Arm Intervention Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Arm Intervention - Essay Example "Even actions that seem to aim only at the establishment or restoration of order have implications for justice." (Hoffman) The decision to intervene poses a perplexing set of questions. It is observed that the United States has no vivid guideline to decide where and when to intervene. As for example the Clinton administration had to face many problems regarding arm intervention in Somalia, Haiti and in Bosnia. Which was termed p. 21. ) as "Provisional, fragile, and reversible." Mandelbaum, 1996). It is imperative for the Administration and Congress both to adopt certain criteria to follow before approving the military intervention. There are several factors which make the intervention difficult for the administration. Now the world has become volatile and unpredictable which pose a hindrance to draft out a strategy which is clear and attainable. Then there is dilemma for the Americans to decide about the military intervention. Henry Kissinger has described this dilemma. ... Then there is dilemma for the Americans to decide about the military intervention. Henry Kissinger has described this dilemma. "America's dominant task is to strike a balance between the twin temptations inherent in its exceptionalism: the notion that America must remedy every wrong and stabilize every dislocation, and the latent instinct to withdraw into itself. Indiscriminate involvement in all the ethnic turmoil and civil wars of the post-Cold War world would drain a crusading America. Yet an America that confines itself to the refinement of its domestic virtues would, in the end, abdicate America's security and prosperity to decisions made by other societies in faraway places and over which America would progressively lose control. Not every evil can be combated by America, even less by America alone. But some monsters need to be, if not slain, at least resisted. What is most needed are criteria for selectivity." (Kissinger, 1994), There is no doubt that U.S is in desperate need of military intervention policy which is The United States needs a military intervention policy that is unswerving with America's role as the greatest power of today's world. It requires safeguarding the national security interests of U.S by keeping in mind many military options which include preventive attacks, deterrence, diplomacy and sometimes peace operations. "An intervention policy should discriminate between America's interests and how best to defend them so that America's limited military resources will be used where they are most needed and most effective and not wasted on inconsequential operations of little lasting significance" References Coady, C.A.J. (2002) .The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention.

Why Tiger Parenting Leads To Success in Life Research Paper

Why Tiger Parenting Leads To Success in Life - Research Paper Example To begin with, Amy Chua (3) notes that the secret to raising successful, yet stereotypic children, notably in America, where research shows that such children tend to be more successful compared to those raised in a formal manner, typical of most Western families, is to curtail some of their freedom. This, she says, is achievable by e.g. forbidding them from attending sleepovers, not allowing them to watch TV or play video games, setting high-performance grades that are nothing less than an A, not allowing them to go to play dates, not allowing them to choose extracurricular activities to engage in, among others. Furthermore, Amy says that her ability to raise successful musicians involved barring them from being the top students in all subjects except gym and drama, and allowing them to only play the piano and violin, but only at set times. These, she alludes, are the traits of parents whom she loosely refers to as Chinese mums, and which when duly instilled on children, return noth ing less than a successful child in any field of expertise. Furthermore, Amy notes that unlike Western parents who tend to allocate more time to games, the Chinese mum, on the other hand, puts academic first, and believes that the only grade worth attaining by the child is an A grade, and nothing less. This type of parenting may be viewed as being authoritative and is quite prominent among Asian American parents. This leaves us asking why this seemingly authoritative parenting leads to good performance in academic work among Asian American kids and fails terribly when applied to Western kids. The explanation to this is simple, authoritative parents, according to Marsiglia et al. (2007) not only set the limits to be achieved in class work but also helps their children in in learning.

Same sex marriage

Same sex marriage Same sex marriage is also referred to as the gay marriage or homosexual marriage. These kinds of marriages occur between two people who have similar gender characteristics. They are not as popular as the heterosexual form of marriage though their popularity has grown tremendously in the recent past. Again, the widely accepted definition of marriage does not exclude these marriages. According to the definition, marriage is a union of two individuals who are in love with each other. In some countries, they are legal but in other countries they are taken as immoral and should be punished or wiped from the society. For example many African countries are against this form of marriage due to their strict traditions. In countries like Kenya, Muslims who practice this form of marriage are likely to be subjected to mob violence. In the past, gay marriages where not recognized but due to the social changes in the society today some countries (states) have constitutionally recognized them. This essay focuses on the major reasons as to why some countries support this form of marriages while at the same time other countries demonize and reject them. There are both social and legal reasons as to why some countries like Canada, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and some states in U.S among other countries support same sex marriages (Belgie 1). One of these legal reasons is the constitution which advocates every individuals right to marry whether gay or not. Again, denying same sex partners the right to marry may be interpreted to be discrimination against the minority. This is considering that they are not hurting anyone of the larger society. Studies have also continually indicated that people who get married are better off (emotionally, financially, psychologically and mentally). Based on this fact, same sex marriages will ultimately benefit the partners along the specified lines. From another perspective, they play a very vital role in helping individuals drop sexual lifestyle characterized by high risks. They are also allowed because they generally help in stabilizing the society. This is because stable families are believed to be t he cornerstone to a stable society. There are numerous reasons as to why gay marriages are still considered illegal in many countries. Firstly it is believed that the main objective in marriage is procreation and it is true that same sex couples cannot make babies. They are prohibited because many feel that they threaten the marriage institution. This is because some people are likely leave their partners and engage into the gay practices. Another reason is that gay marriages offend everything that religion stands for. This is because most of the biblical studies advocate for heterosexual form of marriages. Many also feel that the legalization of gay marriages would legitimize homosexuality in the society which spell a new locus in regard to family and society. Many people also feel that the legalization of gay marriages would promote homosexuality in the public schools. This is because marriage is one of the basics taught in school and it legalization would not only inform the children about homosexuality but also enc ourage them into practicing it. The legalizing of the homosexual marriages is highly discouraged by some societies because they fear that it will erode its heterosexual cultural beliefs in the society. Many gay individuals have been pushing for the legalization of this behavior however many governments have rejected them. In U.S, states like California, New York, Rhode Island, Washington D.C, Massachusetts and New Mexico have legalized same sex marriages (Vestal 1). Others are expected to follow suit as the trend gains popularity. This has been heightened by the fact that some of renowned public figures have stood out in their support. Many should however note that gay marriages have both merits and demerits. It may be the countries which have legalized find it advantageous to the society. Works cited Vestal, Christine. Gay marriage legal in six states, April 08, 2009. Retrieved on 15th February, 2010, from http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=347390

Antigone: The Theme of Family Loyalty Essay -- Sophocles’ Antigone

The notion of honor and justice is prevalent throughout all types of literature. In Greek culture, honor is essential for creating a solid foundation within a society and family. Honor will follow you until the day you perish, and beyond. The honor for men in Greece is spiritual in that loved ones show respect to the deceased by giving them a proper burial. Nevertheless, when a man acts upon betrayal of the city, that man looses the privilege to die in such honor. This is evident in the life of Antigone when her two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, both die at each other’s hands at war when deciding the ruler of Thebes. Polyneices cannot have a proper burial, because the new king, Antigone’s uncle, Creon created a law that decrees that anyone who tries to give Polyneices a proper burial will have a dire consequence: death. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the quest that Antigone endures to stay true to her pure intentions of honoring Polyneices by giving him a proper b urial is in juxtaposition with the fact that her defiance towards Creon is not only to do with Polyneices, but also to show appeasement to the gods. Antigone’s firm belief that her brother Polyneices should have a proper burial is established by her conviction in that the law of the gods is above all else. This law proclaims that all men be mourned and honored by family and friends through means of a suitable burial. Antigone’s need to put honor upon Polyneices’ soul is so grand that she ignores the advice of everyone around her, including her sister Ismene, who tries to pull her away from performing this criminal act because it will disobey the law set by King Creon, and lead to her demise. However, Antigone does not care about the repercussions because even though â€Å"[s... ... For Antigone, â€Å"if [she] dared to leave the dead man, [her] mother’s son, dead and unburied, that would have been [the] real pain,† not death (510-512). Her desire to free the spirit of her brother so that it can be at peace explains the true reason of her rebellious nature. Although Antigone has a bad reputation with Creon, and possibly Ismene, for being insubordinate, she stays true to her values throughout the entire play by following the law of gods, not so that she could appease them, but because she admired its value of honor and respect to loved ones that have passed away. This devotion and determination to give her brother a proper burial shows the true essence of her being: that loyalty to family is in fact hold above all else. Work Cited Sophocles. "Antigone." The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Knox and Mack. New York: Norton, 1995.

