However, the nature of this theory varies enormously from country to country. In
some post-Soviet countries like Kazakhstan, theory is mainly represented under the
label ofPedagogika, though a substantial course in Educational Psychology sits
alongside this. The contents of one authoritative textbook by Minbayeva on
Pedagogikaused in Kazkahstan, for example, gives an indication of the scope of
this course, which focuses on particular educational thinkers, rather than an intro-
duction to the disciplines as such. The whole text is formed around a requirement
on students to learn and regurgitate what dozens of scholarlyfigures—from the
West, from Kazakhstan and from the former Soviet Union-have said. There is no
indication in the text of critical engagement with these sources or their applicability
to the teaching practicum that awaits students.
‘Pedagogy’remains a feature of teacher education in some western countries too
the tradition of teaching about such thinkers, even from the western canon of
Rousseau, Montessori, Froebel, Charlotte Mason and A.S. Neale (but with the
possible exception of the enduring John Dewey) has been largely abandoned in
favour of a more social scientific approach to teacher education. In the UK, in the
1960s and 1970s (and with the introduction of a four year Bachelor of Education
degree) the‘great educators’tradition was largely replaced by a‘discipline’based
approach to educational theory set out in Tibble’s 1966 collection of essays onThe
study of education, which heralded the constitution of educational theory in terms
of philosophy, history, psychology and sociology of education. Thus was the study
of education defined for several generations of students in the UK and a wider
sphere of influence, and, of course, these disciplines continue to feature in pro-
grammes of many international education research conferences, in learned societies
and in journals (many of which were founded during this period). This‘disci-
plinarity’provided an academic edge to teacher preparation and it had the conse-
quence of defining educational theory as essentially applied social science—but
including philosophy and history—with its source in the academy. It also helped to
equip student teachers with critical and analytic tools rather than just descriptive
knowledge;
The international tendency towards the‘universitification’of teacher education
tended to disseminate this approach to education theory very widely, even if dif-
ferent elements tended to surface more powerfully is some places than other—
critical theory, for example, in Australia, psychologically based theories of‘in-
struction’in the USA.
In the meantime, however, there was developing a movement based in cur-
riculum reform that turned this conception of educational theory on its head. For
Lawrence Stenhouse, one of the leadingfigures in this movement, curriculum was a
hypothesis that required testing in the classroom (Stenhouse 1975 ). This principle
led directly to the development of classroom action research (notably by John
Elliott) which took root in many parts of the world including the USA (where it had
its origins in community action programmes), Spain and Australia, where, in par-
ticular through Deakin University, it took distinctive radical form and became
referred to as‘down under action research’. With this turn and also Schőn’s
development of the idea of‘reflective practice’, the source and authority for
36 On the Role of Philosophical Work in Research in Teacher... 545