Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Introduction 39
in The Handbook of Qualitative Research to denote a multimethodological form of research that
uses a variety of research methods and theoretical constructs to examine a phenomenon.
Complexity theory—Posits that the interaction of many parts gives rise to characteristics not to
be found in any of the individual parts. In this context complexity theory studies the rules shaping
the emergence of these new characteristics and the self-organization of the system that develops in
this autopoietic (self-creating) situation. As the complex system is analyzed, complexity theorists
come to understand that it cannot be reduced to only one level of description.
Critical—Having to do with critical theory which is concerned with questions of power and its
just distribution. (See Kincheloe [2004] for an expansion of these ideas).
Epistemology—The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge and its production. Epistemological
questions include: What is truth? Is that a fact or an opinion? On what basis do you claim
that assertion to be true? How do you know?
Ethnography—A form of social and cultural research that attempts to gain knowledge about
a particular culture, to identify patterns of social interaction, and to develop interpretations of
societies and social institutions. Ethnography seeks to make explicit the assumptions one takes for
granted as a culture member. Ethnographic researchers make use of observation and interviews
of culture members in their natural setting, their lived contexts.
Evolving criticality—The notion of criticality—the concern with transforming oppressive relations
of power in a variety of domains that lead to human oppression finds its origins in critical
theory and evolves as it embraces new critical discourses in new eras. In this context much of
my work has been involved with tracing an evolving criticality that studies the ways that new
times evoke new manifestations of power, new consequences, and new ways of understanding
and resisting them. Concurrently this evolving criticality devises new social arrangements, new
institutions, new modes of cognition, and new forms of selfhood.
Formal level of cognition—Constitutes Jean Piaget’s highest order of human cognition where
individuals exhibit the ability to formulate abstract conclusions, understand cause–effect relationships,
and employ the traditional scientific method to explain reality.
Hegemony—Italian social theorist Antonio Gramsci theorized in the 1930s that dominant power
in “democratic societies” is no longer exercised simply by physical force but through social psychological
attempts to win men and women’s consent to domination through cultural institutions
such as the schools, the media, the family, and the church. In hegemony the power bloc wins
popular to consent by way of a pedagogical process, a form of learning that engages people’s
conceptions of the world in such a way that transforms (not displaces) them with perspectives
more compatible with those of dominant power wielders.
Phenomenology—The study of phenomena in the world as they are constructed by our consciousness.
As it analyzes such phenomena it asks what makes something what it is. In this way
phenomenologists “get at” the meaning of lived experience, the meaning of experience as we live
it. In this effort phenomenology attempts to study what it means to be human.
Positionalities—Who people are, where they stand or are placed in the web of reality. The term
connotes the historical construction of human identity.
Postcolonialism—In the most technical sense the term refers to the period after colonial rule, but
there are many dimensions of postcolonialism that transcend this meaning. In a critical context
one of those dimensions involves examining and working through the effects of colonialism in