On abduction – in educological research and educational practice

Abstract

This chapter treats the relationship between abduction as a methodological device in social research and educology as an academic discipline. It might be appropriate to say some words about the term educology and its relationship with abduction. This ambition calls for some definitions although I usually am not convenient with definitions. My own interest within what I prefer to name educology concerns primarily childhood culture and the possibility to interpret its importance with the help of theories of socialisation and knowledge formation, which in my case have an origin in psychology of perception and philosophy.  Abduction is a necessary approach in educology and this combination points to important new ambitions in research as well as practice. This theme brings to the fore problems of research related to other disciplines, primarily psychology but also social anthropology and sociology. When theory is discussed for educology, it is important to consider that concepts like ideology and practice in the empirical world which offers data are very near in this scope of concepts. Central concepts and how they may be used in various contexts, e g developmental tasks, meaning and affordances, intermediate domains and times, generative themes and how to make people aware of e g their rights and possibilities, to take some examples. The problem of creation of data in abductive research is important to consider, e g how you proceed from data to theory, or diverse, in the variation and multitude of impressions, perhaps via so called convergent operations. The article treats specifically an evaluation project that became a research task. In the text I use a project called Folk Project where we developed means to detect and interpret children´s ways of understanding what is of priority in their own world and their contacts with other children as well as adults.

The Folk Project as an empirical basis in practice oriented research shows variation of data and of perspectives. It also varies according to quality and quantity as dimensions in educological research. In this context I have taken up some important thinkers and authors who are not always acting within the discipline of Educology, or even the educational sciences, but being rather important as challengers in a broader sense. As theoretical tools I use the theories of James Gibson (1989) and Eleanor Gibson (2003) who both take up the affordance phenomenon as a means to interpret what is inviting for perceptual tasks. As a more explicit educational device I take up Paulo Freires thoughts (1971 and 1993) about the generative aspects of various situations and tasks. This combination of perceptual and educational aspects runs in well suited tasks for children learning to read as well as for adults learning to understand written texts.  

I finish my article with a view towards future development, pointing out possibilities to broaden as well as focusing new important challenges, without losing scientific ambitions.