What Education Studies is and what it might be
Ainley, Patrick (2009) What Education Studies is and what it might be. Educationalfutures, 2 (1). pp. 3-13. ISSN 1758-2199Full text not available from this repository.
Education Studies at the University of Greenwich is presented as an example of what Education Studies is – at least at one Higher Education Institution. As a field of practice to which a body of knowledge can be applied, Education Studies shares common features with other disciplinary fields of study. It is also unique in that its field – learning, is also what its students do – learn. What Education Studies isn’t is then discussed in relation to studies of schooling, the psychology of learning, sociology of education, traditional education degrees and teacher training. Lastly, what Education Studies could become is presented with reference to Ranson’s (1993) argument for the centrality of education as the common focus of all HE study. It is suggested that the subject could then contribute to expanding critical space in (higher) education through making research/ scholarship and creation an integral part of the Independent Study of all students at all levels of learning. This would be a necessary complement to the wider democratic transformation now demanded for human survival. It would also accord with what Marx called humanity’s “species being” as a “learning animal” (Morris). Such a social theory of learning can discriminate between information and competence at one level of learning and (corresponding terms) knowledge and skill at another more generalised level in relation to new divisions of knowledge and labour. Potentially these levels can be combined to create a new form of polytechnic learning, relating theory to practice, education to training and further to higher education.
|Additional Information:|| First published in Educationalfutures, Vol.2 (1) September 2009.  Educationalfutures, Volume 2(1), September 2009 is the Liverpool Conference Issue.  This paper is based on the keynote address to British Education Studies Association, Annual Conference, held 27-28 June 2008, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK.  Educationalfutures is the peer-reviewed e-journal of the British Education Studies Association (BESA).|
|Uncontrolled Keywords:||Education Studies, foundation degree, teacher training|
|Subjects:||L Education > L Education (General)|
|School / Department / Research Groups:||School of Education|
School of Education > Department of Education & Community Studies
|Last Modified:||09 Jul 2013 16:20|
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