Discourse, Rationality, and Educational Research: A Historical Perspective of RER1

Abstract

In this essay I explore the relationship between research reviews and the fields of study to which they pertain. Using the curriculum field as an example, I argue that such reviews are venues where fields of inquiry are constituted, reproduced, and over time changed. This construction occurs, I suggest, as the discursive practices or rules of reasoning embedded in the language in which these reviews are framed are transformed into curriculum policies or programs through a process that I liken to state building. Both these discursive practices and the policies which they allow constitute the regulative mechanisms of the curriculum. I use the issues of the Review of Educational Research devoted to curriculum from 1931 through 1969 to explore this topic. Undertaking a genealogical examination, I explore the lineage of these discursive practices, paying particular attention to their patterns of discontinuity over time. I use this genealogy to suggest how the curriculum field was constructed and to identify its regulative impact. In doing so, I look at how curriculum discourse works as an instrument of power. I conclude the essay by considering what this exploration tells us in general about the relationship between reviews and fields of inquiry.