Structuralism, Poststructuralism And Educational Research: From The Perspective Of Methodology

Structuralism and poststructuralism are occupying a very important position among numerous contemporary trends and schools of social ideological philosophies in the west. Since the middle period of the 20th century, structuralism and poststructuralism by their unique thoughts and methodology have raised a surge of widely and permanently influential movement that has been changing people's mode of thinking in a great many fields. No matter regarded as world views and methodologies in terms of philosophy or research approaches or paradigms in the domain of human social science, structuralism and poststructuralism have already exerted great influence on western educational research as well as initially the domestic one. But it is of obvious deficiency in theoretical analysis on the relationship between structuralism/poststructuralism and educational research concerning suitability, feasibility, particularity, superiority and limitation from the perspective of methodology. Therefore, this dissertation is just to carry on more comprehensive and penetrated thinking and discussion on this topic in order to enrich and promote the knowledge system of educational research methodology.This dissertation is composed of six parts altogether. The part of introduction is mainly about the cause, perspective and methodology of this study. In this part , the dissertation initially defines several relevant key conceptions such as structure, structuralism, poststructuralism and educational research methodology etc. and points out emphatically the main purpose of this research is to probe into the relationships between structuralism, poststructuralism and educational research on the basis of understanding the developmental venation and main thoughts of structuralism and poststructuralism in order to answer this question: what structuralism and poststructuralism can contribute to the methodology of educational research. The methods of history study, cultural sociology, hermeneutics, thinking dialysis and discourse analysis are adopted to answer this question.Chapter one firstly discusses the shift from subject philosophy to structuralism from the perspective of history and then focuses on the main idea of structuralism and its implications to education. In my opinion, structuralism attaches much importance to wholeness, relationship and transformation, objects unequivocally to humanism (subject-centrism), historicism, positivism and empiricism, and attempts to unify human social science with the conception of structure . These ideas of structuralism are of a great deal of challenges and enlightenments to education. Chapter Two is mainly about structuralism's possible contribution to educational research methodology. It begins with a discussion of the characteristics of the structuralist methodology, makes great efforts to pursue the traces of structuralism in the field of education, and then takes the theory of cultural reproduction by P. Bourdieu as the example to get an insight into the educational research from structuralist perspective. Finally, this chapter focuses on the relationship between structuralism and educational research methodology. In my opinion, the ultimate goal of structuralist educational research is to gain a deep understanding of education by exploring the deep structure of education. Structuralist educational research is a kind of non-subjective thinking, and it emphasizes on holistic and relational thinking by the levers of linguistics and semeiology. The main task of structuralist educational research just lies in structural analysis, namely the construction of self-regulatory and transformational models. Finally, the conditions and limitations of structuralism as a methodology applied to educational research are also discussed in this chapter.In Chapter Three, this dissertation initially hackles the transformation process from structuralism to poststructuralism through the perspective of history, and then discusses the main ideas of poststructuralism and its challenges to education. In my opinion, the main characteristics of poststructuralism may include ejecting metaphysics, objecting to grand-narrative and absolute truth, regressing to and deconstructing the subject and indulging in the deconstruction games of text world, and criticizing the modernity. All of these ideas above of poststructuralism have brought brand-new challenges in the conception fields of educational purpose, subjects, curriculum and instruction as well as the relationship between teacher and student.Chapter Four mainly probes in the possibility of poststructuralism's contribution to the methodology of educational research. Initially, it discusses the methodology of poststructuralism, and then analyzes two typical methods of poststructuralism, archaeology and genealogy by Michel Foucault as well as their impact on educational research. This chapter then enumerates and discusses many examples of poststructuralist educational research in succession. Finally this chapter focuses on poststructuralism's contribution to the methodology of educational research as well as its limitation. In my opinion, the main aim of poststructuralist educational research is not for truth-seeking, but for ignorance-reducing. Poststructuralist educational research dedicates to explore many problems including subject, language and knowledge, power and ethics etc.. The educational research turn from structuralism to poststructuralism demonstrates the visual angle transformation from macroscopy to microcosmos and from centre to margin as well as from totality to differences. Poststructuralist educational research reintroduces history analysis, emphasizes on the deconstruction of educational discourses and texts and calls for archaeological and genealogical study in education. Poststructuralist educational researchers emphasize on rhizomatic thinking and nomadic thought as well as reconsideration on the research practice of themselves, and they participate in the academic circle of educational research as a game player. Finally this chapter carefully and prudently draws a conclusion after comparing structuralist educational research with poststructuralist one.In the epilogue, this dissertation dedicates to seek the Tao of educational research on the extensive background of the cross-civilization dialogue and endeavor to put up a communication and dialogue bridge between western modern structuralism, poststructuralism and the Chinese ancient Taoist wisdom thus to promote the thinking of this dissertation to a new altitude.In brief, it is not only suitable but also feasible to introduce structuralism and poststructuralism into educational research. Moreover, they can possibly contribute to the methodology of educational research and are also helpful to guide our educational research out of the methodological comer. However, we should pay attention to their conditions and limitations when we apply structuralism and poststructuralism as methodologies into educational research. Finally, it should be pointed out that structuralism and poststructuralism should keep themselves open and be combined with other methodologies because they are not the only methodologies of educational research and even not the best ones but just two normal ones among the methodology schools.