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The authors present a conceptual analysis and a demonstration of the synthesis of two methodologies, set in two very different academic traditions, in a single research design used to investigate an academic department: Carspecken’s five-stage critical qualitative research (CQR) and Barker’s Behavior Setting Survey (BSS). They show that (a) conceptually, constructs associated with the BSS can be relocated within CQR as contributions to its theory of social systems, and (b) methodologically, procedures associated with the BSS contribute to the field studies of social systems. By employing features of both methodologies together, a broader, sharper methodological framework for research on human activities in relation to physical, social, and cultural contexts can be achieved.

Our schools of education today host two important counter-Enlightenment discourses, criticalism and postmodernism. Graduate students inevitably encounter both discourses when taking their required classes in research methods, along with modernist modes of thinking embedded within mainstream research methodologies. These three modes of thought and practice—the modernist mainstream, criticalism and postmodernism—are also found within such educational fields as curriculum studies, multiculturalism, literacy and social foundations. Differences between criticalism and postmodernism are difficult to articulate, and confusion abounds. Both criticalism and postmodernism have distinguishing features based on their challenge to ocularcentric and phonocentric theories of truth that can be found underlying the assumptions of mainstream social research methodologies. Ocular- and phonocentrism also operate within the popular cultures of modernity. This paper clarifies differences between postmodernism and criticalism through a very partial exploration of ocular- and phonocentric theories of truth and meaning. The alternatives opened by these counter-Enlightenment discourses are reviewed and compared. The problematical relations between knowledge and representation, knowledge and power, and sameness and difference are simultaneously explored, as is the concept of self. The essay argues that certain popular postmodern themes are importantly insightful but best relocated within a criticalist framework. Criticalism provides a more promising direction for counter-Enlightenment thought and practice, but criticalism is an unfinished project in need of further work.

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