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January 2006 > School News
Research Series Debuts
UC Merced Dean Kenji Hakuta charts a course for the new seminar series.
The Graduate School of Education has initiated a seminar series, “Excellence in Educational Research.” The series, which is expected to engage both faculty and graduate students, responds to the increasing external demands for high-quality “scientific” educational research as well as the persistent obligation of the field to improve the means, goals and production of the highest quality, most relevant educational research, according to Andrea diSessa, the series chairman.
The series consists of two strands: The first explores the tension between “doing science” and making policy decisions based on science. “It will explore questions like ‘Where is the line between informing policy and advocating policy?’ ” says diSessa. “[or] ‘Is it legitimate to measure research primarily based on its policy implications, for example, in deciding federal funding?’ ”
He says the second strand, “Research Methods and Scientific Accountability” represents the constant striving of the scientific community to discover and propagate the most reliable and objective ways of answering its questions.
Kenji Hakuta, founding Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at UC Merced opened the series on December 8 with a presentation entitled, “Research on Bilingualism and Education: Reflections on the Interaction of Methods and Substance.” His talk explored the difficulty in engaging public trust in educational research, ways to validate qualitative research and case studies, and capacity issues related to the pursuit of effective educational research.
Hakuta drew on his experiences as a researcher in second language acquisition, cognitive development of bilinguals, societal bilingualism and bilingual education; involvement in policies related to the education of language minority students; and role of federal educational research policy, particularly recent debates over so-called “scientifically-based” research. He cited examples such as California’s 1998 Proposition 227, the “English Language in Public Schools Initiative;” and the Clinton administration’s push for increased funding for Head Start and establishment of the Early Head Start program.
A list of spring semester events will be available in January. For more information, contact diSessa. Other members of the organizing committee are professors Judith Little, Geoff Saxe, David Stern and Sarah Freedman.
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