ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of values in researched accounts of educational systems, institutions and curricula. It contrasts methodologies that can be broadly located within positivist/empiricist frameworks with those that incorporate a hermeneutic dimension, and identifies the way values are concealed in the former, but made explicit in the latter. This element of reflexivity, it is argued, is central to the construction of research encounters and determines the way we come to conclusions about educational processes. This builds in a critical dimension to educational research and this chapter will therefore examine those values that underpin texts and curricula.
