Gosh, I love papers with the word 'manifesto' in the title. And while the topic of this tract diverges a bit from the usual e-learning fare, it is a nice counterpoint to Jay Cross's comments on edubabble and also some of the discussions I have had here about research methodology in public policy. The author's premise, simply put, is that social research occurs in a global context. What that means pragmatically, in my mind, is that the data never speaks for itself (however much theorists would like us to believe otherwise), that the nature of the enquiry is such that a particular cultural, social and political context is presupposed in any empirical research, and that researchers need to be aware of this from the outset. This does not speak against the validity of empirical data, but it defines some limits as to the sorts of questions raw data can answer.
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