Go Ask Alice Book Review Essay

Introduction Go Ask Alice is a 1971 book about the life of a troubled teenage girl. The book continues its claim to be the actual diary of an anonymous teenage girl who became addicted to drugs. Beatrice Sparks is listed as the author of the book by the U.S. Copyright Office. The novel, whose title was taken from a line in the Grace Slick, penned Jefferson Airplane song â€Å"White Rabbit†, â€Å"go ask Alice/when she’s ten feet tall†, is presented as an anti-drug testimonial. The memoirist’s name is never given in the book. Revelations about the book’s origin have been a cause of doubt as to its authenticity and factual accounts, and the publishers have listed it as a work of fiction since at least the mid-late 1980s. Although it is still published under the byline â€Å"Anonymous†, it is largely or wholly the work of its purported editor, Beatrice Sparks. Some of the days and dates referenced in the book put the timeline from 1968 until 1970. Its major themes would be difficulty of communication and problems of adolescent identity. It is written a series of events in the form of multiple diary entries. Summary of Content September 18th- December 25th Alice explains that she bought herself a diary in high spirits, after being asked out by a guy she liked. She believed she finally had beautiful thoughts to shear with herself through writing. Following the next day, he rejects her. Alice is miserably insecure and wonders why people always seem to hurt her feelings. Days go by and her fifteenth passes, and her boredom with life is interrupted only by weight gain and her accompanying self-hatred. She later learns that her father has accepted a teaching position at a different college and the family has to move at the start of the New Year. Over the time Alice’s mother has taken noticed of her irregular eating habits and forces her to eat. She then starts to reject her mother’s care and wonders if she could make herself throw up after eating. As time passes Alice writes that she is mostly herself with her dairy, and fears the loss of her identity trying to fit in with everyone else. Throughout this time she displays a sharp sense of intelligence and awareness of her emotions and recalls many observations as a well as her feelings. She refers to her diary as a person, confiding in it and asking it to help her monitor her weight-loss plan as if it were a close friend. This indeed is one of the major themes in Go Ask Alice. January 1st- July 14th Alice writes about her excitement for the family’s big move, but confides to her diary her fears of not adjusting to life in a new place. After settling in, Alice changes her mind about the house which she first thought was unappealing, but now she sees it as beautiful. As time goes by the rest of the family has adapted well to their new surroundings, but Alice feels like an outsider. She wonders how, in a family of outgoing people, she always manages to feel distant from others. With the passing of time, Alice hasn’t made any friends and has gained weight again. Throughout this time, her approached grows more and more unattractive and she feels like a social outcast and is frustrated with everyone and everything around her. She also talks about her new friend she meets named Greata; who she feels is just as unattractive and awkward as her. Along with Greta, she talks about Beth a Jewish girl who she meets that lives down the block. She finds that she can talk to Beth about anything; after expressing that she and her mother can no longer talk like they use to. She continues to write as he summer has started and plans to spend the summer with her grandparents. While there she is invited to a party where she is introduced to a game which includes randomly dripping LSD in several soda bottles which she becomes the recipient of. After she became aware of the aftermath she happy for the experience but never wants to do drugs again. Throughout this time, she compares her voyage into the new world of drugs to Alice in Wonderland. Alice goes through a series of social changes in with in the first half of the year, and her instability helps explain her curiosity for drugs. She sought refuge in writing but drugs provide an easier access into her fantastic world, where she feels a relationship with people and the things around her. July 20th- September 10th She goes on a date with Bill and experiments with more drugs. She feels like a complete new person, better about herself and she loves going out. While at her grandparents her grandfather had a mini heart attack. She strays away from her friends in the efforts in assisting her grandmother with her grandfather. Later she subsumes to the pressure of her friends and goes out to a party at Bills house where she takes acid. She also loses her virginity to him while on acid; which she expressed it as being another brilliant, freaky way out, part of her drugged adventures. Now, she looks for someone to talk to about drugs but she doesn’t know who to ask. Trying to sort out her many feelings she starts to take sleeping pills which she loves. Drugs makes Alice feel like the person she never was before. Under the influence of speed, she says, she feels like a member of a â€Å"different, improved, perfected species†. What Alice got from the drugs was a sense of being loved for who she really is, by others around her who is on drugs. September 12th-November 22nd Alice in now back home where she meets a friend name Chris and is given a job working with her are a local grocery store. She continues to pop pills whenever she gets tired or hungry. She is then introduced to marijuana and is now using as well as selling it. She then finds herself in what will turn out to be a heart breaking betrayal; when she finds out the truth about Richie’s secret affair with Ted. As time pass, Chris and Alice decides to flee San Francisco and vows to turn Richie in and stays sober with Chris. She gets to San Francisco where she and Chris both find jobs to support themselves. She also matures within this time frame, learning about her sexuality. However, she has not have sex sober yet. Beneath Alice’s psychedelic adventures is her continuing desire to find someone with home she can have the same open, loving relationship she once had with her family. Her shifting emotions concerning her family were the major cause for her departure, yet she longs for them in San Francisco. November 23rd- End of Diary One Alice has now passed through her by trail by fire, and she feels like an adult from the way others treat her as an individual. She declares â€Å"I am somebody: but her real maturation is not from how others respond to her, but from wise reflections on what it means to survivors the troubled times of adolescence. She is not completely ready to accept her past, she wants to repent for her sins, but she also wishes she could push her nightmares in the back of her mind. Alice finally gains enough absolute experience and converse more honestly with other runaways in this section to understand better what has caused her decline. Alice diagnoses her real problem when, happy about her father’s love for her, she wishes she could only love herself. If she could do this, she would care less about rebelling or satisfying her parents and instead focus on her own, separate desires. Throughout this section she develops a belief of Christian redemption on her own when it occurs to her that suffering may have been worthwhile, as she can now understand and be more understanding of people. Her decisions to h help others has deep religious reasons, and she ends the first diary. Diary 2 April 6th-May 21st Alice matures deeply in this section, expanding her sensitivity. Her increasing desire to become a guidance counsel shows. She has now find an identity that will someday suite her, and while she is still in pain at times, she is already getting better at communicating with others and enjoying a life with soberness. She and her parents both now treat each other with respect and concern. Her grandfather dies and she is having a hard time dealing with the situation at this point. More frightening to Alice is her true helplessness inn her flash back episode and the resulting fear that she may lose her mind. May 22nd Updated July Alice writes in her undated diary from a hospital. She is unsure how she has ended up here and can only think of the worms she thinks are eating her alive. She has apparently been biting her fingers down to the bone; she relates this to the death of her grandfather. Alice reveals that an accidental dose