ABSTRACT
As we have announced in the introduction, this book is concerned with empirical research within the general field of education. By research, we mean an enquiry which seeks to make known something about a field of practice or activity which is currently unknown to the researcher. In referring to the research as empirical, we mean that the enquiry should, in part, justify any claims that it makes in terms of reference to experience of the field to which these claims relate. We shall refer to this field as the empirical field. By introducing this definition, we are trying to establish an attitude, rather than rule out certain kinds of enquiry. For example, suppose that you are interested in the relation between gender and secondary school academic performance. There is clearly a whole range of approaches which you might adopt in addressing this topic. Firstly, you might go to the library and find a book on the subject. This might qualify as ‘research’, subject to additional expectations that you may have concerning systematicity and extensiveness. However, it would be difficult to maintain that reading the book gave you any direct experience of secondary schooling. Rather, the author must impose principles of selection and organization, that is, principles of recontextualization, upon their own experience of secondary schooling in mediating it to you as reader.
