The End of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Education Sciences

Abstract

Education Sciences have a recent institutionalization, contemporary with influential epistemological views based on the natural and exact sciences (Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, Longino, Bourdieu and Harding). This may have led to the direct importation of principles and discourses, which suggests the need to debate such influences regarding the coherence of their meanings with the complex nature of education. For this purpose, we analyze the arguments “objectivity” and “subjectivity”, commonly mobilized in research, which some understand to be epistemic virtues. Therefore, what characterizes the “objectivity” and “subjectivity” arguments in influential epistemological proposals? What is its meaning in Educational Sciences and, in particular, in qualitative research? Methodologically, an instrumental, comparative, and reflective analysis of influential epistemologies is carried out (in terms of the meaning attributed to the objectivity and subjectivity arguments), to discuss the epistemology of Education Sciences. The results suggest different purposes and conceptions of objectivity and subjectivity, based on (a) the researcher’s neutrality in relation to social values, (b) the values that allow integration into a paradigm, (c) the retrospective look at the knowledge produced, (d) the creative capacity, (e) the representativeness of groups that may have an interest in knowledge, (f) the elements of scientific prestige and (g) the dominant/oppressed position at the origin of knowledge. This suggests questioning the virtue of the “objectivity” and “subjectivity” arguments, since they have dispersed meanings and can lead to incommensurability, when the scientific meaning of education is, on the contrary, to be situated at the confluence of various sciences and methodologies. In conclusion, it is relevant to debate the epistemic virtues of Education Sciences that support the commensurability of research, and it is proposed that this process begins in the inter-subjectivity, inter-coherence and inter-necessity that emerge from the complexity of education.