of acid is the cause of her breakdown. Her mother and father believe that someone else â€Å"tripped† Alice without her knowing it. she finds out she is being sent to an insane asylum. Her father tells her that when her case was brought before a juvenile court, Jan and another girl testified that Alice had still been on drugs and was selling them. She registers at the State Mental Hospital. She is frightened by the ugly building and by the inmates, whom she feels are different from her. Despite the mental horrors Alice endures, her mind stays somewhat resilient and her diary becomes her true sanctuary. She is sent away to the asylum to get help. July 27th Epilogue Alice tries to pray but feels the words are false and meaningless. She yearns for death. She starts going to school at the Youth Center, which is a relief compared to her room. Life in the asylum is draining her in all ways, as it has already done for Babbie. She listens to other kids in a group therapy session, which she finds helpful. Alice’s mother and father visit. Another visit from Alice’s parents brings a long letter from Joel. Her father reports that Jan has retracted her statement, and they’re trying to get the other girl to do the same, in which case Alice will be let out soon. Alice returns home and is happy to be with her family. At home, Alice is invited to go swimming by Fawn, a â€Å"straight† kid. Alice is insecure around Fawn and her friends, even though they seem to like her. She gives her father a sweater and a poem by her for his birthday. Joel surprises her by showing up and kisses her on the lips in front of her family. Alice is worried about starting school again but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. She comments that she no longer needs a diary, for she now has people in her life with whom she can communicate. In the epilogue, we are told that Alice died three weeks later of an overdose—whether it was premeditated or accidental remains unclear—and that she was one of thousands of drug deaths that year. Part II Memoir Review Go Ask Alice was originally promoted as nonfiction and was published under the byline â€Å"Anonymous.† However, not long after its publication, Beatrice Sparks, a psychologist, began making media appearances presenting herself as the book’s editor. The memoirist’s name is never revealed in the book. Alice is not the protagonist’s name. A girl named Alice is mentioned briefly in one entry during the diarist’s stay in Coos Bay, Oregon; she is an addict whom the diarist briefly meets on the street. Commentators often refer to the diarist as â€Å"Alice† in error, or for the sake of convenience. In the ABC Movie of the Week film version of Go Ask Alice, broadcast 24 January 1973, the protagonist is named Alice. Go Ask Alice is an honest portrayal of the life of a drug addict. Originally published in 1971, the book provides an empathetic description of one 15-year-old girl’s descent into a life of drugs that still resonates in today’s teen culture. The book’s strength lies in the breadth of the first-person account, from her early days as an innocent youth whose main worries were popularity and image to her life on the street, where the only thing she worried about was where she would get her next fix. It also details her difficult, uphill battle back to sobriety. Another strength of this novel is that it verbalizes feelings that most teens experience. For example, Alice states, â€Å"I don’t need the sleep as much as I need the escape. The one weakness/caution for Go Ask Alice is that the book is graphic in detail. It includes descriptions of her sexual experiences and the sensations of each drug, and her off-balance ramblings while on different drugs. This is not appropriate for young readers. I would direct this book to teens and adults. I think it should be required reading in high schools. Since this is about a teen struggling with addiction and the social pressures of the drug world, it is a real eye-opener to anyone who is already struggling and for those who may be confronted with the option to use. Conclusion This book had many great reviews, and I would agree that this is an outstanding book. In fact, I believe it is one of the best young adult novels I have ever read. There is much speculation over whether the diaries are fictional or true; however, I didn’t feel that affected how I felt after reading it. The accounts in this diary seem so real and well written. Many would argue that a fifteen year old girl couldn’t muster such talented compositions. On the contrary, the late 60’s early 70’s were a very different time. Although parents appeared stricter in this time, it seemed laws and drugs were much freer. It is easy to imagine all of the runaway teens and preteens prostituting themselves, using drugs, and sleeping in parks and on curbs—and most of them didn’t care where they wound up! This isn’t as common today, but it still happens, we just don’t hear as much about it. I think the author of the diary did a great job capturing the positive, beautiful feelings of her experiences with drugs. Similarly, the writer equally described the melancholy and loss of identity associated with drug use. This novel could change lives, if not simply relate to them. Overall, a frightening and well-written account of a young girls’ disheartening story from a regular teenager, to a popular free teenager, to a teenager that must be put back together. Future drug users must ask themself, â€Å"Should I try using?† Well, go ask Alice, and she’ll tell you how to stop from losing your identity as well as sanity. Works Cited â€Å"Go Ask Alice A Real Diary PB N (Paperback) By (author) Anonymous.† The Book Depository. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2013

Knowledge For Social Work Essay

Social work education in Britain has undergone repeated and fundamental restructuring in the past decade. In the early 1990s the professional qualification, the Certificate in Qualifying Social Work (CQSW), was replaced by the Diploma in Social Work (DipSW), a shift which required significant curriculum changes. Now social work education is undergoing another major change, with the DipSW being replaced by an undergraduate degree. However, despite changes to practice and academic training requirements, there are some constants, some requirements which do not alter. One of these is the demand for social work students to demonstrate that they can ‘apply theory to practice’ as part of qualifying requirements. This requirement, presented casually alongside a long list of further requirements, characteristically fails to grasp that understanding the relationship between theory and practice has long been a source of debate within social science. In many respects, the recent debate in Britain (see Trevillion, 2000) continues, and draws upon, consistent themes in social theory over the relative merits or otherwise of positivist paradigms, with their underlying assumptions of a social world that can be revealed through the application of correct techniques. The early debates in social theory were structured by a widespread belief in the power of scientific and secular-philosophical knowledge to provide for the direction and improvement of natural and social life. The ‘age of reason’ provided a context of optimism in the possibilities for a collective life informed by justice and representing the march of progress. Though the optimism generally attributed to the Enlightenment was tempered by ambivalence on the part of some theorists, or rejected by others, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dominated by philosophical and theoretical interventions which, in general, supposed that knowledge could provide a foundation for political and social progress. This supposition could only be held by assuming that the world could be conceived of as an object, containing an underlying unity, progressing in a logical way, and peopled by subjects whose access to rational thought would liberate them collectively from the superstitions of pre-modern life. The underlying mechanisms of historical progress, the necessary regularities in social life, were held to be available to discovery by the sciences and philosophies, so that such knowledge attained a key role in the achievement of social progress (Penna, et al, 1999). Although the ‘age of reason’ was also characterized by profound ambivalence concerning the possibilities for rational progress, the social sciences displayed a deep belief in the possibilities of knowledge to understand the social world and therefore guide the development of