‘Rigour’, ‘discipline’ and the ‘systematic’: The cultural construction of educational research identities?

Abstract

In the present scientific era which prefers evidence-based educational research and methodological gold standards, ‘rigour’, ‘discipline’ and the ‘systematic’ serve as standardising and homogenising concepts and as powerful identifiers of ‘normal science’ in the context of historical and cultural contingencies. These concepts serve to construct disciplinary identities and, furthermore, have the power to define what counts as rigour, discipline and the systematic – and what not. The article starts with the problems of terminology and shows that rigour, discipline and the systematic are rather vague and ambivalent concepts, especially when considering their meaning in different languages and cultures. The second part uses different foci of several theoretical approaches in order to show the meaning and functions of rigour, discipline and the systematic for constructing educational research identities and to explain different notions of these concepts in different research cultures. The final part considers the future and argues for the strengthening of a transversal, (meta-)reflexive and communicative dimension which both opens and limits the forms and formats of educational research employing diversity and intercultural communication as a valuable and powerful resource of sound scholarly research, mutual understanding and intellectual delight.