Research On Knowledge Production Of Vocational Pedagogy

A great achievement has been made in China's vocational education research since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. Numerous works and papers on vocational education have been generated. Nevertheless the disciplinary independence of vocational pedagogy is still censured; its low status is still an undisputable fact; there are still so many problems in the knowledge production of vocational pedagogy. The French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of Practice is used to analyze the thirty years knowledge production of China's vocational pedagogy, in order to depict its historical development skeleton, reveal the relationship between knowledge production of vocational pedagogy and social development, expose its real level, seek its logic, censor its problems and to suggest future countermeasures.Generally speaking, knowledge of vocational pedagogy can be defined as:firstly, experience and behavioral competence of vocational education acquired by teachers in practice; secondly, accordant and logic understanding on vocational education gained in vocational education practice and its research via scientific thinking and relevant research approaches; thirdly, knowledge on the knowledge of vocational education, i.e. meta-knowledge of vocational education. Narrowly defined knowledge of vocational pedagogy only refers to the second meaning, which is mainly studied here in this research. Knowledge of vocational pedagogy has four features:its practicality in nature, uncertainty of its structure, pluralism of its research paradigms, and its sociality of knowledge production. These features determine that it is more suitable to conduct the research in an angle of knowledge sociology. Knowledge production of vocational pedagogy is defined here as the practice, under the guard of production regulations, of public knowledge generation of vocational pedagogy conducted by the knowledge production community in the way of scientific research, reflection, insight and so on.Configuration development of the field of knowledge production of vocational pedagogy in the past thirty years has experienced three phases:the phase of recovery and reconstruction (1978-early 1990s), the phase of development and exploration (1990-1999), and the phase of awakening and reflection (2000-). In the phase of recovery and reconstruction of the field, rudiment of the knowledge production community was born, production regulations were initially formed, and knowledge production revived and presented a preliminary level. In the phase of development and exploration, the knowledge production community was formed, production regulations were increasingly completed, and knowledge production obtained an important characteristic that practical research was animated, while theoretical research lagged behind. In the phase of awakening and reflection, the regulation of producers'reproduction was finally accomplished, a regulation of reflection for knowledge production of vocational pedagogy was built, more research areas have been reclaimed and research on basic theoretic issues, meta-research included, began to thrive.Works and papers of knowledge production of vocational pedagogy during the last thirty years can be divided into two sections:those of basic theoretical research and those of practical research. The former section consists of research of basic issues of vocational education and research of disciplinary theory of vocational pedagogy; the latter comprises research areas of teachers and students of vocational schools, specialty construction, curriculum and instruction reform, institution of vocational education and so on. Problems, such as generalization and confusion of concepts, co-existence of absence of some necessary research areas and research repetition, ambiguity of the nature of different types of knowledge and plagiaries, reflect incorrect attitudes of some researchers, a too-far-reaching influence of Scientism and discourse conflicts in some research areas of vocational education.Pierre Bourdieu's theory of Practice has provided a useful theoretical tool for the explanation of knowledge production logic of vocational pedagogy. On the basis of modification of his theory in accordance with China's situation and the reality of China's knowledge production field of vocational pedagogy, analyses reveal that in its external environment, China's knowledge production field of vocational pedagogy is ruled both by the Meta-field and by the science field, the field of general pedagogy and the field of foreign vocational pedagogy; that as modern intellectuals, China's knowledge producer of vocational pedagogy have three habituses which determine the internal logic of the field:utilitarian aims of knowledge production, daily-life-stylization of research objects, unilateralization of knowledge production; that the overall structure of the field is relatively stable, yet local tensions have developed increasingly, which are between producers of philosophical theoretical knowledge and practical theoretical knowledge, professional and non-professional knowledge producers, and between producers of comparative knowledge and native knowledge of vocational pedagogy. In order to improve the independence of the filed, the following countermeasures are proposed:to construct its own research objects of China's vocational pedagogy, set up academic regulations for knowledge production and add total cultural capital to the field of knowledge production of vocational pedagogy.