rationally organized structures, institutions and interventions. Thus the objective of knowledge-generation has been the establishment of a foundational knowledge, derived from the exclusive truth-producing capacity of science, that can inform social action. Foundational principles have been based upon two important assumptions: that theory involved a distinction between mind and world, between the subject and object of knowledge, and that language functioned as a neutral medium for the mind to mirror or represent the world (Seidman 1994: 3). This historical intellectual legacy, together with a need for professional status dependent on a proper ‘knowledge-base’, drives demands that professional practice demonstrate the application of theory to practice. I want to suggest here that this demand betrays a lack of understanding of what theory is and what it can do and, at best, leaves students confused, whilst at worst it leads to cruel or ineffective practices in agencies. Here I outline the historical context that has led to a particular understanding of theory as a guide to action, point to some perils of its application in practice, and suggest a different method of dealing with theory on social work degree schemes. What is Theory? What we call ‘theory’ can be understood as a form of social action that gives direction and meaning to what we do. To be human is to search for meaning, and all of us hold theories about how and why particular things happen or do not happen. Some of these theories are little more than vague hypotheses about what will happen if we act in a certain way in a certain situation and what we might expect from others. But many of the theories we hold are more complex and express our understandings of, for example, how organizations work, of how people become offenders, or why the distribution of resources is as it is. In this sense theories are generalizations about what exists in the world and how the components of that world fit together into patterns. In this sense also theories are ‘abstractions’ in as much as they generalize across actual situations our expectations and suppositions about the reasons why certain patterns exist (O’Brien and Penna, 1998). In the same way that we use theory in our everyday lives, we also draw upon various theories as part of the ways we act in the world, so understandings of the ‘social’ dimension of social work are also built upon different theoretical foundations. As O’Brien and Penna (1998) point out, theories about the validity of data and research procedures, theories about what motivates individual behaviour, theories about what will happen if we intervene in particular situations in x way rather than y way, become embedded in social, economic and criminal justice policies developed, implemented and managed by different social groups. Theories about the proper relationship between the individual and the state, men and women, homosexual and heterosexual, inform policy and practice frameworks so that the frameworks that legally bound social work, as well as practice priorities and interventions, differ substantially from country to country. Theory about social life is either used or promoted in particular policy and welfare frameworks in order to make them more ‘effective’ or ‘appropriate’, and is invariably embedded in the social programs that ensue from them. In this way theories make up the premises and assumptions that guide the formulation of particular policies and practices in the first place, as well as their later implementation. Such premises are essentially theoretical: they are ‘imaginary’ in the sense that the conditions they describe, the logics of action and the structures of provision on which they focus are not proven, definite realities. This use of theory in the ways described above developed from the intellectual sea-change of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment, social organization was understood through theological worldviews, and government of the population justified largely according to divine right and religious edict: the Sovereign ruled over a subject population because he or she was divinely ordained to so. However, from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards a shift in intellectual thinking occurred which was to have major implications for the development of European societies. This historical period – The Enlightenment – marks a time when people start to be understood as self-creating, rather than as products of divine creation. A philosophical shift, questioning theological understandings of the human world and establishing the legitimacy of scientific explanations of the natural world, results eventually in a humanist understanding of social or ganization. The Enlightenment sees the establishment of new philosophical systems for understanding both the natural and human worlds and the development of rational responses to social problems. The Enlightenment promises progress and represents a faith in science as a progressive force which can understand, and hence solve, problems in the natural and social worlds. In this intellectual movement, new ways of thinking overlay those they were in the process of replacing, so that the cosmic transcendence of religious thought was replaced by the universalism of philosophy, and the methods and principles of the natural sciences. It was assumed that a theory could be developed that would substitute for the truth of religion. Eighteenth and nineteenth century social thought was focused, in the social sciences, on the search for one theory that could explain the social world and hence provide a guide to action – a theory that could be used in practice – famously captured by the term praxis. However, as the twentieth century developed, this conception of theory came under increasing attack, and this attack is one which has many implications for the use of theory in social work education and practice. Part 2 Some Problems With Theory Several events in Europe contributed to a questioning of the application of theory to practice. The establishment of a communist society based upon the premises of Marxist theory was one such event. As the mass exterminations, abuses of power and repressions of the communist state came to widespread notice, so did the rationales underlying them. The communist leadership, following particular strands of Marxist theory, imposed upon populations conditions which, in theory, were necessary for the development of a communist society. Those individuals who did not fit the predictions of theory, or questioned the premises upon which action was based, were considered ‘deviant’ and sent for ‘retraining’ in labour camps when they were not killed. The endless compulsory ‘self-criticism’ that members of various Marxist groups carried out was aimed at making individual behaviour conform to the tenets of theory. Yet when many thousands of individuals failed to conform, it was their behaviour that came under scrutiny, rather than the premises and assumptions of the theory, resulting in tragedy for thousands. The second tragedy was the application of theory to practice by Germany’s Nazi leadership. These two examples provide perhaps the most extreme illustrations of the application of theory to practice, but the history of social welfare is littered with more mundane examples that nevertheless cause great misery to those subject to theory application. We have seen the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century whose influence contributed to the institutionalisation (and worse) of people with learning difficulties, the widespread use in the mid-twentieth century of lobotomies in treating people with mental health problems and, to take two examples from this author’s practice career, the use of psychodynamic and behaviour modification theory in practice. I observed the use of psychodynamic theory in practice in the social work department of an acute unit in a psychiatric hospital. A senior social worker specialized in dealing with depressed female lone-parents. Reading through dozens of case-notes (meant to aid my practice) I was struck by the way that these women’s depression was attributed to various failures in their early psycho-sexual development, whilst their practical circumstances – victims of domestic violence, poor housing, lack of money – were completely ignored. Needless to say, these women failed to improve, but the point to note here is that this failure was not attributed to the faulty premises of the theory and the way in which it was being applied, but to the women’s