Abstract

In this paper, we consider the intensifying pressures on critical research and academic integrity in a research policy context that has come to be increasingly dominated by an instrumentalist mind-set. Using sensitising resources drawn from Geoff Whitty’s critique of the ‘what works’ agenda, we reflect on the current conditions of academic labour and some of the key issues and dilemmas they pose for critical researchers in the sociology of education and beyond. In particular, we underline the trend for ‘what works’ agendas to become constitutive of academic identities and practices, including at micro-levels, such that the option of ‘standing outside’ them is shifting from being merely personally taxing to being institutionally disallowed. In addition to highlighting the dilemmas this creates for critical researchers and the threat this poses to expansive and democratic approaches to education, the paper emphasises the centrality of relationship-forming in understanding and underpinning academic integrity.

摘要

在本文中，我们认为在研究政策环境下，对批判性研究和学术诚信的压力越来越大，而工具主义思维模式已日益主导着这种压力。利用从杰夫·惠蒂（Geoff Whitty）对“什么起作用”议程进行批判中获得的敏感资源，我们反思了当前学术劳动的状况以及它们给教育社会学及以后社会的重要研究人员带来的一些关键问题和困境。特别是，我们强调了“做什么工作”议程已成为学术身份和实践的组成部分的趋势，包括在微观层次上，以至于“站在外部”的选择已从仅个人征税转变为被制度禁止。