The "epistemological gap" in Educational Sciences: its origin and consequences.

• Main Author: Analía Inés Portela de Nieto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asociación Latinoamericana de Filosofía de la Educación 2014-12-01
• Series: IXTLI
• Online Access: http://ixtli.org/revista/index.php/ixtli/article/view/16

This paper has the aim of showing how epistemological issues in Education today are poorly treated in academic centers and scientific literature, so that there has been in this field an “epistemological gap” (Moya Otero, 2003) between the theories, methodologies and foundations. Also will discuss the background of this problem, the “Paradigm wars” (Gage, 1989) and its consequences, pluralism and epistemological pragmatism. The confrontation between the paradigms of Educational Research, quantitative and qualitative, is still unsolved (Gage, 1989: 135) and survive in the “paradigmatic proliferation” (Donmoyer, 2006; Lather, 2006). The relevance of these issues consists in that paradigms are deeply embedded in the socialization of adherents and practitioners: Paradigms tell them what is important, legitimate, and reasonable. Paradigms are also normative, telling the practitioner what to do without the necessity of long existential or epistemological considerations (Cf. Patton, 1990: 37). Address these issues to conclude, finally, the idea of resuming epistemological discussions to achieve envision ways to overcome the problem of incommensurability between different approaches and Perspectives in Education. These discussions reflect the concerns in Philosophy Science about the same notion in Educational Sciences. We estimate that they must be assumed, since otherwise their knowledge will always be of importation, and not a product of the second-order reflection made by educators based on observational data (Cf. García Carrasco and García del Dujo, 1995: 38).