innate psychopathology. My second example is taken from two years in a residential home for children with learning disabilities. Here a behaviour modification regime was implemented by management with no critical appreciation of debates in psychology about what it means to be human, what motivates behaviour and how behaviour should be understood. Those children who did not respond to ‘positive reinforcement’ (the majority) were labelled and punished, whilst the underlying problems of the theory itself left unexamined. In short, in both these cases, where service-users failed to fulfil predicted outcomes derived from particular theoretical paradigms, the response displayed a notably similar characteristic as in the examples from totalitarian societies – the users were pathologised, rather than theoretical premises examined.An objection could be made here that these examples merely demonstrate a-typical historical circumstances or incompetent practitioners. However, whether at the level of whole societies, whole social groups, or numerous disparate individuals, a backlash against the conjoining of knowledge and power has been manifest in many locations, including: the overthrow of communism in the Soviet Union, the critical interrogation of ‘totalising’ discourses, the decline in membership of organised, hierarchical political movements, the widespread development of ‘rights-based ’ and user movements, and a suspicion of ‘expert’ practice and bureaucraci es. In social theory, the last three decades or so has seen a particularly sustained interrogation of the status of Enlightenment theory. Under the impact of post-structuralism, particularly that associated with Foucault and Derrida , an unpackaging of the assumptions and premises of theory construction has severely undermined the ‘theory as truth and guide to practice’ position. This is not to say such challenges to Enlightenment theory did not exist before, for a long tradition of hermeneutic and phenomenological thought had posed alternative understandings of human and social action. Post-structuralism, however, has mounted a comprehensive and thorough critique of the epistemological basis of structuralism and realism. In the current examination of Enlightenment thought, Derrida ‘deconstructed’ major traditions in western social thought, showing how accounts of human knowledge depended on the use of key textual devices for obscuring problematic philosophical categories, or for revealing and endorsing particular interpretations and meanings of social and political progress. The construction of any text lends itself to several meanings and interpretations, such that it is impossible to arrive at any one fixed, ‘true’ account. Foucault, on the other hand, examined the epistemology underpinning the Enlightenment belief in the replacement of an institutionalised theological belief system with one which emphasised Reason and the limitless capacity of human knowledge. Enlightenment philosophy suggests that what occurs in the world is subject to entirely knowable and explainable laws that can be discovered and used in the progress of human society and human mastery over the natural and social world. Foucault’s contribution to the unpicking of this position was to show, through examinations of historical understandings of punishment and sexuality, that there are other ways of understanding this history which suggest a very different interpretation of the Enlightenment and its effects on social life, and demonstrate that many truths and experiences of social life co-exist that make it impossible to provide an overarching account that explains everything. At the same time, science constantly shifts its parameters, so that what may be ‘true’ at one historical moment is rendered false later. This brief outline cannot do justice to the sophistication and breadth of the critique of Enlightenment theory, critiques which have resulted in major debates over how we can know our world and what valid knowledge claims can be made (c.f., Lemert, 1999). Even where the foundations of poststructuralist epistemology are rejected there is a much greater appreciation of the problems associated with universalism and linear structures, two of the major props of Enlightenment theory. The permeation of these critiques is perhaps most evident in mainstream emphases on ‘difference’ and social constructivism, ‘difference’ and postmodernism, (c.f.,Briskman, 2001), and a general rejection in many disciplines of overarching, grand theory (Leonard, 1997). Here attention shifts to the assumptions embedded in theory and the way in which these assumptions become embedded in projects of nation-building, in legal and organisational structures, and in policy initiatives. Goldberg’s (1993, 2002) work on ‘race’ and racialization traces this process of embedding through an examination of the ways in which Enlightenment thought depended upon a racialized subject of social action and object of social theory. The pervasiveness of this discourse entrenches and normalizes symbolic representations and values both culturally and materially within the institutions of modern life (c.f., Goldberg, 1993: 8). The social sciences are ‘deeply implicated’ in the building of a racist culture and in the ‘hegemony of symbolic violence’ underpinning social systems (Goldberg, 1993: 12, 9). Roediger (1994) examines a similar process in American history and nation-building, pointing to a normalization of ‘Whiteness’ in the construction of conceptual and political subjects. This legacy enters social work in various ways (see Taylor, 1993), but appreciating the role of theory as cultural artefact, as a cultural product, produced in, and reproducing, social assumptions of normativity and relations of domination and subordination, can be similarly achieved in relation to gendered and sexualized categories, for example. This leads us to a situation in which theory itself can be understood as a key resource in forging a ‘modern’ consciousness, and socio-political spheres shot through with asymmetries of power (Penna and O’Brien, 1996/7), where exploitation and oppression operate through complex and unstable socio-economic mechanisms (O’Brien and Penna, 1996). Not only can the ‘social’ upon which we work not be known in its entirety, not be predicted, not be subject to fool-proof risk assessment, evaluation and so on, but theory production has arguably been a contributory mechanism in the creation of precisely many of those socially problematic circumstances that social work sets out to address. In short, Parton (2000:452) hits the nail on the head in claiming that we need to learn to live with ‘uncertainty, confusion and doubt’. Where then, does that leave theory in social work, if we accept this position? I want to turn briefly, and finally, to some suggestions of the use of theory in social work education. Using Theory At the beginning of this piece I suggested that we all use theory in our everyday lives. Given that this is so, and that theory permeates every aspect of academic work, policy implementation and practice initiatives, even when it is tacit and unacknowledged, I would propose that social work students and, ultimately, service-users, would be better served if students were taught how theory-construction takes place and how to unpackage and critically examine theoretical edifices, accounts and the components through which they are constructed. The task for social work students would be not the mechanistic injunction to ‘apply theory to practice’ but rather to consider how adequate the application of theory to practice might be in X or Y case. To do this, they would have to be taught not so much along ‘who-says-what’ lines, but rather in terms of how theorising as an activity works and how different theories are constructed. Theory building is an exercise in logic, moving from initial assumptions and premises to conclusions, through an argument linked by one or more claims. Taking these components apart can be taught as a skill (see, for example, Phelan and Reynolds, 1996; Thompson, 1996) rather than through the more philosophically based, social theory courses provided in many other disciplines. Tackling theory in a skills-based way has several advantages: it demystifies theory and enables students to see that, with practice, they can take a theory apart and reconstruct it in much the same way as a plumber or mechanic might tackle a job; it leads to a critical scrutiny of practice proposals derived from (often unstated) theoretical premises and to confidence in rejecting the inappropriate; and, when