Prerequisite course for this course is: ET602E Education: Perspectives on Teaching and the Teacher

The aim of the course is to enable students to develop knowledge of the philosophy of science and historical research methods within education and the education sciences, in order to problematise relevant epistemological, ontological and ethical matters. Additionally, the course aims to help students strengthen their academic writing skills.

The course provides an overview of perspectives in the philosophy of science and methodology relevant to educational theory. It also investigates how these perspectives relate to various ontological and epistemological approaches. The course places particular focus on methods for identifying, studying and analysing historical materials. Ethical matters concerning historical studies will also be discussed, and traditions in academic writing will be explored.

Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to

The course is based on regular lectures, seminars, workshops and field trips. There will be opportunities for feedback between the students throughout the course.

Test 1 (2001): Written exam (Skriftlig examination), 5 credits. This test examines learning outcomes 1, 2, and 4.

Test 2 (2002): Oral exam (Muntlig examination), 2.5 credits. This test examines learning outcome 3.

The course coordinator will provide information about grading criteria at the start of the course.

It must be possible to distinguish between individual performances for all assessments.

Anderson, Elizabeth (2019). Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Aylesworth, Gary (2015). Postmodernism. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Bird, Alexander (2018). Thomas Kuhn. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Foucault, Michel (1970). Foreword to the English Edition, and Preface in Foucault, Michel, The Order of Things. Vintage Books, New York (40 p)

Foucault, Michel (1997). ‘What is Enlightenment?’. In Faubion. J. (ed.), Essential Works of Foucault (1954–1984) Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, vol. 1. New York: New Press, pp 303–20 (17 p)

Friesen Norm (2017). The History of Education as the History of Writing. In Siljander P., Kontio K., Pikkarainen E. (eds.), Schools in Transition. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp 273-287 (15 p)

Glendinning, Simon (2008). What is Phenomenology? Philosophy Compass 3/1, pp 30-50 (20 p)

Hacking, Ian (1992). ‘Style’ for historians and philosophers. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 23(1), pp 1-20 (20 p)

Haraway, Donna J. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3), pp 575-599 (25 p)

Harding, Sandra (1995). ‘Strong Objectivity’: A Response to the New Objectivity Question. Synthese 104 (3): 331–349 (13 p)

Labaree, David (2012). A sermon on educational research. International Journal for the Historiography of Education, 2(1), pp 1-11 (11 p)

Little, Daniel (2017). Philosophy of History. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Mantzavinos, Chrysostomos (2016). Hermeneutics. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Mintz, Avi (2016). The Use and Abuse of the History of Educational Philosophy. In Levinson, N. (ed.) Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2016 (available online) (8 p)

Smith, David Woodruff (2018). Phenomenology, In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Steup, Matthias (2018). Epistemology. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Thornton, Stephen (2019). Karl Popper. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition) (available online) (20 p)

Students who participate in or complete a course must be given the opportunity to share their experiences and provide feedback on the course via a course evaluation issued by the University. The University will compile the course evaluations and provide information regarding the results and any measures taken as a result of the course evaluation. Results will be made available to the students. (Higher Education Ordinance 1:14).