In Defense of Positivist Research Paradigms

Abstract

Although positivism means different things to different people, it is not difficult to identify research paradigms that would be clearly identified as positivist by friends and foes of positivism alike. I briefly describe one such paradigm and identify its principal features. I argue that even outspoken critics of positivist research–such as Elliot Eisner, Frederick Erickson, Henry Giroux, and Thomas Popkewitz–are logically committed to propositions that can be tested only by means of positivist research paradigms.