the theory fails to deliver, it leads to critical scrutiny of the theory rather than the person on the receiving end of it. This is not a plea for eclecticism, but for much more modest expectations of the theory-practice relationship than are currently formally embedded in many social work training programmes. I say ‘formally’ because many people have a suspicion of theory but, in my view, for the wrong reasons. Most theories offer insights into the ‘social’ sphere that is the ‘work’ of social workers but, ultimately, a theory is only as good as its critics. This paper considers the demand for social work students in Britain to demonstrate that they can ‘apply theory to practice’ as part of qualifying requirements. It suggests that this demand betrays a lack of understanding of what theory is and what it can do and, at best, leaves students confused, whilst at worst it leads to cruel or ineffective practices in agencies. Understanding the relationship between theory and practice has long been a source of debate and, in many respects, the recent debate continues, and draws upon, consistent themes in social theory over the relative merits or otherwise of positivist paradigms with their underlying assumptions of a social world that can be revealed through the application of correct techniques. The early debates in social theory were structured by a widespread belief in the power of scientific and secular-philosophical knowledge to provide for the direction and improvement of natural and social life. The ‘age of reason’ provided a context of optimism in the possibilities for a collective life informed by justice and representing the march of progress. This paper outlines the historical context that has led to a particular understanding of theory as a guide to action, points to some perils of its application in practice, and suggests a different method of dealing with theory on social work degree schemes. Evidence-based practice in teaching and teacher education What is it? What is the rationale? What is the criticism? Where to go now? Christer Brusling, Oslo University College, Centre for Study of the Professions. Invited paper to a workshop at the conference Professional Development of Teachers in a Lifelong Perspective: Teacher Education, Knowledge Production and Institutional Reform. Centre for Higher Education Greater Copenhagen in collaboration with OECD, Copenhagen, November, 17-18. 2005. What is it? Where does it come from? What is the rationale? This movement, if I may call it that, seems to have originated in the British educational context, and with a lecture given by David Hargreaves to the Teacher Training Agency in 1996. Unfortunately I have been unable to get a copy of it in Norway – there is none in Norwegian libraries1. Lacking this original source I will rely on what comes forward in second-hand sources, in published criticisms in mainly British journals, and in later articles by Hargreaves, where he answers his critics. Philip Davies (1999) from University of Oxford, â€Å"the other place† from Hargreaves’ That doesn’t mean that the movement hasn’t reached Norway. A recent NOK 100 million proposal for educational research in partnership with schools show that at least the former conservative government knew about it, mainly through Demos, a British â€Å"independent think tank† (demos.co.uk) Agora nr. 8 – tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idà ©udveksling i professioner www.cvustork.dk/agora 88 perspective, writes favourably about evidence-based education in an article named â€Å"What is evidence-based education?†. He says that it operates on two levels, the first being â€Å"to utilize existing evidence from worldwide research and literature on education and related subjects†, the second â€Å"to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of a questionable, uncertain, or weak nature† (p.109). The first level is described thus: Educationalists at all levels need to be able to: †¢ pose an answerable question about education; †¢ know where and how to find evidence systematically and comprehensively using the electronic (computer-based) and non-electronic (print) media; †¢ retrieve and read such evidence competently and undertake critical appraisal and analysis of that evidence according to agreed professional and scientific standards; †¢ organise and grade the power of this evidence; and †¢ determine its relevance to their educational needs and environments2. (Davies 1999, p.109). Davies acknowledges the debt of the education sector to medicine and other health professions, which predated education with fi ve to ten years in the implementation of the idea of evidence-based practices. According to Davies, it is derived from the University of Oxford Master’s programme in Evidence Based Health Care. argreaves explicitly argues for evidence-based teaching by pointing to the success of the idea in medicine, and by the similarity of the work of doctors and teachers: Practicing doctors and teachers are applied professionals, practical people making interventions in the lives of their clients in order to promote worthwhile ends – health or learning. Doctors and teachers are similar in that they make 2 Note that evidence-based education in this defi nition curiously enough comes out as a pure intellectual exercise, lacking the fi nal application to practice. Agora nr. 8 – tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idà ©udveksling i professioner www.cvustork.dk/agora 89 decisions involving complex judgements. Many doctors draw upon research about the effects of their practice to inform and improve their decisions; most teachers do not, and this is a difference. (Hargreaves 1997, p. ) One reason to turn to evidence-based education is that doing so would make education less vulnerable to â€Å"political ideology, conventional wisdom, folklore, and wishful thinking†, not to mention â€Å"trendy teaching methods based on activity-based, student-centred, self-directed learning and problem solving† (Davies 1999, p. 109). But what constitutes evidence? For Hargreaves (1997) evidence is evidence about â€Å"what works†. The dictionary says that evidence is â€Å"something that furnishes proof† (m-w.com). To be able to provide proof of the â€Å"working† you need to measure the outcome of the teaching activity in question, and you need a procedure of relating the measured outcomes to the activity to make the relation an evidence3. Hargreaves doesn’t see much of a problem with how outcomes are constructed, but is adamant about what ought to be the preferred procedure, the RCT, the randomized control trial, often called â€Å"the golden standard†4. Davies (1999), on the other hand, is more permissive of a variety of procedures, thus voicing a broader conception of educational outcomes. In addition to RCT, he mentions survey and correlational methods, regression analysis and analysis of variance. He allows for inquiries that seek to describe the meanings different people attach to different teaching activities, and the broader and long-term consequences of them, e.g. on â€Å"students’ and parents’ sense of self and their sense of social worth and identity† (p. 115). Analyses of naturally occurring teaching interactions, conversation and discourse are In keeping with the parallel with medicine, I would say that not only expected and beneficial outcomes should be measured but also non-expected and possibly harmful ones. Hargreaves here echoes the standard text of research methodology from 1963, Campbell & Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research: â€Å"[We are] committed to the experiment: as the only means for settling disputes regarding educational practice, as the only way of verifying educational improvements, and as the only way of establishing a cumulative tradition†. Cited by Howe (2005), p.308. Agora nr. 8 – tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idà ©udveksling i professioner www.cvustork.dk/agora 90 also mentioned as worth-while in this context. He further wants to ask normative questions within the evidence-based teaching paradigm: â€Å"whether or not it is right or warrantable to undertake a particular educational activity or health care intervention† (p.115). Davies’ (1999) omission of the necessary last element in evidence-based practice, i.e. how the purported evidence is to be put to use in practice, avoids a difficult and much discussed problem. Hargreaves (1999b) is of course right in pointing out that this problem is different if practice refers to policy making, as in the phrase evidence-based policy, or to teaching in classrooms, as in the phrase evidence-based teaching. The use of evidence in policy making is about deciding on â€Å"large issues concerned with levels and types of resource allocation – decisions which are difficult to undo† while the use of evidence in teaching â€Å"refer to the relatively small-scale professional practices of teachers in schools and classrooms, which can usually be easily revised† (Hargreaves 1999b, p. 245). In both circumstances enter a lot of considerations apart from â€Å"evidence†. Answering critique from Hammersley (1997) Hargreaves (1999b) admits that context sensitive â€Å"’practical wisdom’ pervades (both) expert medical and educational practice. There is some hard science deep in the knowledge-base of doctors, but the closer a doctor gets to an individual patient, the stronger the elements of judgement or of practical wisdom that also enters into the decision. Teachers acquire ‘practical wisdom’ too; but, in comparison with doctors, they have little accepted scientifi c knowledge to insert into their decision-making.