledge Seminar in Cross National Studies of Educational Problems Participatory Action Research and Programming