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Journal Article 1: Grimaldi, E. (2015). What future for educational research in Europe? Political, epistemological and ethical challenges. European Educational Research Journal, 14, 49–55.

Abstract: This article reflects on the future of European educational research (EER) and its politics of knowledge. EER is interpreted as a field of power/knowledge, where a hegemonic epistemic framework is raised that assembles an evidence-based epistemology, a ‘what works’ political rationality and a technocratic model of educational research. This implies the marginalization of the debates around the social, political and epistemological stakes of EER. The article argues for the centrality of these issues into the debate and identifies some challenges for EER. Firstly, a point is made for an aesthetics of educational research work that has criticism as its inspiring principle and combines a problematizing disposition with the practice of research as inquiry. This implies also the extensive engagement of the EER community in a democratic and open normative dialogue with all those with a stake in education. Secondly, the article identifies two related epistemological challenges: (a) the making of epistemological pluralism as a distinctive trait of EER; (b) the exploring of the potentials involved in the practising of specific epistemological ruptures that concern the reframing of time, space and difference as constitutive categories through which we understand educational reality.

Journal Article 2: Van Dellen, T. (2013). Toward a social responsibility theory for educational research (in lifelong learning). European Educational Research Journal, 12, 286–300.

Abstract: This article is about educational research (not) mastering the values for decision making and change. The main issue is the yawning gap between theory and practice in educational research, as seen in a professional field such as lifelong learning. At the start of the article a variety of types of research are presented to show the differences of orientation, process, methodology and goal or focus. Next, the issue of the existing gap between theory and practice is approached by contrasting two extremist types of research: traditional empirical-analytical research and the action research paradigm. Workers within these two opposite paradigms are passionate researchers, lecturers or practitioners, but they have different epistemological assumptions and beliefs and, moreover, feel committed to different professional and scientific or academic responsibilities. Following this reasoning, subsequently the need for a social responsibility theory to bridge the yawning gap between theory and practice is discussed thoroughly. Does such a theory transcend the affective separation that exists between researchers from the two extreme paradigms?

Journal Article 3: Reeser, J. C., Austin, D. M., Jaros, L. M., Mukesh, B. N., & McCarty, C. A. (2008). Investigation perceived institutional review board quality and function using the IRB researcher assessment tool. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 3, 25–34.

Abstract: The institutional review board-researcher assessment tool (IRB-RAT) was designed to assess the relative importance of various factors to the effective functioning of IRBs. We employed the IRB-RAT to gain insight into the ways in which our IRB is perceived to be deficient by those who routinely interact with our Office of Research Integrity and Protections. Respondents ranked qualities thought to be characteristic of an “ideal” IRB and then compared our IRB to that internal standard. We observed that the rate of study participation varied by role. The composite relative ranking of the 45 items that comprise the IRB-RAT differed significantly from the rank order reported by Keith-Spiegel et al. Our data furthermore suggest that role influences scoring of the IRB-RAT (e.g., investigators awarded our IRB significantly higher scores in several areas than did research coordinators). Additional research is warranted to determine if the observed role-dependent differences in the perceived quality of our IRB simply reflect the local research culture or if they are indicative of a more fundamental and generalizable difference in outlook between investigators and research coordinators.