† He claims that the infra structure of knowledge available to teachers is far less developed than that available to doctors, and that teachers seem to be less effi cient than doctors in fi nding the scientifi c knowledge there is. He argues that one reason for this is that the knowledge base in medicine is cumulative while that in education is not, but ought to become. This leads to Davies (1999) second level of concerns about evidence-based teaching: â€Å"to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of a questionable, uncertain, or weak nature†. Hargreaves’ lecture in 1996 to the Teacher Training Agency stated that teachers only to a small extent base their practice on (hard) scientific evidence, but he didn’t blame teachers but researchers for failing to produce such evidence, especially produced by RCT procedures. With the  £12,000,000 funding for developing evidence-based policy and practice by research he hoped researchers would be encouraged to respond appropriately (Hargreaves 1999a). In another journal article the same year, titled â€Å"The Knowledge Creating School†, he urges teachers themselves to produce the knowledge they need. To sum up: Evidence-based teaching is a concept borrowed from the health sciences and recommended for teachers (you might add: by new-public-management-governments and elite researchers). You may get the impression that it’s use implies a critique of teachers for not including research-based evidence in deliberations on how to teach, but mainly it is a critique of educational researchers for not providing the needed cumulative research-base, built on research of the randomized control trial (RCT) kind. The rationale is that once such research has taken off and its results have been efficiently disseminated, evidence-based, or evidence informed, teaching will become more frequent. Critique of the notion of evidence-based practice Hammersley (1999) challenges Hargreaves’ on three accounts: his description of educational research as non-cumulative, his prescription on how research could contribute to practice, and his argument that education should learn from medicine, which he considers a parallel to education. Hammersley shares the view that educational research could become more cumulative, but researching ‘what works’ has not proved successful in this respect, despite sustained attempts: â€Å"much educational research in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century was devoted to investigation of effective teaching; and one of the reasons for the changes in educational research over the past 20 years is precisely the failure of this work to produce conclusive, cumulative fi ndings† (p.144). But he also reminds us that there are different meanings of the concept â€Å"cumulative†. There are obvious â€Å"problems involved in identifying distinct and standardised ‘treatments’ in education†, Hammersley exemplifi es by the â€Å"problems faced by researchers seeking to distinguish teaching styles†. What about the problems in operationalising the concept of learning? What should be done about the disagreements about what students should learn? What about the problems of how to measure â€Å"the most important kinds of learning†? Hammersley asks if it is possible even in principle to do so. A preoccupation with what is easily measured may very well have profound effect on teaching, narrowing objectives accordingly. To establish fixed, universal causal patterns in teaching seems equally difficult, if not impossible. What might be aspired to is â€Å"local, context-sensitive patterns in which interpretation and decision on the part of teachers and students play an important role. Unlike in most areas of medicine, in education the ‘treatments’ consist of symbolic interaction, with all the scope for multiple interpretations and responses which that implies†. Hammersley thinks that â€Å"the production of information of high practical relevance usually depends on a great deal of knowledge that does not have such relevance†¦for science to be able to contribute knowledge that is relevant to practice, a division of labour is required: a great deal of coordinated work is necessary tackling smaller, more manageable problems that do not have immediate pay-off†. Hargreaves is described as having a â€Å"narrowly instrumental view of practical relevance†, promoting an ‘engineering model’ of the relationship between research and practice. An engineering model assumes that most teaching problems are technical, which is not likely. On the contrary they seem in most cases to be ‘practical’, that is involving making judgements in complex situations, exercising discretion, not following rules. The analogy with medicine is criticised for not taking into account that the practice of medicine is more towards the engineering side of a continuum which at the other side has the practical. Even within medicine the notion of evidence-based practice has been criticised for downplaying practical judgement in clinical situations, that â€Å"the focus of clinical practice is subtly shifted away from the care of individuals toward the care of populations, and the complex nature of sound clinical judgement is not fully appreciated† (Tonelli 2000). Hammersley cites a medical researcher who raises the same critique towards medical research as Hargreaves does to educational research: it is methodological weak, use inappropriate designs, unrepresentative and small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretations. The blame is put on practitioners doing research without adequate research training, a fact that doesn’t actually support Hargreaves’ recommendation that more teacher research should lead to a stronger body of knowledge with practical relevance. Hammersley concludes his critique: â€Å"The diagnosis (of the current state of educational research) is mistaken and, taken as a whole: the prescription is likely to be lethal†. In the North American context an equally forceful critique of the arguments for research for evidence-based practice has been voiced by Howe (2005). His critique is organised under the headings â€Å"experimentism5 and scientifi c method†, and â€Å"experimentism and values†. The object of his analysis is a National Research Council report, Scientifi c Research in Education (2002), which he means represent a more moderate form of experimentism than other infl uential publications advocating research for evidence-based practice. In short he states that this report: †¢ unconvincingly characterizes the conduct of research as hierarchical, both temporally and logically (p. 309); †¢ offers little defense of its call for a renewed emphasis on randomised experiments against well-known criticisms regarding the issue of external validity (generalisability from research contexts to other contexts) (p.309); †¢ does not take into account Cronbach’s observation that generalizations decay, The word †experimentism† is used by Howe to refer to scientifi c research advocating the randomised control trial as the â€Å"best† research method. thus making the goal of a cumulative education science fundamentally unattainable; †¢ does not take into account that human intentionality signifi cantly complicates how to understand causal explanation in social research; †¢ places outcomes outside educational research, by focusing on means; †¢ places not-manipulable variables, like socio-economic stratifi cation, outside the limits of educational research by insisting on RCT as the method of choice, thus making educational research â€Å"a political innocent exercise†. Howe (2005) turns to Toulmin (2001) to fi nd an alternative to experimentism – an alternative that is without the short-comings described above: Activities for which social research is often seen as a tool for improvement – medicine and education, for instance – call for intentional behaviour on the part of practitioners in the form of craft-based practical judgement. Stephen Toulmin observes that when performed well, these judgements must respond in a â€Å"timely† manner to the unique and unanticipated actions of other persons, as well as to their different ways of seeing things. According to Toulmin, research informing such practices should exemplify a model that is â€Å"clinical† and â€Å"democratic† rather than â€Å"applied† and â€Å"elite† (Howe 2005, p. 317). Teachers’ relationship to research Do teachers experience a lack of research results when planning to teach? How do teachers relate to educational research? Do teachers fi nd some research genres more relevant and practically useful than others? Does teachers’ practice-based research contribute to a knowledge base of teaching? None of these questions are raised in the early discussions on evidence-based teaching, but specific answers to them seem to enter as premises to prescriptions. I would think that the answer to the first question is no. A common place view of teachers’ planning is that it is based on textbooks and concerned with amounts of â€Å"covering†, using standard methods of classroom instruction: a short introduction by the teacher, independent pupil work with textbook exercises, question-and-answer-patterns, summing up by the teacher in class. Twenty years ago research on teachers’ planning was frequent, today it seems to be an almost closed field of study. Perhaps the expectations of the paradigm of evidence-based teaching on teachers to include research results in their deliberations on how to teach may lead to its re-opening. Do teachers find some research genres more relevant and practically useful than others? Kennedy (1999) observes that: Many genre advocates refer to teachers to justify their arguments, claiming that teachers need more authoritative knowledge (so we should conduct experiments), more dynamic portraits that reveal multiple truths (so we should write narratives), or more richly detailed accounts (so we should do ethnographies). (Kennedy 1999, p.511) Case studies and ethnographies, she continues, have long been justified by: †¦contentions that educational events are governed not by universal laws of cause and effect but, instead, by human interactions and by multiple concurrent and interacting influences; that the meanings of these events can be understood only within their context; that detailed descriptions of the full range of these interactions and dynamics are the only way to accurately represent these events and their meanings; that the kind of complex dynamic knowledge represented in case studies and ethnographies is more like the kind of knowledge ordinary people use to store their experiences; and that such detailed and multifaceted descriptions enable audiences to see similarities and differences between the research setting and their own situations, thus enabling generalizations by analogy rather than by statistical extrapolation. (Kennedy 1999, p.54) She sets out to investigate if teachers find some research genres more persuasive, more relevant, and more influential on own practice, than others, and if so, what features of each genre contribute to these evaluations. 100 teachers were interviewed after having read five articles describing research of different genres. Results show that the three evaluative criteria were highly correlated, but also that reasons for valuing them varied across genres. Experiments appeared to be highly valued, but so were non-experimental comparisons and narratives. Case studies appeared more influential than surveys. Independent of genre research studies proved to be particularly useful if they â€Å"helped teachers understand the relationship between teaching and learning† (Kennedy 1999, p.528). Kennedy concludes that a majority of teachers found most of the articles persuasive and relevant, but for different reasons. The genre contentions with which she started were not empirically verified. The TTA itself designed a questionnaire on teachers’ perspectives on educational research, and distributed it as attachments to journals of two teacher organisations, one for primary teachers, the other for secondary teachers. Everton, Galton & Pell (2000) report on the findings. As an unknown number of subscribers were â€Å"corporate members for local education authorities and industrial companies† they were unable to specify teachers’ response percentages. It was however estimated that the first group only returned 15% of the questionnaires, the second possibly a little more. In the second group most, i.e. 84%, were filled out by school leaders. All in all: the manner this investigation was carried out does not justify its analysis in terms of â€Å"teachers’ perspectives†. Does teachers’ practice-based research contribute to a knowledge base of teaching? As a result of Hargreaves 1996 lecture to the Teacher Training Agency the British government allocated  £54000 to the funding of teacher research projects. In an evaluation of the resulting reports Foster (1999) found that â€Å"a significant minority of the projects appeared to be practical: concerned with the improvement of teaching, learning or educational achievement, rather than the production of knowledge† (p. 383). He found â€Å"that only in a minority of the reports are factual claims well established†¦ as a result, it is difficult to see these as much more than opinion based on pre-existing views of good practice† (p. 393). Foster concludes that critical scrutiny of findings from teacher research before dissemination is crucial, but is afraid that â€Å"the view of knowledge production and dissemination which underpins this TTA scheme sees little role for such scrutiny. The priorities are rapid production and immediate dissemination to practitioners† (p. 395). To sum up: There is research evidence that teachers see the RCT research genre as relevant and useful to practice, but no more so than many other research genres. There is research evidence that teachers’ practice-based research does not contribute substantially to a body of knowledge on teaching, not to mention a cumulative one. Concluding remarks In line with the observation that there is more to teachers’ decision making than following authoritative evidence-based rules for practice, the discourse have changed from talking dichotomously about evidence-based/not evidence-based teaching to talking about evidence-informed teaching (Hargreaves 1999b) or the extent to which teaching is evidence-based (Davies 1999). It is interesting to note that while waiting (?) for research-produced evidence on â€Å"what works†, in teaching and in teacher education, British teacher education has become teacher training, managed by the Training & Development Agency for Schools. Its publication â€Å"Qualifying to teach. Professional standards for qualified teacher status and requirements for initial teacher training† lists skills, competencies and understandings would-be teachers must acquire (TDA 2005). Hagger & McIntyre (2000) complains that â€Å"these lists have been accompanied neither by any rationale for the items listed nor by any explanation of the conception of teaching expertise which underlies the lists† (p. 485). Not surprisingly, I found that in this publication the word ‘training’ appears 51 times, the word ‘education’ 15 times (most of these in naming school subjects or institutions), the words ‘research’, and ‘theory’ did not appear at all. My conclusion is that there are serious problems, philosophical, historical, and political problems, with the notion of evidence-based practice transferred to teaching and teacher education, at least in its original interpretation. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). (1999). Omnibus Survey. 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(1993) ‘Challenges from the Margins’ in Clarke, J. (ed) A Crisis in Care? Challenges to Social Work. Sage, London. Thomson, A. (1996) Critical Reasoning. A practical introduction. Routledge, London. Trevillion, S. (2000) ‘Social Work Research: What Kind of Knowledge/Knowledges? An Introduction to the Papers’, Brt. Jnl of Social Work, 30, 429-432 Sue Penna, Ph.D. can be contacted via e-mail at: S.Penna@lancaster.ac.uk